Stuff You Should Know - SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

We've covered our fair share of pop-culture icons and here is another - Hula-Hoops. They've been around since ancient time in some form or another, but made their name in during the Hoop Boom of the 1950s. Learn all about this popular fad and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, Harry Potter fans. Huge news. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions, are all being released on Audible, on a monthly basis, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

is already out. You have never experienced the wizarding world like this before. They've taken it to another level. The cast is perfect. Hugh Lorry is Dumbledore, Matthew McFaddy and is Baltimore, Riz Ahmed is Snape,

and Cush Jumbo as the narrator. And there are too many others to name. There's even a brand new musical score, and the sound design, you'll feel like you're right there. Footsteps echoing down the halls of Hogwarts, a golden snitch flying past your ear. The Hogwarts Express rumbling out of platform 9 and 3 quarters, and it's all in Dolby Atmos, which makes the wizardry even more magical. Plus, these are the unabridged versions, even more awesomeness. As I mentioned, the first book is out, and the next installments in the series will be released every month

until all seven are out. Go to audible.ca slash HP1 and start listening now. Your time and energy are precious. And the people you date should honor that. That's why everyone loves Bumble, today's sponsor. It's built for intentional dating, helping you connect with people who genuinely respect your boundaries and your heart. And because so many of us want to feel safer when meeting someone new,

Bumbo gives you peace of mind with options like photo and ID verification. So you know the person you're talking to is who they say they are. If you've been thinking about dating again, take this as your sign. Start your love story on Bumble. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang.

You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle the dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, it's Joshie again, and up next on our playlist is our episode on hula hoops. This is a stuff you should know classic. And hula hoops, for those of you who don't know, were this hoop that you kept going around your waist by making a hula motion.

It's one of the more appropriately named toys of all time, and it was a huge craze back in the 20th century. So get your time machine, leather helmet, and goggles on. and let's go back to the Hula Hoop. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How StuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. How's going? It's fine. Great.

How's it going with you? Good. Jerry's distracting me. a little bit because all I see in my peripheral vision is her practicing her new hula fire dance routine. It's pretty dangerous. It's dangerous, but it's, um, it's interesting to see out of the corner of one's eye. It really is. Yes. Performance art. Performance hula art. Uh, can you hula hoop? I cannot, sir. I'm too self-conscious to. To even try it. Yeah. It's, it's a grown man, 44-year-old man hula hooping. Plus, when I do it, like, as I, rotate my hips, it makes the sound of like, rotate my hips.

Yeah. It makes the sound of like almost congealed jello just slopping around in a bowl. You know what I mean? I don't want to make that sound. Yeah, but I did see at the East Atlanta Strut Festivals, one of Atlanta's many great neighborhood festivals. I believe the strut, to me, is known for having the better music of most of the festivals. Okay.

And our buddy Craig Johnson's band played. Space Knife. Not Space Knife Okay This one was Can't remember the name of this band But that band is no longer Now he's got a new band even

That guy is always coming up with new stuff You can never pin him down He's too good You should check out Space Knife though people On the web You can find it, it's good It was in our TV show too Yeah that's his alter ego

But anyway Craig's band was playing And this I was pretty hula naive Hoop naive At this point A few years ago And there was this lady doing a hula routine to his band playing

and I videoed it it was so awesome so she was hoop dancing hoop dancing yeah like the neck the arms the legs moving around with it like supremely talented hoopper

yeah if you go onto the web and type in hoop dancing it's gonna bring up some pretty impressive videos yeah and it's quite a workout I could tell we'll get to that but just watching her I got tired right and so I drank another beer and just listen to music. Yeah.

And pretended you were hula hooping in your head. Yeah. You're like, I'm so good at this in my head. But I was like, man, that's a thing again? I had no idea, but it's a big thing. Yeah. Hula hooping. Yeah.

But it's been around for a while. Yes, it has. For example, Chuck, did you know, as Robert points out, Robert Lamb wrote this article from stuff to blow your mind? Oh, yeah. And he says that the hula hoop has been around in some form or fashion since before most of the world's religions. Wow.

That's really saying something. That is saying something. So let's get in the way back machine. Oh, we're going way back, aren't we? Yeah, let's go back to 1000 BC, my friend. We're in Egypt, and they're little children, Egyptian children, with dried up grape vines they've made into hoops, playing with them.

