Jump Into Fitness With Kangoo

When I first saw Kangoo Jumps years ago at a fitness convention, I thought, “Those are so dorky! I would never wear those!”

I didn’t think much of them again, until recently, when I saw a hip hop style class taught with Kangoo Jumps. I was in awe. I couldn’t peel myself away from YouTube. I had to watch more!

I began researching Kangoo Jumps and became even more excited about this "rebounding exercise."

What is rebounding?

Rebounding is also known as cellular exercise as if you simultaneously reinforce the 60 trillion cells of your body, throughout your organs and muscles.

To visualize this concept, imagine bouncing as you hold a balloon filled with water. As you bounce, there is an elongation-compression-elongation reaction of the balloon. Each cell in your body is like this balloon filled with a liquid, called cytoplasm. Rebounding puts all your cells gently under stress, reinforcing and revitalizing them.

What are the advantages of this form of exercise?

Cellular exercise reduces body fat and firms your arms, legs, thighs, abdomen, and hips. It also increases agility, strengthens muscles, provides an aerobic effect for your heart, rejuvenates your body and generally puts you in a state of health and fitness.

Using gravity to your advantage, cellular exercise can improve circulation, increase capacity for respiration, and increase cell elasticity.

Cellular exercise can also reduce cellulite. No cream, no lotion, no pill, no wrap, no massage, no diet, can truly work with your body on the cellular level that rebounding exercise can.

While I often stress the importance of eating a balanced diet, the secret of reducing cellulite lies in the lymphatic system.

The lymph is the liquid which circulates in-between your cells, to carry the wastes and toxins out of your body, keeping it healthy.

Most people are unaware that your body contains four times as much lymph fluid as blood. However your lymphatic system, which is also your immune system, does not have a pump, like the heart, to keep the liquid in motion. Amazingly, the lymphatic system depends on muscle contraction and your own natural movements for circulation!

If you don't move enough, excess levels of toxins fill your lymphatic system and "poison" your cells.

Cellulite and “saddle bags” along the thighs are partially the result of impaired lymph flow to certain areas, causing immobilized pockets of fat and trapped toxins.

Cellulite begins when numerous fat cells collect in one area (generally the buttocks, thighs and upper arms in women), causing the skin to bulge. The dimpling effect occurs when the connective fibers in the skin pull down in areas where body fat is pushing up. Toxins and lymph fluid accumulate in the pockets of fat.

Over 90 percent of women have some form of cellulite resulting from weight gain, a genetic predisposition, or inactivity. Cellulite, as many of us know, is almost impossible to eliminate.

Improving the circulation of lymph in areas prone to cellulite and reducing toxic burden are two successful ways to diminish cellulite from the inside out.

Liposuction, creams, and wraps on the other hand, may reduce the appearance of cellulite but do not keep it from coming back. Invasive procedures tend to increase inflammation in the area and strain the connective tissue, which can make the situation worse over time.

Rebound exercise has been found to be an effective way to "re-prime the pump" as the up and down bouncing motion in a low impact environment keeps the lymph flow pumping.

The lymphatic system also monitors your metabolism. As you get older, you may seem to put on more weight, which becomes harder and harder to lose.

Studies have shown that your base metabolic rate, which is the rate that your body burn calories, decreases as your lymphatic system becomes less efficient.

As you regularly do rebounding exercise, your base metabolic rate will become increasingly more efficient, resulting in noticeable improvements in your muscle tone and weight management.

In fact, you are actually re-training each cell to perform as it did when you were younger. Once you have ‘re-set’ your metabolism, you will burn more calories at a higher rate, and you will continue to as long as you keep engaging in rebounding exercise.

Any exercise will increase your energy level on a long run, because you train your body to work more efficiently and develop more mitochondria—the powerhouses of cells.

However, most forms of exercise are strenuous. You may feel exhausted or injure yourself due to high impact.

Kangoo Jumps are said to reduce impact up to 80 percent. The reduction of impact shock to your ankles, shins, knees, hips, lower back, and spine allows you to limit the risk of aggravating or damaging joints, while your general health improves.

When using Kangoo Jumps for the first time you might easily feel out of breath, but with reduced impact you will have also reduced your risk of injury and discomfort.

After only a few days of use you might be amazed by your improved endurance.

Ready to try it?

Classes will be offered at San Ramon Valley Fitness in Danville, beginning the last week of May. Visit the website for more info.

For information on more benefits of rebound exercise, refer to: Jumping For Health, from Dr. Morton Walker (Avery Publishing Grp, N.Y.), The Miracles of Rebound Exercise, from Albert Carter (A.L.M. Publishers).