We Found an Indoor Trampoline Our Whole Family Can’t Get Enough Of (and It’s Under $100!)

At the start of winter, things at our house were getting a little dire on the physical activity front.

Our preschooler had a lot of energy to burn through and nowhere warm to do it. On the other end of the spectrum, our middle schooler would rarely leave her room on virtual school days, and my husband and I couldn’t break away from the kids or working from home in blocks long enough to fit in a workout. By the end of the day we were too exhausted to do anything but collapse on the couch.

While researching ideas to wear out the 4-year-old, I learned that while a mini trampoline, like the kind Little Tikes makes, usually has a weight limit of about 55 pounds, there’s a whole other category of mini tramps called rebounders designed with weight limits up to 350 pounds. That changed everything. 

For Christmas we bought what has become our best family gift of all time, a $100 BCAN Fitness Rebounder. 

Not only do both the kids love to jump on it, I’ve found it to be the perfect fun workout option for grownups too. 

What makes an exercise trampoline ideal for parents is that not only is it gentle on the old joints, it gets your heart rate skyrocketing almost immediately. So even if you can only fit in five minutes before the kids realize you’ve disappeared, if you can squeeze in two of those five-minute bursts in a day, it adds up to a pretty decent cardio workout.

We set up this 40-inch wide trampoline in the basement, and my husband and I take turns sneaking down to “get our jumps in.” Rather than setting a timer, I just turn on some music — a really good album to jump to, by the way, is Devo’s Are We Not Men?. Usually I can jump through about two songs by the time the kids start calling for me.

For me, a big part of why jumping feels so satisfying is trampolines have long been a forbidden pleasure. Growing up, our neighbors had a backyard trampoline constantly beckoning us to come bounce. My mom thought the thing was a “death trap,” and usually I’d start jumping only to have her stick her head out the window and yell for me to get down immediately.

Jumping on our rebounder feels plenty safe. The trampoline itself sits just eight inches off the ground, and you can only really jump about half a foot higher than that. My six-foot-two husband has only hit his head on our ceiling while jumping once. Plus, we picked one with a safety handlebar to hold yourself steady while you jump.

For those with small spaces, this trampoline does fold up to tuck into a closet or under a bed — we haven’t used the feature yet, though, because one of us is jumping on the thing all day long.

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