Hula Hoop Exercise: A Brief History of Hula Hoops
The invent and use of the hula hoop for play and exercise routines has been around for a long, long time. It has been used by many different cultures and for a variety of different purposes. For example, it has been identified that the people of ancient Greece were one of the first who discovered hula hoop exercise.
The people of Egypt, some 3,000 years ago, constructed hoops from grape vines that were plentiful and propelled them around the ground with the use of sticks. The Native Americans utilized hoops for target practice as a method for demonstrating accuracy for hunting purposes.
The root word of “hula” derived back in the early 18th century from Hawaii because sailors there saw a connection between the tripping hoops and hula dancing.
In recent times, two individuals, Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin, reinvented the hula hoop and founded the Wham-O Toy company back in 1957. They originally got the idea from an Australian who once had taken a trip to California and told both men about how he saw children back home spinning hoops made from bamboo around their waists in gym class.
From that point, Knerr and Melin constructed hula hoops from a durable plastic and targeted the products toward children. When the hula hoop was officially released in 1958, the Wham-O Toy company sold more than 25 Million units in four months and well over 100+ Million units in the course of the first year.
In today’s market, the hula hoop has transformed from a toy for children to quite a fitness tool for active adults. There are a variety of different hula hoop workout programs and exercise routines to help adults get in shape while having a lot of fun. The Nintendo Wii Game Console has taken gaming to an entire new level by introducing the Wii Fit which allows kids and adults to get in shape with a variety of different exercises.
Why is the Wii Fit important in this discussion? Well, it’s because one of the games involves hula hoop exercises as part of an aerobic exercise routine. We’ll cover the Wii Fit more in depth in following articles. The bottom line is that a lot of people these days are trying to get in better shape by losing unwanted weight and the hula hoop exercise has become a very popular form of exercise to help this cause.