Last Updated on January 16, 2019 by marcyproiv
Having a small, trampoline at home may seem like a toy to some, but it can actually be your ticket to the perfect heart-pounding, fat-melting, and calorie-burning cardio workout. Trampolines have an amazing ability to improve your cardio health, as well as shape up problem areas, like your calves, thighs, and glutes. Their small size and reasonable price make them the perfect addition or the perfect start to your at-home gym. Plus, working out on a trampoline at home is fun and can be a great way to start your new fitness plan! To utilize your home trampoline, we’ll review some great exercises for beginning users, including bonus moves to help sculpt your arms, chest, and abs.
What Makes At-Home Trampolines a Great Exercise Tool
Besides being just plain fun to use, trampolines can also offer you an excellent cardio workout in a short amount of time. If you’ve ever taken a trampoline class or jumped on a big outdoor trampoline, then you already know that even a few minutes of jumping can cause your glutes, thighs, and calves to sizzle. That’s because the trampoline forces your body to fight against gravity.
A trampoline absorbs your movements much more than the solid ground, which is why running in place on a trampoline will burn far more calories than jogging on the ground.
Trampoline exercises also offer additional benefits. They are much more forgiving on sensitive joints and tendons. Plus, you can also improve your balance and increase your spatial awareness. Additionally, they challenge many of your smaller stabilizer muscles helping to improve your overall functionality. Finally, some claim that trampolines can also improve the flow of your lymphatic system, which helps flush toxins and waste from your body.
For all of these reasons and more, it’s a great idea to add trampoline exercises to your home workout routine. Here are five excellent exercises to get you started.
1. Warm-up Bounce
Moving from the stable floor to your home trampoline for your workout session will take some getting used to, especially in the beginning. Take the transition slowly and let your body get used to the change in surface. Start with a slow, even bounce in the center of the trampoline to warm up your body and help reorient yourself to the trampoline.
It’s a good idea to hold onto the (optional) stabilizer bar for the first ten or twenty warm up jumps. If you feel confident enough with your balance, take your hands off the bar and continue slow, small jumps. You should still be able to breathe easily through this warm-up (we’ll get to the hard stuff next) as you begin to feel your calves, quads, hamstrings, and glutes begin to wake up.
Recommended workout: Bounce slowly for two sets of 50 seconds with ten-second breaks between jumps
2. Side-to-Side Jump
Now it’s time to get started with your workout. Keeping your feet together, begin jumping from side to side on your trampoline. These should be short, quick jumps. Try not to land too close to the edge of the trampoline, but also make sure you are moving from one side of the trampoline to the other with each jump. If balance is a challenge, hold onto the (optional) stabilizer bar. When you feel comfortable, let go of the bar. Slightly bend your knees to help stabilize yourself and to control the speed and height of your jumps.
To make this exercise more challenging and to add your upper body into the mix, swing your arms up and down with each jump.
3. High-Knee Run
Put your glutes and quads to the griddle with the high-knee run. For your next exercise, run in place in the center of the trampoline. Make an effort to raise your knees as high as you can with each step. Every step should be quick and include a small bounce. In other words, you don’t want to move so slowly that the trampoline absorbs all your momentum.
Again, start by holding the stability bar to maintain your balance. When you can, take your hands off the bar. For an extra workout, pump your arms in time with your steps. This should burn your lungs and your glutes!
4. Fast Feet
A popular exercise drill among football teams, from Pop Warner to the NFL, the fast feet drill is an absolute glute burner. Set your feet shoulder distance apart on the trampoline and hunch low in a half squat. Lean forward onto the balls of your feet and run in place as quickly as you can. Your steps should be short and quick, as you push your aerobic capacity to the max.
Hold the stability bar to assist with balance and let go as soon when you feel comfortable. Get your arms pumping at your sides to include an upper body workout.
5. Jumping Jacks
Start out standing tall with arms at your sides and then jump your legs out shoulder-distance apart while swinging your arms up and overhead for jumping jacks. Clap your hands over your head when your feet land and then jump back into the starting position. Jumping jacks can quickly become difficult on the ground, but they’re extra spicy on the trampoline.
If balance is a challenge, hold onto the stability bar or if the stability bar isn’t available, only perform the lower body portion of the jumping jack. When you feel comfortable jumping on the trampoline without the need for the stability bar, try out a few jumping jacks. Let the bounce of the trampoline help propel your feet apart and then back. Make sure you don’t let your feet go too wide. You don’t want to hit the springs of the trampoline.
Next, Put It All Together into an Interval Circuit
Now that you’ve learned a great warm-up trampoline exercise and four high-cardio exercises that will sculpt your lower body, it’s time to put it all together into a challenging but highly rewarding interval circuit.
The name of the game is intensity. After finishing your warm-up exercise, perform exercises 2 through 5 as quickly as you can in a safe manner. Push yourself through short, high-intensity sprints and then take a quick active rest break to recover. You should not be able to hold a conversation or breathe easily while performing this routine.
A great structure for your circuit training is four rounds of 20 seconds “on,” ten seconds “off.” When you are “on” hit the exercise as hard as you can for 20 seconds. At the 20-second mark, take ten seconds of active rest by jumping up and down in a slow, controlled manner. As soon as the ten seconds are up, go into your second round.
Take a one-minute active rest break between exercises, and your total routine, including your two-minute warm-up and a two-minute cool-down, should be approximately 15 minutes. This may seem like a short period of time, but you if you really push yourself on each “on” segment, you will get an incredible aerobic workout.
Bonus Trampoline Exercises for Abs and Arms
An in-home trampoline is an excellent tool to help you firm up your lower body and give your lungs a great workout. Many exercisers don’t realize that it can also be used to isolate and challenge the upper body and core.
Here are just two bonus trampoline exercises to try.
Bonus Exercise 1 – Trampoline Push-ups
Your trampoline can help you increase the difficulty of your push-ups, which will improve your shoulders, chest, and tricep muscles. To start, grip the rim of the trampoline and set yourself up into a push-up position, with your toes on the floor, back straight, and elbows and wrists under your shoulders. Lower yourself down in a controlled manner until your chest makes contact with the rim of the trampoline. Then, push yourself back up until your arms lock out.
Performing a push-up from the rim of the trampoline will force your arms to hold more of your body weight and activate stabilizer muscles in your core and shoulders to keep you balanced. To make your push-ups even more challenging, put your hands in the center of the trampoline. The give of the trampoline will force your core, arms, and shoulders to work even harder.
Recommended workout: Three sets of ten push-ups
Bonus Exercise 2 – Heel Drops
All of the exercises above will utilize your abdominal and obliques to help stabilize your body as you jump. The heel drop exercise isolates and directly strengthens these muscles. Start by sitting in the very center of the trampoline. Tighten your abs and lean back to balance on your glutes and lower back. Keep your knees tucked into your chest and arms at your side.
Keeping your abs tight, extend one leg and tap your heel on the floor. Bring that leg back into your chest while extending the opposite leg and tapping your other heel. Continue this motion, always keeping your abs tight and shoulders raised off the trampoline.
To make this movement easier, hold onto each side of the trampoline. To make it harder, extend your opposite arm overhead as you extend your leg and then switch arms as you switch legs. You should quickly feel a nice burn in your abs.
Recommended workout: Perform three sets of twenty heel taps. Each heel tap is considered a rep. Take one minute of rest between sets.
These are only a few exercises you can perform on your in-home trampoline. These workouts should be a good start to dramatically improving your cardio. At MarcyPro, we are proud to sell high-quality in-home trampolines as well as a range of other great exercise equipment for your home gym. Take a look at all our home gym equipment today.