And there's some Egyptian who's like, get off of my patch of sand, kids? Yeah. You know, instead of a lawn? Sure, I get it. That was good. It was all right. So they no doubt use them in similar ways that we did today,

but one thing they did, which was a big sporting thing to do for a long time, which I don't get personally, the fun value, that is, is using a stick to push a hula hoop down the road. I think the fun in it is that the hula hoop as it's traveling down the road, which does seem to be the oldest use of the hoop as playtime activity, right? Yeah, it wants to fall. It wants to fall over.

Sure. Right? So if you can keep it going, then there's probably a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction that you can carry all the way to bedtime with and maybe have good dreams because of. Yeah, I don't even see

if you had a plastic polyethylene hula hoop, a modern hoop, I don't see how a stick, like, how you would even push it. Uh, you would want a stick with maybe, um... Like a fork? No, probably something like a stick with a big wad of chewed bubble gum on it to like just have some sort of point of contact. Because as we'll see when we talk about hula hoop physics, friction plays a big part

in making hula hoop's hula hoop. Yes. Around the waist, that is. Well, in any, in this case as well, when the stick makes contact with the hoop, you're using friction to push it along. Yeah, good point. So I see your point. Like if you're going to use a stick on a plastic hula hoop,

it's going to slide off or it's going to want to. Maybe it scares me. That's why I think it's dumb. Maybe I would be made a fool of by the hoop. So I'm intimidated. Maybe at first, but Chuck, you would have to hang in there and stick with it. Yeah. And pretty soon you'd be rolling hoops like an Egyptian kid.

Yeah. Like an ancient Egyptian child. Yeah. Hoop rolling was a big deal throughout ancient Greece as well in Rome. they decorated them with bells and things and toys fifth century BC there's you ever heard of Ganymede of Ganymede Ganymede Ganymede he was a handsome hero

Oh he was The handsomest supposedly There's an old fifth century BC urn of him Where he's holding a rooster That was apparently a gift from Zeus And a hoop A hula hoop clearly a hula hoop And apparently this discovery

I'm not sure why it's called the Berlin painter urn but it is okay again no idea but um apparently they they said well I wonder if hoops played a role in the earliest Olympics and I guess they discredited that idea now but for a while because of this urn this picture of Ganymede with a hoop um they wondered was it a sport yeah an Olympic sport but the Greeks supposedly did use hoops for physical fitness as like a physical activity in very much the same way it's become popular today. I would imagine an Olympic hula hooper would be sort of like the, you know, the, what's the sport, the curler of today? You kind of. Like in ancient Greece, like, hey,

what do you, I'm a throw the hammer. What do you do? I'm a hula hooper. Although I would guess would probably be more akin to the hula hoopers of today. Yeah, the hoop roller is what the sport would have been. That'd be more like curling. Right. Hula hooping? That's tough, man. It is tough.

What else? The ancient Britons, they had a game called, a battle game called Kill the Hoop. Yeah, I like this one. When they would roll the hoop and try to throw a spear through it. Yep.

Pretty neat. Yeah. And dangerous. And apparently they also used it in the Hula method and it would, people would get injured. Yeah, there was a 15th, 14th or 15th century?

14th. Was it the 1400s or the 14th century? Hula hoop craze in Britain. Isn't that bizarre? It is weird. And yeah, people were getting injured. There was a proclamation by the early physicians. They would pull up their like crows mask, their plague mask,

just long enough to be like, stay away from Hulu Hoops. Steer clear of those things. Yeah, the warning was Hoops Kill was, I guess, what was posted on the church door. And this is like in addition to being in the way of a spear that was being thrown at a rolling hoop. Yeah. Like this is just from hula hooping.

I would stay away from the hoops altogether if I was an ancient Briton. Yeah. Because really if you're like an ancient Briton, you're going from like zero to 60 as far as like physical fitness goes. Sure. Once you're hula hooping. Oh yeah. You know?

Just because you're not just sitting around eating lamb's brains. Right. Yeah. Drinking mead. What else? The Native Americans have a long culture of using the hoop. Yeah. In New Mexico, the Taos Pueblo people.

They use them in ritual dances, private healing ceremonies. Yeah. And did you look up this chunky thing? No. Did you find the chunky reference? I did. The Cahokian Native Americans. That was an unusual way to pronounce that.

Well, how would you say it? Cahokin. I think in Native American would be Haka-Huquean. Okay. That's fine. Near St. Louis, apparently, is where they played this game Chunky, which I just had to look it up because the game called Chunky. Yeah.

With an EY. And from what I saw, it was more of a small stone disc than like a hula hoop looking thing. And it was like kill the hoop, though, in Britain, right? Yeah, they would throw a stick, apparently. it looked like a combination of like Batchy and kill the hoop. Weird.

