Jumping into a Healthier Future: Trampolining for Increasing Physical Activity in Children

Abstract

Objectives: Physical activity in children and adolescents has positive effects on cardiopulmonary function in this age group as well as later in life. As poor cardiopulmonary function is associated with higher mortality and morbidity, increasing physical activity especially in children needs to become a priority. Trampoline jumping is widely appreciated in children. The objective was to investigate its use as a possible training modality.

Methods: Fifteen healthy children (10 boys and 5 girls) with a mean age of 8.8 years undertook one outdoor incremental running test using a mobile cardiopulmonary exercise testing unit. After a rest period of at least 2 weeks, a trampoline test using the mobile unit was realized by all participants consisting of a 5-min interval of moderate-intensity jumping and two high-intensity intervals with vigorous jumping for 2 min, interspersed with 1-min rests.

Results: During the interval of moderate intensity, the children achieved [Formula: see text]-values slightly higher than the first ventilatory threshold (VT1) and during the high-intensity interval comparable to the second ventilatory threshold (VT2) of the outdoor incremental running test. They were able to maintain these values for the duration of the respective intervals. The maximum values recorded during the trampoline test were significantly higher than during the outdoor incremental running test.

Conclusion: Trampoline jumping is an adequate tool for implementing high-intensity interval training as well as moderate-intensity continuous training in children. As it is a readily available training device and is greatly enjoyed in this age group, it could be implemented in exercise interventions.

Keywords: Cardiopulmonary function; Children; Exercise testing; Pediatric cardiology; Pediatrics; Physical activity; Rehabilitation; Training; Training modalities.

Fig. 1

An example of $\dot{\mathit{V}}{\mathit{O}}_{\mathbf{2}}$ over the course of the trampoline test along with the $\dot{\mathit{V}}{\mathit{O}}_{\mathbf{2}}$-peak value recorded for the outdoor incremental running test of one child (VO₂, oxygen uptake)

Fig. 2

Median values of the oxygen uptake ($\dot{\mathit{V}}{\mathit{O}}_{\mathbf{2}}$) at the first (VT1) and second (VT2) ventilatory threshold, and the median values recorded for the interval of moderate intensity, the first and second high-intensity intervals as well as the maximum oxygen uptake during the trampoline test, alongside with the values for minimum, maximum, and the 25th and 75th quartile of all participants (degree symbol denotes far outliers (1 interquartile range of 1.5) and asterisk denotes extreme outliers (2 interquartile ranges of 1.5))