Rebounding: family fitness fun for everyone

When it comes to family fitness fun, only one piece of exercise equipment delivers a wealth of health in as little as two minutes, and is perfect for any age, from toddler to senior.

Whether you’re a mom who’s looking to lose a few pounds, while at the same time engage in a fun activity with your preschooler, a grandpa who wants to hold on to muscle, or a busy 20-something year old who can’t find time to squeeze in fitness, no other piece of exercise equipment offers the versatility that a rebounder does.

Energy waning after three hours of working at your desk in your home office? Rebound for two minutes. Your body and mind will thank you for it.

Rebounding can become a whole family affair. Turn on the tunes, take turns bouncing with your preschooler, or buddy bounce on the rebounder while holding your toddler, and have fun. It’s that simple. Why torture your knees running on a treadmill or hard concrete, when a rebounder is 68 per cent more efficient for cardiorespiratory fitness than a treadmill? 

A study in the German Journal of Sports Medicine not only found it to be 68 per cent more efficient, they also discovered that after eight weeks of jumping on a mini trampoline, or rebounding, study participants experienced a significant reduction of body fat compared to those participants running on a treadmill. They also found it to be more effective training for abs, legs, buttocks and deep back muscles, without the impacts on joints.

Let’s face it. It’s no secret; everyone needs to exercise for wellbeing. Considering the fact that only two minutes of jumping on a rebounder flushes the entire lymphatic system, tripling white blood cell count to give your immune system a big boost, research from MedFit Network shows, lack of time can be crossed off your list of excuses for not exercising once you invest in a rebounder.

The whole family can enjoy exercise snacks on a rebounder throughout the day, and even one minute of exercise snacking can improve fitness levels for sedentary individuals, according to research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Researchers tout the benefits of high intensity incidental physical activity, exercise snacking, like sprinting up the stairs throughout the day. Rebounding does the trick.

Have anxiety, or a child with anxiety? Jump on a rebounder. Exercise reduces anxiety by changing neural connections in the ventral hippocampus, considered a possible anxiogenic region of the brain, according to a 2013 study in the Journal of Neuroscience.

In 2015, 61.3 per cent of Canadian adults were overweight or obese, according to Statistics Canada. And those numbers just keep climbing. What better time than the present to fast track to fitness?

It’s also the perfect time of year to gift a rebounder for someone you love, even for yourself.

Rebound exercise is simply non-impact vertical motion exercise on a rebounder – a specialized mini trampoline. Not all rebounders are created equal though. Most are designed for recreation rather than regular fitness use. Price points vary depending on quality. Cheap rebounders are made with low-quality springs or bungees that can be jarring on the joints and leave the knees and back feeling worse than before beginning exercise. If regular use for therapeutics or fitness is the aim, invest in a high-quality rebounder that has springs specifically designed to absorb the impact of a bounce, to protect the joints. Some rebounders also offer a stabilizing bar to hold on to.