Because I think they would try and throw the spear where the disc would eventually land and the closest to the disc one. Oh. So like they're predicting where the hoop would fall? I guess. This makes sense. Although that's not really like Bachi at all.

I mean I get... There's a proximity element that's Batchie-esque. Yes. Yeah, well put. But I don't know, I don't know, like, once I saw that and saw pictures, I was like, I don't even know if this should be in this article. Yeah. Because it's like a small donut.

That's a hoop of sorts. I guess so. It's a stretch, if you ask me. But it was a big spectator sport, like 50-acre stadiums of people would watch this. Wow. Would go to chunky games. Chunky matches. So there was chunky matches in Cahokia.

Yeah. And the Pueblo used their, I think, as you said, they used. hoops and they weren't the only ones there were other tribes from all over North America and Meso America I believe that used hoops for dancing

and apparently it was in 1930 a guy named Tony White Cloud who was a Yemez Pueblo down in New Mexico did like a hoop dance in public and basically brought it back oh yeah like it had been virtually lost to the ages at least as far

as the average America was concerned. Yeah. Most people didn't know this was the thing. Luckily, Tony Whitecloth was like, check this out. Did an awesome hoop dance. And then by 1991, there were national hoop dancing competitions in New Mexico. And they're a big deal still to this day.

Yeah, of course. I think, did he kick off the American craze? Yes. No. He didn't. He was strictly Native American hoop dancing. Gotcha. Not hula hooping.

Okay. Let's go to, well, let's take a break, actually, because this is the big revelation here. That's right. Hey, Harry Potter fans, huge news. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions are all being released on Audible on a monthly basis, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is already out. You have never experienced the wizarding world like this before. They've taken it to another level. The cast is perfect. Hugh Lorry is Dumbledore, Matthew McFaddy and is Baltimore, Riz Ahmed as Snape, and Cush Jumbo

as the narrator. And there are too many others to name. There's even a brand new musical score. And the sound design, you'll feel like you're right there. Footsteps echoing down the halls of Hogwarts, a golden snitch flying past your ear. The Hogwarts Express rumbling out of platform 9 and 3 quarters. And it's all in Dolby Atmos, which makes the wizardry even, more magical. Plus, these are the unabridged versions, even more awesomeness. As I mentioned, the first

book is out, and the next installments in the series will be released every month until all seven are out. Go to audible.ca. slash HP1 and start listening now. It's 5.23 p.m. One of your kids is asking for a snack. Another is building a fort out of your clean laundry, and you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight? Or you could just hello-fresh it. With over 80 recipes to choose from every week, including kid-friendly ones, even for picky eaters, you'll get fresh ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered right to your door. No, last-minute grocery runs. No, what do we even have, fridge staring?

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That's Hellofresh.ca promo code Dinner 50. Hellofresh. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years. total law enforcement experience.

But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind

and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Josh, we're at that point where mainstream America goes hoop crazy. But to get to that point, we actually have to go backward again in time for a second.

Back in the Wayback Machine. So let's go to, I don't know, Fiji or Tahiti or Polynesia. Yeah. And it's the 18th century. Yeah. See all these British sailors? Can we drink some rum? Oh, man.

Okay. Yeah. In addition to the rum we've already drank today. All right, good. So the British sailors that you see here are noticing a hool-a-dance, right? And they're filing it away in their mental catalog. And now when they reach Briton again.

Yeah. Why have we been saying it like that? I don't know. They notice that it bears it. that it bears a striking resemblance to what people do with the hula hoop. You gyrate every time you'd say that, by the way, in your seat. Can't not do it. Okay.

So the term hula became applied to the hoop, especially when you used your hips to gyrate. Sure. To rotate them. Yes. When you rotate your hips with the hoop, these British sailors ended up applying the word hula to it, and it stuck. That's where it came from was Polynesia. Right. Even though there was no hoop involved in Polynesia, correct?

Yes. They just kind of ganked that word. Yes, they did. It is 1997 all over again. That was a big 90s term, wasn't it? Ganked, yeah. Let's go watch some X-Files. Let's, actually.

Yeah, the movie's coming out soon, right? Oh, yeah, they're doing another one, aren't they? Yeah. That thing will never die. I don't think it should. No, keep doing movies. That's what I say. So we mentioned that the Greeks, I believe, used it for physical fitness, right?

