Summer Fitness Trends That Are Actually Fun – Honest!

Exercise. Ugh, right? Every image of female beauty, every dating guide and every health official will tell you that exercise is like, really important, but does it have to be so darn tedious? Actually, no!

Forget the gym, the marathons, and all those gruelling obstacle courses through swamps that have become trendy lately because this year, exercise is all (as it should be) about the fun.

Here’s just three ways that you can have a giggle and get in shape without losing the will to live:

Trampolining

Jumping up and down. It looks like fun and seems pretty easy to do, but is it a good way to ditch the fat and get fit? Absolutely..

Research shows that just ten minutes of bouncing is equivalent to a 30-minute jog. No more pavement pounding, no more expensive trainers and no more worrying about how your wobbly bits look in public – what’s not to love!

If that’s not motivating enough, trampolining is also kind to your joints and limbs, helps to tone and strengthen your core, improves your balance and coordination, gives your heart and lungs a thorough workout and perhaps best of all, is so enjoyable that it’s easy to start and stick to.

Trampoline parks are popping up all over the UK but if you’ve got a garden, you can set up your very own trampoline at home so that it’s there, ready and waiting for you every time that you fancy a jump. So to speak.

Hula-Hooping

Go retro and get yourself a hula-hoop. Much like trampolining, the humble hula offers both a pleasing flashback to those days of an energetic and toned youth when exercise meant nothing more than playing out, and it’s a cheap, easy and fun-filled way to get fit now.

The American Council on Exercise conducted a study into the calorie-burning potential of a hula session and found that on average, for every minute spent jiggling that plastic hoop around your waist, arms or ankles, you can burn 7 calories.

Now, seven calories might not sound like a lot, but minute for minute, it’s roughly equivalent to the burn you’d get from a bootcamp or kick-boxing class, without the ex-marine instructor who’s never eaten a biscuit in his life yelling at you to stop crying and work harder.

Clubbercise

If you’re motivated by group workouts then forget Zumba, this year it’s all about clubbercise. Simply put, it’s nightclub dancing without the killer heels or calorie-laden booze. (That comes later, after a clubbercise session you will have earned it!)

Pitched as a form of exercise that “feels more like a night out than a workout,” clubbercise classes are becoming standard fare in gyms and leisure centres across the UK and all you need to take part in one is some comfortable clothing and a few glow sticks.

You can, of course, recreate your own nightclub session at home but the advantage of an organised class is that you can’t give up and put the kettle on after 5 minutes, you might learn some new dance moves and you can comfortably boast that you’ve been for an intensive cardio workout.

Whether you prefer to jump, wiggle or dance yourself fit – or perhaps keep things interesting with a mix of all three – all of these fun ways to exercise can be done at home in your pyjamas. Brilliant.

So, compile a playlist that makes you want to shake what your mama (or a love of cake) gave you, pick up your low-cost trampoline or other fitness accessories from B&M and get moving.

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