Featured Image Credit: Akio Maeshima / Getty
With our schedules getting busier than ever, it might feel like a struggle to get your workout in.
While it's true we all have the same 24 hours in a day, and how we use them depends on our priorities, it's not as easy as you'd think to squeeze in a visit to the gym before or after work.
You might remember those dreaded home workouts of the pandemic, but for those of us who can't abide hitting the pavement with jogging, NASA might have an ingenious solution to your cardio conundrums.
We know that keeping fit in space is a crucial way to combat the devastating effects of zero gravity, and as we saw when Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were whisked off on stretchers, even a brutal fitness regime aboard the International Space Station can't save you from all the medical drawbacks.
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According to NASA, a quick 10 minutes of 'rebounding' is up to 68% more effective than 30 minutes of jogging, meaning you might want to rethink your morning workout routine both up in space and back down here on Earth.
By replacing running or jogging with rebounding, you can enjoy a high-impact workout that puts less strain on your joints. Although rebounding spreads the force across your body, it's said to challenge you just as much as running does by building up stamina and endurance.
If you're sold, rebounding is typically performed on a mini-trampoline, so it's easy to get one for the home.
Performed with or without weights, the low-impact exercise includes movements ranging from jumping (known as the 'Health Bounce') to jumping jacks, twists to dance movements. If you're old enough, you might remember the '80s craze of trampolining fitness videos.
A 1980 NASA study highlights the benefits of rebounding, putting eight young males between 19 and 26 through their paces on a treadmill and mini-trampoline.
Key findings from the study included the following: "The external work output at equivalent levels of oxygen uptake were significantly greater while trampolining than running.
The greatest difference was about 68%."
The study found that the rate of oxygen consumption when rebounding was "sometimes more than twice as efficient as treadmill running."
Rebounding has had something of a resurgence due to its ability to provide aerobic exercises while taking up to 85% of the shock away that you might experience from running.
Alongside offering an impressive workout, recovery times of rebounding are thought to be much quicker, meaning you're less likely to be struck down by burnout.
If you want to take your rebounding on the road, you can buy kangaroo jumping boots, which have also recently taken off on platforms like TikTok. Next time you can't be bothered heading out into the cold and rain for a run, why not head up into your mom's attic and dust off that mini-trampoline for a quick 10 minutes of rebounding?