I don't think we said that. I think I said it. Okay. The Swiss actually came to adopt it for the same reasons, too, in the 19th century, an early 20th century. Yeah, someone named Emil Jacques D'Alcrosay. Man, that was great. That's tough. had a program called Eurythmics,

which, of course, I started singing sweet dreams this morning. Of course. Because of that, and I've been singing it all day as a result. So that was a special training program, and it was apparently a big deal. It was a big deal. So Eurythics used hoops for basically physical fitness, but also interpretive dance, that kind of stuff.

It was a combination of, it was like dance training, is what I can gather. and it used hoops. The reason that we're mentioning this when we're talking about the American craze is that it directly led to the American craze potentially because Eurythmics spread from Switzerland to Great Britain.

Yeah. And it was brought in as part of like PE class in Australia. And it was in Australia that the founders of WAMO were inspired to create the modern hula hoop that we think of today. Boom. So it's possible.

Well, they watched a eurythmics class or heard about a eurythmic's class with Australian kids and then said, well, this is clearly something of Australian design and let's bring it to the U.S. and start a craze. They said, sweet dreams were made of these.

Yeah. And this was Richard NER and Arthur Spud Melon, Mel, M-L-L-Ean. M-N-L-O-N. Like Thornton-Mellon. Uh-huh, don't tease me with that movie.

the great back to school I saw a bit of that recently and the only thought through my head was like man why couldn't I've caught this from the beginning because I wanted to see it all that and man his son is pasty oh yeah yeah yeah I thought you're saying that was a line for the movie

it should have been yeah his son Keith Gordon who became a great movie director oh really? Yeah the guy from Christine and back to school yeah yeah he gave up acting and started directing movies and directed a bunch of good movies. One called Waking the Dead, you should see.

I thought Keith Gordon co-starred and they live. I don't know, maybe. I'll have to check that. So where were we? Oh, yes. The two founders of WAMO, they said, you know what,

let's take these wooden hoops. Let's make them out of polyethylene. Let's make them 40 inches. And let's charge $1.90. for them and make them all kinds of fun colors. Yeah. And boom, the Hulu Hoop craze in 1958 was born. Like, it was the definition of a flash-in-the-pan craze.

Yeah, a lot of money in a very short span of time. Like a summer, basically. Pretty much. In 1958, WAMO released it, and by the end of 1958, these things were rotting in the warehouse. Yeah. But in the meantime, they sold globally, globally, from the summer to the end. end of 1958, 100 million hula hoops.

Yeah, more than that, I think. Man, my brain. Yeah, you forgot what we were talking about. I almost said frisbees. Did we do one on the frisbee? No. I thought we had, but we haven't, have we? No, we did one on the boomerang.

Oh, right. Just like a frisbee, but not. It's like a dangerous frisbee. So they sell all these hula hoops, they make a ton of money, like, you know, over $50 million in a short span of time, which I'm sure they weren't happy with the, that it didn't last, but they were also probably

like an injection of cash like that is great for any business. Yeah, then they moved on to the Frisbee and made even more money. Yeah, and they did not secure a patent for it. I guess it didn't matter in the long run. Well, they couldn't because it was so demonstrably an ancient invention that nobody could patent it.

Nope. But they trademarked it. They did. They trademarked the name Hula Hoop in the United States, which is why we still call it Hula Hoop today, I guess. Yeah. It just became the name. We should probably put the title with an R in a circle for this.

Oh, yeah, we should do that like Barbie. Yeah. It was named the number 35, a toy of all time by Time magazine. And they know toys. They know their toys. And then from 1968 to 1981, there were national hula hoop contests held. And I guess in the early 80s people were, finished with it.

There were also like a tremendous amount of music, like musical singles released called the Hulu Hoop song. Oh really? Different people recorded different songs about Hulu Hooping. Doesn't surprise me. Yeah, it was a craze big time.

Yeah. And you say that they were done with it by the 80s, not true. Oh, the national competitions? There was, so if you look at Hulu Hooping records. Yeah. The most recent Hulu Hoop records from 2009. Well, but was that part of a national competition? Probably.

Or just a guy named Aaron Hibbs. He, uh, hula hooped, just hula hooped. Mm-hmm. For 74 hours and 54 minutes. Wow. He broke the record of... I couldn't even stand up for that long. He broke the record of a girl named Kim Cobraly.

