Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses from children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with traditional extra-curricular sports clubs.
SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Lack of physical activity is widely becoming a concern in younger populations. Inactivity has negative associations with quality of life, in addition to children's academic, social, and physical skills. Further, it may predispose them to poorer health later in life. For most children physical education and extracurricular activities delivered through school are the most apparent opportunities for engagement in physical activity. However, opportunities for physical activity exist outside of the school environment per se and a place that has seen an increase in popularity in recent years are trampoline parks. The emotional state (feelings) of a child during physical activity is thought to be related to their enjoyment and potentially adherence. Trampoline parks are typically thought of as being exciting adventure based activity and so it was of interest to examine both the heart rate and energy expenditure, in addition to affect, of children taking part in both extracurricular sports (football and netball) compared to a trampoline park session. A group of 26 children (aged 6-11 years, 16 girls and 10 boys) took part in the study.They wore heart rate belts during the activities and gave a rating of their feelings after them too. Data was collected from 3 sessions of both extracurricular sports in addition to trampoline park sessions. The results showed heart rate and energy expenditure were higher during trampoline park sessions, though both activities were classed as moderate-vigorous physical activity. Further, both activities elicited feelings of 'excitement'. Both extracurricular sports clubs and trampoline parks may be viable options for children to engage in physical activity that is sufficiently 'intense' and related to positive feelings.
SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACTBackground: Lack of physical activity (PA) is becoming an issue in younger populations. Trampoline parks are newly popular environments for PA yet research on their use is scarce. Thus the present study compared heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses in children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with extracurricular sports clubs. Methods: Children (aged 6-11 years; n = 16 females, n = 10 males) participated in 3 trampoline park sessions and 3 extracurricular sports club sessions lasting ~45 minutes over 3 weeks. Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses through the circumplex model, were measured. Results: Both conditions elicited moderate-vigorous PA. Average heart rate (mean difference [95%CIs] = 27.6 fc [23.5 to 31.8]), peak heart rate (mean difference [95%CIs] = 24.2 fc [20.8 to 27.6]) and energy expenditure (mean difference [95%CIs] = 3.2 kcals.min -1 [2.7 to 3.6]) were all significantly higher for the trampoline sessions. Affective responses for both conditions elicited feelings of 'excitement'. Conclusio...