We investigate the dispersion characteristics of locally resonant elastic metamaterials formed by the erection of pillars on the solid regions in a plate patterned by a periodic array of holes. We show that these solid regions effectively act as springboards leading to an enhanced resonance behavior by the pillars when compared to the nominal case of pillars with no holes. This local resonance amplification phenomenon, which we define as the trampoline effect, is shown to cause subwavelength band gaps to increase in size by up to a factor of 4. This outcome facilitates the utilization of subwavelength metamaterial properties over exceedingly broad frequency ranges.Phononic crystals and locally resonant acoustic/elastic metamaterials have been the focus of extensive research efforts in recent years due to their attractive dynamical characteristics, such as the possibility of exhibiting band gaps. In a phononic crystal, band gaps are generated by Bragg scattering for which an underlying constraint is that the wavelength has to be on the order of the lattice spacing. 1,2 In a locally resonant acoustic/elastic metamaterial, on the other hand, band gaps may be generated by the mechanism of hybridization between local resonances and the dispersion properties of the underlying medium, and this in turn may take place at the subwavelength regime. 3 While in principal periodicity is not a necessity in a metamaterial, the introduction of the locally resonant elements in a symmetric fashion enables intrinsic, unitcell based, description of the wave propagation characteristics, in addition to attaining the benefits of order and compactness. The presence of periodicity, in itself, produces direction-dependent frequency bands and band gaps (caused by Bragg scattering). These unique dispersion properties may sufficiently be utilized in numerous applications involving wave filtering, 4-6 localization, 7,8 guiding, 8,9 focusing, 10-12 collimation, 13,14 among others. The added feature of local resonance, however, gives rise to a qualitatively different type of dynamical behavior, such as negative effective elastic moduli and/or density, 15-18 along with the possibility of generation of subwavelength band gaps. 3 The applications of locally resonant acoustic/elastic metamaterials are, in turn, far from conventional, e.g., subfrequency wave isolation, 19 subwavelength focusing and imaging, 20,21 and cloaking, 22 to name a few. Crossing the boundaries of acoustics and elasticity, our group at CU-Boulder has recently proposed the utilization of locally resonant metamaterials for the control of heat in a semiconducting thin-film. 23 Regardless of the application, one of the generally desirable characteristics is for the metamaterial to exhibit a large band gap. While the problem of unit-cell optimization for maximum band-gap size has been actively pursued a) mih@colorado.edu for phononic crystals, 6,24,25 less work has been done in exploring new approaches for band-gap enlargement in locally resonant acoustic/elastic metamaterials.One...