Um, she held the record twice in 1978 with 54 hours and in 1984 for 72 hours. Wow. Which is pretty impressive. Yeah. Have you ever seen the people that do like hundreds of them at once? Yeah. There's a guy named Paul Dizzy Hips Blair, who set the record in 2009

with 132 hoops at the same time. Wow, that's impressive. He's basically probably just like, like the Michelin man made of hula hoops. Yeah. Did ever tell you about the surface area man costume in Athens? No. I was out on Halloween in Athens in college,

and there was a dude, I know the guy, his name is Blake. He has, you may have seen him. He had big red dreadlocks, kind of a short guide, just a ubiquitous Athens dude. No. He lives kind of in my neighborhood now. I still see him every once in a while.

We call them Sideshow Blake because of Sideshow Bob. Sure. And he came in the bar and the Georgia bar, and he had these foam discs around his arms, around his legs, around his waist and neck that were huge, like probably four feet across. And he was surface area, man. And that was just his costume. Because when he moved around, he took. up like you know probably 75 square feet in space and he would just move through the bar

and say I'm surface area man and I'll always remember every time I see Blake I saw him at the grocery store the other day was he dressed like that no but I was like surf he wouldn't fit down the grocery aisle does he have dread still yeah does he really still rocking the red dreads oh he's dedicated he looks exactly the same actually but we weren't friends I could actually next time I see him actually I'm gonna just walk by him and go surface area man You should. I'm going to do it. All right, let's talk about the Hudsucker proxy

for a quick moment, and then we'll take another break. Okay. Did you ever see that one? I don't think I made it through that one. The Coen Brothers? Yeah. Not all of their movies are great. I disagree.

I love the Coen Brothers, but some of their movies stink. Oh, boy. They're part of my 100% club, where every movie they've made has been great. That is wrong. Which other ones, don't you like? The man who wasn't there? Loved it.

Bob Robertson? They didn't, that wasn't theirs. Well, it was terrible. Okay. Well, the HUD Tucker proxy, too. I liked it. I would put it at Lesser Coens, for sure. You'd have to.

But I enjoyed it quite a bit. Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Lee and Paul Newman in a fictitious tale of the invention of the hula hoop. It is not the true biopic of the invention of the hula hoop. But they co-opted it for one of their movies, and it was, I think, pretty great.

Okay. But that's just me. Okay. All right. So go ahead. Well, no, that was it. Oh, that was all. I just wanted to shout it out.

Fine. Well, then let's take a break, because we're about to get into physics. Yeah, and hoop games. Yep. After this. Hey, Harry Potter fans. Huge news. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions are all being released on Audible on a monthly basis,

and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is already out. You have never experienced the wizarding world like this before. They've taken it to another level. The cast is perfect. Hugh Lorry is Dumbledore, Matthew McFaddy and is Baltimore, Riz Ahmed as Snape, and Cush Jumbo as the narrator. And there are too many others to name. There's even a brand new musical score.

And the sound design, you'll feel like you're right there. Footsteps echoing down the halls of Hogwarts, a golden snitch flying past your ear. The Hogwarts Express rumbling out of platform 9 and 3 quarters, and it's all in Dolby Atmos, which makes the wizardry even more magical. Plus, these are the unabridged versions, even more awesomeness. As I mentioned, the first book is out, and the next installments in the series will be released every month until all seven are out. Go to audible.ca. slash HP1 and start listening now. It's 5.23 p.m.

One of your kids is asking for a snack, another is building a fort out of your clean laundry, and you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight? Or you could just hello fresh it. With over 80 recipes to choose from every week, including kid-friendly ones, even for picky eaters, you'll get fresh ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered right to your door. No last-minute grocery runs. No, what do we even have fridge staring? And the best part, you're in total control.

Skip a week. Pause anytime. Pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. The kids can even help you cook. Yeah, it's going to be messy. But somehow, they tend to eat the vegetables they made themselves. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to hellofresh.ca and use promo code Dinner50. That's hellofresh.ca promo code Dinner50. Hellofresh.C. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. He going to push that line for the cause.

He took us under his wing and showed us the game. as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way.

Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts No country for old man I'm kidding I'm kidding Oh you like that one I love that one That's maybe the best Raising Arizona is probably the best

It'd be tough for me to pick on any given day, but Fargo is the one I can watch over and over and over. Yeah. Yeah. I would say those three are you tied for first. Did we just come back from the break, just segueing right back into the comments? I don't know.

All right, let's do it. We'll see how Jerry edits this. So let's, it wouldn't be a stuff you should know podcast if we didn't talk about the science behind something seemingly unscientific. Well, Hula Hoops are super complex as far as physics goes, you know. Not super complex. It's super complex. There's just a few things.

We are not in agreement on stuff today, are we? I don't know. What's going on? So let's say you have a Hulu hoop, right? And it's around your waist. And you take it and you throw it, you have it up against maybe one hip. Sure. It's making contact with your body.

