Options Magazine, For a Healthy Mind, Body and Spirit, August 2002, p.12

The Bounce that Counts - Rebounding

by Ellen Kurtz

The American Council on Exercise calls it "one of the hottest fitness trends for 2002." It's a cardiovascular exercise. It's an aerobic exercise. It's a strength workout. It's therapeutic. It burns calories efficiently. It's good for the legs and easy on the joints. It helps keep blood pressure down. It gets all the organs of the body working and aids digestion. It helps you think more clearly. It's also a bath for your lymphatic system.

It's called rebounding and it may already be at or coming soon to a fitness center near you.

Spa lady in West Paterson was one of the first in New Jersey to get in on the revival of an 80's trend towards using rebounders - sometimes called mini-trampolines - about three years ago. Kristen Silvka, a rebounder - certified personal fitness trainer at the spa, says some 20 of these exercisers are in use by members almost constantly. When provided in classes in combination with other exercises, Silvka praises their ability to provide an "awesome cardio exercise" that rebounding provides at any level of intensity from low to high, as appropriate for the individual user. She says the workout, as can be enjoyed by people at any age, and helps in improving balance while working every muscle of the body.

Laurie Speer, who leads exercise groups at the Fitness Center for Women in Montville, plans to start a new program in the fall. It will combine rebounding with twisting, jumping and arm movements as well as other exercises. Other centers around the state, particularly the smaller ones focused on women, are planning to make rebounding programs available as demand increases.

Back in the spotlight

Originally introduced by exercise specialist Al Carter 23 years ago, a rebounder is a round mat attached by heavy-duty springs to a metal stand.

Somewhat smaller than a child's playpen, its legs can be collapsed and in some versions rebounders can be folded for storage and easy portability. Rebounders can be sued for group workouts at gyms as well as individuals who purchase them to use at home. Optional stabilizing grab bars make the equipment appropriate for use by people of all ages and abilities.

Carter, who is chief executive of the American Institute of Reboundology in Orem, Utah, calls rebounding "the most efficient, most effective" exercise possible. As he explains, "The common denominator of all exercises is opposing gravity." Walking, jogging, running and swimming all do that, but the "full body exercise while jumping up and down" on a rebounder actually burns more calories and eliminates seven-eights of the shock to the skeletal system of many other fitness choices. At the same time, Carter says, working out on a rebounder strengthens ever cell in the body, including both muscle and bone cells.

Beginners can start with a "health bounce," using the flexibility of the rebounder's springs to move up and down without having the feet leave the mat. Even this low-level activity can increase lymphatic flow in the body and reduce the potential damage from a sluggish lymphatic system, called by many the body's "garbage collector."

Carter's best-seller, "The New Miracles of Rebound Exercise," further explains the benefits of rebounding and offers tips on the exercise, presenting information confirmed by NASA and the U.S. Air Force. In "The Cancer Answer," he delves further into the ways the immune system combats diseases of the body.

A bath for the lymph system

Dr. Harvey Diamond, internationally known author, teacher and health consultant perhaps best recognized for his "Fit for Life" series of books, has written that the body's lymph system is its "defense system", a network of "fluid, organs, nodes and nodules, ducts, glands and vessels that continuously and aggressively cleans the system of waste mater."

He endorses rebounding as an extremely easy exercise in which all that's basically required is "a slight up-and-down bounce, which subjects the body to a change in velocity and direction twice with each jump... As little as five or six minutes a day can be of immeasurable value.

Karen Ranzi, a Ramsey resident, has been using a rebounder for about nine years. "The more you do it, the easier it gets," she says. She generally works out on it wearing three pound wrist weights for about 20 minutes to half an hour, doing jumping jacks, alternate arm lifts and other chest exercises while she bounces, four to seven times a week. Ranzi, a busy home school mother and part-time speech therapist, has her own equipment home.

Ranzi has stepped on the rebounder with a headache, and by the end of her session it was gone. She finds the exercise helps her think more clearly as "it gets things moving," and she recommends its use to the members of a group she leads in Manhattan called "Accent on Wellness." The organization in involved with a change of lifestyle towards a more natural style of living.

Her husband Harvey, a sports enthusiast, uses their rebounder, too. He likes the continuous motion of jumping on a flexible surface as opposed to a hard one, and he finds the exercise has helped him gain greater speed on the tennis court. It has aided in his general conditioning and has built up his stamina, too.

Anna-Inez Matus, who lives in Pine Grove Pennsylvania, uses her rebounder every day, preferably out of doors in the sunshine. She says that since starting the activity 11 years ago, "it has changed my attitude to exercising."

An educator who teaches others "how to achieve optimal health naturally, according to the principles of Life Science," Matus listens to music which reflects her mood as she exercises. She finds Beethoven" speedier than Vivaldi," but she'll also put on jazz and blues, even "20 minutes of Twist and Shout."

She adds: "It increases my capacity for breathing, keeps my body well oxygenated, is a complete cardio workout in twenty minutes, flushes out my lymphatic system, and it helps the body to build, healthy bone mass so I won't get osteoporosis."

Matus has seen paralyzed people helped by placing their feet on a rebounder with someone else doing the bouncing, and says that for healthy people even just walking in place on the equipment can be beneficial. She advises people starting out: Don't push it. If you can only do one minute, then do one minute every day. Don's ever, ever, ever exceed what you can do."

Ellen Kurtz is a freelance writer based in Rockaway, NJ.

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