Getting fit with a space hopper

Exercise and laughter don't naturally go together but throw in a children's toy and it's a different matter. A new exercise trend - space hopper classes - promises fun as well as calorie-burning.

It's the new craze for people who want a bikini body without spending hours at a gym. Replace the treadmill with a giant orange space hopper and the gym with Highbury Fields or Clapham Common and you get Hopper Happiness.

The classes, which run twice a week and cost £7 each, use the space hoppers in strange and imaginative ways, from bouncing around to holding them over your head while doing squats.

Abi Hardy, a personal trainer who came up with the idea, says: "I wanted to offer clients something different and I knew the classes I offered had to be fun and encourage as much laughter as they do hard work and effort."

As the class involves races, competitions and games like "Duck, duck, goose", it's possible to forget that it's a gym class. Abi says it's a fine way not only to burn calories - around 500 per class - but also to tone legs, arms and abs.

"We do short bursts of high-intensity intervals, great for getting rid of unwanted fat. We use the hopper in similar ways to Swiss balls to help in toning up - so we work on defining the abs with crunches and the plank as well as focusing on getting shapely legs with various squats and banishing bingo wings with work on the arms."

Before you get to that stage, the first challenge is staying on. Those that struggle with Swiss balls in the gym might need a few practice runs.

The sessions start with relays and races, then it moves on to working on core muscles. In between the press-ups, squats and arm work are short sessions of bouncing, to make sure that heart rates, and spirits, stay high.

The final 15 minutes of the hour-long class are when everyone gets in touch with their inner child - playing games, accompanied by much falling off the hoppers.

And if you think that it's all child's play, try bouncing out of bed the next morning.

hopperhappiness.co.uk
abi@abihardypt.co.uk