Bouncing My Way to a Better Butt

This weekend, while everyone else was watching the Superbowl, I was participating in a less conventional contact sport: Trampoline Dodgeball.

Yeah, that's what I said. I was playing dodgeball with a bunch of kids on a humongous trampoline at SkyHigh Sports in Woodland Hills. For my friend Rachael's 30th birthday, she decided to embrace her inner child and get a group together to go bounce our hearts out for an hour.

At first I thought it seemed a little strange, but after about five minutes getting air I was in heaven. We were double bouncing, bouncing off the walls, and bounce-flipping into ball pits. 

They even had a hardcore, on-going dodgeball game going, where I got my butt handed to me by a couple of 9-year-old girls. Not embarrassing at all.

What I was most surprised by though, besides the fact that I have more fun at birthday parties aimed at children than at cocktail parties for adults, was how much of a workout it was. After about ten minutes, everyone in our group was sweating and out of breath. I finally realized the point of people buying mini trampoline's for weight loss. Bouncing burns mad cals!

I had to know how many, so I looked it up. According to Livestrong.com, jumping consistently on a trampoline for about an hour burns around 410 calories, that's 55 more than jogging for an hour. Considering I wasn't planning on working out yesterday anyway, that was the perfect precursor to shoveling down nachos at a Superbowl party later in the day).

If you have a SkyHigh Sports in your area, I encourage you to check it out. It's a lot of fun, only costs about $10, and will give you a great workout without you even knowing it. Check their website for locations in several states. And if you don't, just keep this post in mind the next time you see a trampoline but are too self-consious to jump on.

Happy Monday!!

For more unconventional ways to squeeze in a workout, check out my post about Getting a Cardio Buddy, and follow me on Twitter @WhitneyLEnglish