You're starting in the traditional way then. Sure. And you whip it around to one side. Uh-huh. And as you do, you start rotating your hips. You're gyrating. Right? I'm rotating my hips, Chuck.

Yes. And as you do that, when you rotate your hips, What you're doing is, first of all, you're conserving the angular momentum you gave the hula hoop when you pushed it in a certain direction, twisted it around yourself, right? That's right. You are the axis.

Yes, you are the axis. Yes. And when you move your hips around, when you rotate your hips, you're applying what's called torque. Yeah, because all this hoop wants to do is fall down around on the ground and make you look foolish.

It wants to stop? Well, no, it doesn't want to stop because of inertia. It wants to keep going, but it can't because of friction. But it wants to fall down to the ground, like you said, and make you look foolish. Yeah.

But ironically, that same friction is keeping it from doing that. Who is the fool now, hoop? The hula hoop. Yep. Fool. All right. Did you talk about the torque?

I did talk about torque. And torque is a twisting force where you're twisting your hips. Uh-huh. You're thrusting the hula hoop around in the circle. Uh-huh. And what you're doing there

is contributing to the centripetal force. That's right. Right, not centrifugal. No, centripp at all. Two different things. Me, is a force that moves at a right angle to the motion of your body. So it keeps that thing, whatever it is,

say hula hoop or tractor tire, which by the way, someone said a record, hula hooping with a tractor tire once. Shut up, really? Yeah, for like 70 seconds, a 54-pound tire. How big was a person? Oh, I'm sure it was ginormous. All right.

I think he was from like Baylor-Ruce or something, you know? Oh, yeah, they'd do that on a daily basis there. So with the centripetal force, and this is going at a right angle to the direction that you're thrusting your hips, it's constantly going to move around a circle on the axis, that is centripetal force. Boom.

The centripetal motion, I should say. Yes, and when this hoop wants to fall, of course we're talking about gravity. Gravity wants to win that fight, but if you keep that pulsing gyration going, then you're going to keep that hoop. Just a little ahead of the curve. of the curve. Yeah, that's apparently

the key, and Robert puts this in here as kind of like a throwaway thing. Yeah, that is the total key. That's the key of hula hooping is you want your hip to move just before that, that I guess, wave that comes in contact with your body again

comes in contact, like comes back around. Yeah, it's almost like a catch and release in a way. Okay, yeah. Like you're catching it on your hip and then slinging it back around. Now I'm gyrating. Yeah, you are. Wow. There's a lot of gyrating going going on in this room right now.

There is. It's crazy. So there's a few different parts of the body at work. I don't know why in 2004. They needed a 15-page study in the Journal of Biological Cybernetics to figure this out, because if you just look at somebody, you can tell that the hips, knees, and ankles

are really what's at play keeping that thing going. And that's if you're just doing the hip hula hoop. Not hands and neck and legs and all that, of course. Yeah, just the standard hoop right? Yeah. And so another study, I think four years later, in the Journal of Human Movement Science. I don't know why they needed that one either. Well, they built upon this 2004 study and said, okay, you use your hips, knees, and ankles. Everybody uses it. But depending on the individual, there'll be different contributions from the hips, knees, or ankle. Depends on the motion of your ocean. Exactly. So it's like the individual, everybody uses the same parts, but they use them in different. percentages to come up with the hula hooping motion. Yeah, I bet certain body types are better at this than others, too.

Yeah, it's slim. Yeah? Yeah. Probably so. I'm the one in front of Craig's band, she was pretty slim, I guess. Sure. She was working that thing, man. It was like, it was pretty amazing.

Hula hoop. So that's hoop dancing when we'll finish up here with some other games. Well, we didn't talk about hoop dancing. We were just talking about hula hooping. No, we talked about hoop dancing at the beginning with that lady. Oh, yeah, okay. So that's hoop dancing. Okay.

That's when, you know, it's around the neck and then you work it down around your hips and then up one arm and then up the other arm. Right, right. It's pretty impressive. Your standard hula hooping, of course, which we've covered. Speed, endurance, depends on what you're after.

Sure. Like, I want to do this for 20 minutes, or I want to do it. 74 hours. Really fast for five minutes. Okay. Hoop rolling. That's one of my favorites.

Hoop trundling. Yeah. Like you're a little ancient Egyptian. Yeah. I would like to see you do that. Hoop rolling? Sure. Let's do it.

