Another go-round

Marisa Grasso is a hooper. The walls of her Northern Liberties home have scuff marks. Her art students have seen her do it between classes. Once in a while, she'll have a bruise on her legs or on her face after her hoop goes astray.

"I used to think it was silly. Now I'm sold," said Grasso, 30. "It is such an incredible workout."

In the 1950s, the U.S. went through a hula-hooping craze that had everyone with hips - from kids in backyards to adults grooving at concerts - spinning plastic tubes around their waists. Now, it's back. And like its predecessors the bike (now used for spinning), the jump rope (now used in a competitive sport), or good old steps (hello, Stairmaster), the hula hoop has moved to the gym. Also notice its reincarnated name - standard for childhood games gone institutional.

There are hooping books and fitness DVDs and "hoop groups" of aficionados that meet through Web sites like hooping.org. Locally, one six-week hooping course in West Philadelphia that costs $10 a class sold out so quickly that organizers added a second series, which also was quickly filled.

Jennifer Alvarez, who teaches six hooping classes a week at various city gyms and dance studios, said she's never seen people smile so much while exercising so hard.

"It's the most fun workout you'll ever try. It's not just cardiovascular. It's also resistance, and you don't have that very often," said Alvarez, a personal trainer who has recommended hooping to clients. "I've never found a workout that brings such a significant change to a body. Because it's so much fun, people keep playing around with a hula hoop and then find they've lost 20 pounds."

Hooping circa 2009 generally employs wider, heavier hoops that are more adult-friendly. During one hourlong class, a student wore a calorie counter that registered 600 calories burned. That number is repeated in other hooping research.

"It uses your hips. It uses your stomach. Hooping builds core strength, and those are magic words right now," said Gregory Florez, a spokesman for the American Council on Exercise. "What makes me smile is you take one of the cheapest and oldest things out there, something that was made for kids to have fun with, and it's a pretty good workout."

Hoops started to reappear about a decade ago. Some say the band the String Cheese Incident, which used to throw out hoops to the audience in the '90s, helped the resurgence. Hooping then met music, a happy combination that extended to outdoor music festivals and fairs. The first formal hooping-as-workout classes are said to have started in California - where temperate climes mean the calendar doesn't dictate when hoopers can move outdoors - and have since spread East to growing crowds.

The fact that people enjoy the workout is a definite advantage.

"For the vast majority of the population, exercise is not fun. It's a necessary evil," Florez said. "The things that are proven to work, the things that people stick with, make exercise into play, and hooping definitely does that."

Jennifer Rice, who now sells personalized hoops as president and "ringleader" of Talespin, her at-home business, said hooping can also be very sexy.

"It gets you back in touch with your body in ways other kinds of dancing I've tried haven't," said Rice of Blue Bell. "I'm much more aware of my body since I've been hooping."

Rice often hoops in her home, "pushing all the furniture in the living room back. I know hoopers who, once they get really into it, just clear out a room like, 'You know what? I don't need this dining room table,' " she said. "But you don't have to go crazy. A lot of it is moving within the hoop, and you can make it very introspective."

The meditative aspect of hooping is one of the things that attracted Jennifer Dobrydnia, 23, of West Philadelphia. She started hooping two years ago and now teaches and performs as a hoop dancer.

"I liked the rhythm. It was a very steady movement," Dobrydnia said. "I'm not much of a gym person. I'm not much of a runner. It was great that I found a form of exercise that was fun to do and left me mentally stimulated."

Indeed, last year, American Fitness magazine wrote that hooping "is great for the soul. . . . Many hoopers feel that Hoopdance allows them to achieve peaceful, meditative states similar to yoga."

Min Jung, 34, had heard hooping was good for the mind as well as the muscles. That's why she recently joined about 20 other women attending a free hooping workshop taught by Dobrydnia at Studio 34 in West Philadelphia.

"I've always liked the idea of meditating, but I've tried yoga and it's too quiet and still for me," said Jung of West Philadelphia.

The workshop attendees ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s. Some wore slinky outfits, others sweats and sneakers. Some had been hooping for years while others suspiciously eyed the hoops Dobrydnia provided.

"People look at it and assume it's something only kids can do or only super-skinny women can do, but it's very inclusive of all body types and both genders," Dobrydnia said. "I've never had a person who couldn't learn to do it within the first 20 minutes."

She showed the class how to place their legs, how to get the hoop started, how to rock rather than swivel. She walked among the students and corrected how they held the hoop, told them to bend their knees and keep their backs straight, demonstrated a few tricks like hooping around her neck or legs.

Jung, an elementary school hooping champion who hadn't practiced in 20 years, struggled to reclaim her childhood glory.

"I foolishly thought I could just pick it right up," Jung said.

But by the end of the one-hour workshop, she and her friend Kirsten Brodbeck were keeping their hoops up and even trying more advanced moves, including one that sent Jung's hoop flying across the room. They were smiling, laughing, bemoaning the fact that the center's six-week hoop workshop had already filled up.

"I'm surprised at how quickly I worked up a sweat," said Brodbeck, 29. "It's fun. It's really ridiculous, and there's something not intimidating about it because of that."