Getting fit with Oxygen Freejumping – Review

I was invited to try out the Oxygen Freejumping trampoline park in Southampton on Friday night. I was able to bring a guest so I decided to bring my sister as I hadn’t caught up with her in a bit and I knew it might be something she’d enjoy.

My sister, Rachel, is a little bit mental and crazy. She’s completely the opposite to me – she has stacks of confidence and can make conversation with anyone. She’s amazing. Entirely different to me, she has two beautiful daughters and hates anything to do with exercise. Despite this, she’s actually really slim despite her addiction to full fat Coke and penchant for unhealthy food (when we were growing up she literally lived on cereal and pizza and never gained weight). Slim but not necessarily healthy.

The Friday night at the trampoline centre had a fitness class so this sounded perfect for me to try out as I have already been to the general trampolining before (read about that HERE). I decided not to tell Rach that we were going to a fitness class and just that we were going trampolining for fear she might back out. I told her it would be best to wear something like leggings and a non-fancy top so she’d fit in to the class

Oxygen Freejumping has 150 connected trampolines on the floors AND walls. It has an area to play trampoline dodge ball, it has long ‘roads’ of trampolines so you can make several jumps in a row, it has a giant airbag that you can leap into safely and, my favourite part, the obstacle course (this includes monkey bars, balancing rods and ropes).

There’s loads of stuff you can do at Oxygen Freejumping. You can host parties, take little kids or actually train properly in trampolining. Or you can just go for an hour with your mates and bounce around. I’ve done this twice and it is really good fun. You don’t have to be a proficient trampoliner I assure you! Just bouncing around randomly is a good laugh. And jumping into the foamy pit is the best.

But we were doing the fitness class. No larking about for us, nope *evil laugh*.

Airborne Fitness is a high intensity but low impact exercise class. We started off with some stretching which I was a little narked about as stretching cold muscles isn’t great. But seen as how this seems to be fairly mainstream I won’t moan about it too much. We then began some normal bouncing, then jumping jacks, high knees and things like that to get our heart rate going for about 5-10 mins. We then did three different exercises, each for a minute, before having a two minute break and then repeating those exercises for a minute but working backwards through them.

The exercises including things like throwing a ball between two people while bouncing, sit-ups, press-ups, jumping jacks, bounding from side to side. It was a good mix of focused body weight exercises and then movements to get the heart going. Apparently jumping on a trampoline burns three times more than running (in an hour you can burn up to 1,000 calories) [Yahoo].

The fitness class lasts an hour but there are regular two minute breaks so it’s not hugely intense. I think it was really good that my sister came because it gave me a good insight in to how someone who doesn’t exercise at all would find the class compared to someone like me who does exercise quite a lot.

Without sounding my own trumpet here…I did find it very easy. Yes it got my heart rate going and doing press-ups and sit-ups is always a good workout but generally I wasn’t out of breath and didn’t need the two minute breaks. To be honest, I enjoyed the breaks as it meant I could natter on with my sister. But then I don’t think I’m the target audience for this class (it also required a bit of coordination which is never my strongest skill).

My sister however found it very tough. She was sweating, gasping and pretty much dying the entire time. I remember her saying at one point, “my shins are sweating. Is that even possible??”. She really enjoyed it though, saying it was nice to know you were only doing one exercise for one minute before you got to change. She had good fun. It doesn’t feel like a regular exercise class, like spin as there’s an element of fun to it and you can have a laugh. The instructor was really encouraging and gave good demonstrations of the exercises and reasons why we were doing them and what muscles needed to be focused on.

So big thumbs up from me for Oxygen Freejumping. Good way to burn some energy and have some fun with friends.

Have you ever done trampolining?

What kind of exercise classes do you prefer?

Do you have any brothers and sisters? How similar are you?

**Full Disclaimer: I was given a free session at Oxygen Freejumping with a guest in return for a review. All opinions are mine and my sister’s honest ones.**

Rants and Raves #26

Every time I write a Rants and Raves post I have to go to my blog and see what number I’m on. Kind of shot myself in the foot with this putting numbers on them… Oh well, nice to see how many I’ve done though.

Rant: Sometimes I’ll have a little look at my blog stats and how people have found their way to my blog. Sometimes it’s from Twitter, Bloglovin‘ or other blogs. But it’s always interesting when people have Googled something and come to my blog that way. Some of the search terms make sense (like a product review) but others are bizarre.

