Trampolines Are Not For The Faint of Heart...or The Fat of Body!

All of my life, I wanted a trampoline. Well, not ALL of my life, certainly, but since I was old enough to have my first experience on one. I begged for one, and begged for one, and begged for one, and I never got one, perhaps because my wise mother did not want to assume liability for the necks of the entire neighborhood! She did sign me up for trampoline lessons at the local Rec Center, where I learned to do cool things like forward flips, doing 180’s on my butt, and so on. But we never had one of our own.

For my birthday a few years ago, my parents and younger brother went in together and bought me a trampoline. It’s a nice one, too, big and round and very bouncy. Because I was living in an apartment at the time, they set it up in my brother’s very large backyard, with the understanding that once I had a yard to put it in, we would move it. On the day of my birthday, I was invited to my brother’s house for a surprise, and there it was! I was so excited! My dream of owning a trampoline had at long last come to fruition! I climbed right up on it and began to jump, jump, jump!

The thing is…um…I was just a little out of shape, a long way from the 10-year-old flipping on the Rec Center tramp, and literally within 5 minutes I was lying on my back in the center of the trampoline struggling to breathe (I’m asthmatic, but trust me, this had to do with fat/muscle, not alveoli.) Wow, not sure if you have experienced this, but jumping on a trampoline is hard when you weigh over 250 pounds and haven’t exercised in years!

“You can come over anytime and jump,” my brother said encouragingly.
“You need to,” my mother added, eyeing my heaving chest and crimson face meaningfully.
“I will, I will,” I panted confidently.

Well, as you might guess, I didn’t. Not much anyway. The prospect of going to another place to exercise (whether it is a gym, a park, or my brother’s house ½ mile away) was difficult for someone who had gotten waaaaaay too comfortable sitting on my bootie. When I was at my brother's house visiting I would make the effort, after all I did not want him to think I did not appreciate the trampoline (which I did, really, it was just. so. hard!). When my husband and I purchased our home in March 2006 we did move the trampoline, and I did make a good faith effort to jump on it regularly (and I really did enjoy jumping on it, too, but...well...it was so hard!).

The bigger problem was that my backyard, which I would classify as medium-small, has 4 very large trees in it, one of which is a Sweet Gum Tree, and another (not sure what kind it is) which drops incredibly sticky sap and seed pods that look a lot like snow peas. As a result, the trampoline, no matter where we tried to place it in the yard (there were really only 3 spots where we could place it, anyway, as we also have a built in BBQ and a huge storage shed), was perpetually covered with sap, spiky little balls, and seed pods. The leaves/needles/seeds which fell from these trees became stuck to the sap and adhered magnificently. (Seriously, the Krazy Glue folks should look into sap.) Consequently, if I wanted to jump on the trampoline I first had to get the push broom and the hose and scrub the trampoline down. This usually took a good 15 – 20 minutes, depending on how long it had been since the last scrubbing, and whether or not the sap encrustations had been baked in by the sun.

Once the trampoline was clean, it was also wet, so I could either jump on it wet (workable, requiring a clothing change afterward, but actually cool to watch because the water is all trapped in the tiny mesh so when you jump it sprays up in glorious patterns as it soaks the lower half of your body), or wait until it dried (an hour or so – if it was warm outside - by which time I had often lost the urge/motivation to jump.)

Ultimately the trampoline went back to my brother’s yard, which is 3-4 times as big and graced by very few trees. My niece enjoys it. And I do too, when I occasionally jump on it, especially now that I am getting thinner and healthier and I exercise on a regular basis. Now I can jump for a good 10 minutes before collapsing for "just a little rest." I can actually breathe now, too, which is always a plus.