Patch Tries: Hula Hooping

An activity most people did in elementary school gym class is becoming a fitness trend.

Hula hooping, which can burn 400 to 600 calories per hour, strengthens core muscles as well as muscles in your back, hips, buttocks, chest, shoulders and elsewhere.

In this latest installment of “Patch Tries,” Patch Regional Editor Beth Lawton and contributor Erica Laxson joined Janet Cliatt's The Hula Hoop Project meet-up group at the U.S. Coast Guard installation south of Kingstowne.

Calming, Core and Cardio

“You develop a firm stomach [and] stronger hamstrings in order to keep your back straight,” said Cliatt, a certified Hoopnotica instructor who teaches and hosts hoop meet-up groups in and around Alexandria.

Even when you drop the hoop and have to bend down to pick it up, you’re working out, she said.

Hooping is more than just exercise—it’s developing “a relationship with the hoop” that requires focus and can have a calming effect. “You enlarge your borders and clear your mind,” Cliatt said, “because you aren’t thinking anything but how to do this.”

Cliatt is a senior medical technologist with the U.S. Public Health Service in the Office of the Surgeon General and says hula hooping complements her interest in public health.

Starting at 49

Cliatt didn’t pick up a hula hoop until she was 49 years old, just one year ago. She said she never tried it as a child.

Cliatt attended a Blue Man Group performance in North Carolina and was distracted by a woman on the side of the stage performing isolation hooping just with her arms and upper body. Cliatt said she was drawn to that woman and thought, “I want to do that. I want to be that woman.” She connected with that woman, Ann Humphries, backstage. It turned out Humphries was not even part of the performance—The Blue Man Group just let her hoop there.

Cliatt was inspired and quickly hooked on the activity. After months of practice and classes, Cliatt became a certified instructor and is working hard to spread her enthusiasm of hula hooping in Northern Virginia.

The Hula Hoop Project

Cliatt’s meet-up group, called The Hula Hoop Project, meets in the following locations weekly:

• Saturday, 10 a.m. at Lee District Recreation Center
• Monday, 7 p.m., USCG on Telegraph Road (must RSVP for clearance to enter the facility).

For more information, visit www.meetup.com/The-Hula-Hoop-Project.

Janet Cliatt shared this video of a woman hooping much more gracefully than we did earlier this week.