The reason some people cannot hoop for long periods of time has nothing to do with skill. It has to do with their body shape, researchers say
It turns out that hula hooping comes naturally to certain people and no matter how hard others may try, they still won’t be able to keep the hoop elevated for long. A new study published by researchers at New York University is explaining why.
Recommended Videos
Video shared by the researchers illustrate how the experiment worked, showing a robot with an hourglass form keeping the hoop in place.
“We were specifically interested in what kinds of body motions and shapes could successfully hold the hoop up and what physical requirements and restrictions are involved,” said associate professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the senior author of the paper Leif Ristroph.
And, according to science, hips don’t lie.
The reason some people cannot hoop for long periods of time has nothing to do with technique or form. It has to do with their body shape.
“In all cases, good twirling motions of the hoop around the body could be set up without any special effort,” Ristroph said. But, when it came to keeping the hoop elevated, a certain body type was required, the study found.
Through their experiments, researchers wrote in the study that they discovered that “keeping a hoop at a level requires a sloped surface with ‘hips’ and a curvy ‘waist.’”
The best body shape for hula hooping is a pear-shaped one, which provides perfect amount of the slope and curvature, whereas a person with an apple-shaped body would have trouble keeping the hoop off of the ground.
Rectangle, triangle and hourglass body types would have less difficulty keeping the hoop in motion compared to lightbulb, inverted triangle and round shapes.
“People come in many different body types — some who have these slope and curvature traits in their hips and waist and some who don’t,” said Ristroph. “Our results might explain why some people are natural hoopers and others seem to have to work extra hard.”
Another goal of the researchers’ findings, they wrote in the study, was to “inspire and inform robotic applications for transforming motions, extracting energy from vibrations, and controlling and manipulating objects without gripping.”