Let's do a video for that. Okay. We could do a periscope of it. Oh yeah? Let's do that. Are we gonna start doing that? We could do at least one of me hoop rolling. I think people, we're gonna get emails on that.

Yeah, they'll turn out in droves to see that. Sure. Hundreds of people will show it for that. There's one not on this list that I want to give a shout out to. All right, what? It was invented apparently in Belgium. They call it Belgium skipping. It's called ankle skipping.

It's called ankle skipping. It's where you put the hula hoop on one foot around one ankle and you use it to hula hoop, you make the hula hoop motion with that one. And as it comes around, you jump through the hoop with the other one. Yeah. I can't believe it wasn't on this list. Yeah, that's a solid hooped endeavor.

But apparently it's a pretty recent invention from like the 60s. Oh, really? Uh-huh. All right, that makes sense. That's sort of like hoop jumping, but not quite. No, hoop jumping is more like jump roping with a hula hoop. Yeah, but that kind of reminds me of that, too. Oh, okay.

Hoop jumping is when you hold the hula hoop The top of it And then you swing it around your body And jump up and down Okay Like you have nothing better to do in life Right Like you can't find a jump rope

You haven't heard of those before Return the hoop This is the only one I was ever good at That's when you hold it vertically And you Flung it out as hard as you can backwards and it sort of spins in place And comes back to you

Right And if you're not expecting it You're going to turn and run because it is startling. We've already talked about Kill the Hoop. We don't recommend to use spears to do that. Or just make sure nobody's in the vicinity of

where the hoop is. Yeah, good point. You don't want to combine hoop chundling and kill the hoop. Because you'll kill the hoop chundleur. No. And I'm not even covered this last one. I dare you too, though. I like this one. Hoop Your Environment?

Yeah, go ahead. So it's like you put Hula Hoops around and you jump from them. Like, they're islands, and there's lava in between. Okay. What's wrong with that? I don't know. Too childish?

No, I'm very childish, but I don't know. I just didn't float my boat. You're childlike, not childish. Oh, gotcha. Big difference, man. Well, we talked about exercise. It is legitimate exercise. Our hula hoop classes now, apparently Marissa Tomei, the actor,

took hoop fitness classes to lose weight. for uh or to get in shape for her movie the wrestler in 2008 uh first lady Michelle Obama has very famously hoop worked out yeah whooped the lawn of the White House to say hey kids get active and at the US open yeah you can still have fun by doing this yeah um and they even did another study to see what kind of calories you could burn lots of hoop studies um too many um they took women between 16 and 59 and said uh go crazy in hoop and they averaged... For half an hour.

Yeah, and they were weighted hoops too, by the way. Which is not to say they were super heavy. They're generally still pretty lightweight. Yeah, but strangely, a weighted hoop is easier to keep going. Yes, which makes sense, I think. And they average 151 beats per minute. Is it a beat? Yeah, heartbeats.

Oh, their heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Tribe called Quest. would be proud. Right. And that is burning seven calories a minute or 210 calories during a half hour of hooping. So that's good exercise, people.

That's like weightlifting type calorie burn. Yeah. Plus also, like if you just break it down to calorie burn, first of all, Chuck, I want to do an episode and I'm not quite sure how to frame it yet. It doesn't have a thesis. But there are so many, like, medical myths out there that are just taken as fact.

Sure. Even by the medical establishment, even though, like, if you asked a doctor, like, is this fact? They would be like, no, no, actually, it's not. Like drinking eight glasses of water a day. Totally made up. I know you're going to say that one.

Like, I think we should do one on medical myths sometime. What do you think? We should. Have we not? No. Like, part of me wants to say we have, but I think things to have just come up like here or there over the years. Anyway, even if you've taken,

take the calories out of the equation, just hula hooping, the standard hip gyration hula hoop will really, really work out your core. Yeah, you didn't even need a hula hoop. No, you can just sit in your chair and do what I'm doing now. Yeah, like I'm sweating. Yeah, right now. You totally are.

My lip, my upper lip is broken out in perspiration. Modern hooping, burlesque uses hoops. If you go to any music festival these days, You're going to see the ladies like I was talking about, or they might have them decked out with LEDs, or are you in fire? Well, what's neat is LED hula hoops in particular are really displaying, like, the physics of hula hoops. Pretty neat. Through, like, what's that type of photography?

LSD? No. No. What's the, what's that photography where, like, you just keep the shutter open, so it, like, high exposure or long exposure? Yeah, you just said it, keeping that shutter open. It's like when you see the pictures of the cars on the freeway at night, and it's just like a long trail of headlights. Yeah, but there are photos out there of LED hula hoops there.