“Jamie Oliver and his sister Anna” came up a lot in different variations. Yes I love Jamie and yes he has a sister called Anna-Marie (I had to Google that, I’m not that obsessed I assure you) but how this is relevant to my blog I don’t know. Probably because I go to his restaurants every other week I suppose.

And some search terms are just plain WEIRD.

What

There’s an Anna naughty pudding? It must be really naughty if it’s especially for me – I’m the cake monster after all and am rarely defeated.

This one really concerned me though:

Weird search term for my blog

No, that is not OK. And the fact it was used FOUR times to get to my blog is really worrying.

Rave: A recently opened trampoline centre in Southampton. This is so much fun. I used to do trampolining back in the day at school and loved it, so when some girls at the running club suggested going last Monday evening I was totally up for it.Oxygen Free Jumping Southampton

The place is basically full of trampolines and there’s also an area where you can do monkey bars, swinging ropes, tight-rope walking and flips into a pit of foamy cubes. We spent an hour bouncing around, larking about and just generally acting like kids. It was brilliant.Oxygen Free Jumping Southampton (6)

We were hot sweaty messes afterwards. I was really proud of myself for doing the monkey (ladder?) bars several times without falling. My upper body strength has improved so much! Some of the girls said they ached a bit the next day but I was fine, which really shows how far I’ve come and my gym sessions aren’t a waste of time. Because hello how important is it to be successful at monkey bars?? 😉Oxygen Free Jumping SouthamptonShame my flips were far less than stellar…I think I managed two (into the foamy cubes) and that was it. Graceful I am not.

Rave: I still love colouring. My mum got me a really cool colouring book (it even says it on the book, haha!). It’s a cake colouring book!!IMG_7497

Clearly my kinda thing!

Rant: Oh hi winter, decided to turn up did you? Though saying that I’m far happier it to be freezing than wet and windy. Let’s not have a combination of all three though please! I’ve been getting so fed up of cleaning Alfie’s paws and giving him baths after walks, it’s ridiculous. I cringe when I hear him shoot off across the local field and all I hear is the squidge of the grass and see the mud flick up. To try and combat this cyclical pattern, I got him a lovely little coat.

IMG_7378A bargain £12 from Pets At Home

It partially covers his undercarriage as well which is very helpful. I think the word used to describe Alfie’s opinion of his new garment is “indifference” so that’s good I suppose…

Rant: And to continue that theme of ranting, this is becoming a regular occurrence…Wet trainersDisgusting soggy trainers after wet runs. I’m not tempted to put them on radiators as Martin Yelling suggested in MarathonTalk because my flat is tiny and the smell of wet trainers would just overcome the place. So sat outside my flat with newspaper in is the next best thing. It works nicely but makes me look a little mad to my neighbours. I have no fear that they’ll be nicked either – who on earth would want them??

Rave: Nike Pro Shorts. I think I have four pairs now. I love them. The colours are so funky!IMG_7049This week it’s been far too cold to wear them though of course which is a shame. But when the weather gets warmer they’ll be back again. The good thing about the gym is you’re shielded from the elements. The only thing is I walk Alfie before and after the gym so it’s very nippy in just shorts!

Rave: I’m still loving MuscleFood.com (<– referral link – you get freebies, I get money off). I can really bulk buy on meat like turkey steaks, chicken sausages, steaks, bacon and burgers. I had one box delivered to my parent’s house as it was easier than my flat and my dad kindly agreed to store some of it in their giant freezer. Unfortunately I forgot to ask him to separate the chicken breasts…IMG_7595Twelve chicken breasts all frozen together! There was no way to separate them individually. So over the weekend I defrosted them then cooked all 12 breasts. I re-froze a fair number of them and then kept the others in the fridge for meals in the week and random chicken snacks at work (is it weird I snack on chicken at work??).

I’m also currently obsessed with cheese. Instead of buying my usual Laughing Cow processed cheese and Babybels I’m now buying the proper stuff as I got a bit addicted over Christmas. I’ve been getting through Stilton, goat’s cheese, Brie, Camebert and Taleggio (Italian Brie basically). I just throw it onto my salads or grate it onto meals. So tasty and so much better for me than the processed junk.

Have you ever been trampolining?

What’s your favourite way to relax?

What’s your favourite cheese?