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.**
It does sound like fun, although when I was at middle school I went to the summer fair at the local secondary school and got my head stuck in the bits of elastic between the trampoline and the frame- it was not for long but I remember my body bounding and my head being stuck. I am not the most co-ordinated either. And yes, static stretches at the start when muscles are cold is very wrong! Often race warm ups do this and it just annoys me a lot.
I used to enjoy an aerobics class, but I think it was mainly down to the instructor. We did a warm up, then a bit of a routine (which I was always very bad at), and then we would get into rows- it sounds complicated but the far right row would begin (could be something simple like run forwards for four, four star jumps, the run back)- the person at the front had to count, and then when you had done it 8 times, the next row would start. So then the far right row would be shown something else. It sounds complicated but it was much easier than a routine as you just copied the person in front, and the time seemed to go quickly. And of course I like body pump, but again a lot of that is the instructor- when she has been off and we have had other people it has not been as good.
Maria @ runningcupcake recently posted…A mini Garmin disaster!
That sounds horrific! Not surprised you’re not keen!
I definitely think a good instructor can really make a class. I had the worst spin instructor last week, different to the normal lady. And it just made the session awful.
AnnaTheApple recently posted…Training currently
Haha, her shins were sweating?
We have a couple of these in Manchester now and I got invited to one the other week, but sadly bouncing around is not wise at the moment for me. But, I can’t wait to do a class in a few months – I used to love trampolining as a kid.
Dannii @ Hungry Healthy Happy recently posted…Comment on Super Grain Taco Salad by Louisa Miles
Haha yes I can imagine it’s not ideal for pregnant ladies!
AnnaTheApple recently posted…Training currently
Shin sweat?! Reminds me of the time an obs-gynae friend told me that she had a patient who was convinced she was pregnant because said patient’s thighs were sweating….
Jane recently posted…We are having a barbecue
Haha that’s so random!
AnnaTheApple recently posted…Training currently
Both times I’ve done Race4Life events they’ve done static stretches beforehand, which really annoyed me too.
This sounds like so much fun. Were there many people in the same class?
I visited a friend’s family in America for two months after my GCSEs and they had a massive outdoor trampoline. My friend’s cousins taught me how to do loads of moves and tricks on it, which I found really difficult as I’m also not that co-ordinated! I definitely got the hang of it as the Summer went on though!
I have a younger brother and we’re polar opposites. He still lives at home, goes out drinking every weekend, still requires a ‘wake-up call’ each morning from my parents (at age 29!) and just works minimum hours at his job to make enough for pub money. Dan is completely different to his brother and sister as well. I always find it interesting how siblings with the same upbringing end up being so different.
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There were about seven of us in total I think? So not massive at all, but nice that way because it meant the instructor could focus on us a bit more.
Oh wow he does sound different to you! Isn’t it weird how that happens? When people meet my sister after meeting me they can’t believe we’re related.
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