It's just like you can see. They don't just keep like a flat path. They go all over the place and somewhere. It's really neat. It's pretty cool. What about this lady, the Israeli sculptor. Did you watch that? I saw a couple pictures of it.

Yes, her name is Sigelit Landau. And in 2003, she did a performance art. political statement piece where she did, it was called barbed hula. She was naked and hula hooped with a barbed wire hula hoop. That just tore her abdomen up. Yeah. It's really rough. Yeah, it was pretty disturbing,

but she said she was on an Israeli beach that she defined as the only calm and natural border Israel has. So she was making a statement, my friend. Well, she's an artist. That's what they do. I got a couple of last things. Let's hear it. In the Hulu Hoop craze?

Of the 50s of America? Yes. Yeah. Not the 14th century Breton one. Okay. It was, in Japan, it was banned. The Hulu Hoop was banned because they were where it was going to lead to actual stuff, things happening. Yeah.

And apparently the Soviets said that it was evidence of the emptiness of American culture. the hula hoop craze. Really? Yeah. Leave to the Soviets to be like Americans. Yeah.

They hated America. Do you remember when the iron curtain fell and you were like, oh, wait a minute. Like everything we were taught about the Soviet Union was basically made up?

Yeah. And they were like, you know, the average Russian was like a good person. Yeah, and the average Russian was a lot like the average American. Yeah, drunk on vodka. I'm gonna live forever.

all right that's it if you want to know more about hula hoops you can type that word into the search bar at how stuff works.com and since I said search bar it's time for listener mail I'm gonna call this anorexia

did you read this one? No I don't see how I missed that one hey guys I'm a huge fan and want to let you know how stuff you should know has helped me over the years I began listening I love these began listening at the age of 12 and I'm now turning 18

Yeah, that's pretty cool. August night. Stuff you should know is played a part in the young adult I've become. At 12, I was diagnosed with restrictive anorexia. It was hospitalized for about a month and did day treatment for almost a year. After leaving treatment for the day, I'd religiously put on my headphones and turn on stuff you should know. The podcast was really helpful on bad days, especially if I had, just had an argument with my parents or a difficult meal. Your humor was especially helpful.

I remember laughing out loud many times in the car, which was quite a rare occurrence. I'm pretty solid in recovery now, but your podcast also helped me gain a better relationship with my sibling. My eating disorder caused a lot of tension between my sibling and I for quite a few years. But one day, I invited her to listen to your podcast, so if you should know, quickly became a part of her commute to university class, and we occasionally would discuss the podcast topics. Nice. We now have a tradition, and I love this part too. We now have a tradition of listening to the Christmas extravaganza together while in winter break. which is what we want people to do.

Yeah, man. To gather the family and make this a thing. Eat some plum pudding. Even though I don't know what we're going to get pretty slim on Christmas topics. I've got at least one great topic already. We need to start looking now, though. You're right. We've even gifted each other matching stuff.

You should know shirts when you're. More recently, I received a very urgent text letting me know in all caps that you guys were coming to Minneapolis this fall. That's right. And another text to let me know that Chuck's daughter, Ruby. shares the same birthday as our father, and I want to point out again, and Josh. Yeah, the triumvirate. That's right. Your podcast gives us endless topics and inside jokes, and I can't thank you enough for

bringing us closer together. Thanks again for being such a big part of my formative years. My sister and I can't wait to see you guys in Minneapolis this fall. That is from Emily, and she said, please shout out your sister, Megan. Awesome, Emily, thank you for telling us all that. Like, that really means the world to us. Yes, and best of luck. in your continued recovery, that is tough stuff.

Yeah, and congratulations, too. Yeah, we should do an eating disorder podcast at some point. That one's been hanging out there. Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, there's like a whole, there's like this new idea that, like, almost everybody has an eating disorder in America these days. Of some kind.

Yeah, like, typically binge eating is, like, a huge thing. Sure. Yeah, we should definitely do that. Yeah. Thank you very much, Emily, and hello, sister Megan. We appreciate you guys listening. and hopefully we'll see you guys in Minneapolis when we come in October. Yeah, and you know what? Actually, write me back.

We'll put you on the guest list. Oh, man. That's so nice. Free tickets for YouTube. Wow. That is something. Just for you too, no guess. Right. Just kidding.

Well, you need to lay it down. We should probably have a legal disclaimer added after this, too. Yeah, we might hear from a lot of Emily and Megan's in Minnesota. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email at StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com and as always join us at our home on the web,

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