Best: Overall

Still our favourite hoop for long workouts and short bursts of energy, Powerhoop isn’t just a hoop, but a whole hooping community, with online classes, tutorials and teacher training. Its deluxe model is expensive, but it’s the ultimate weighted hoop and is suitable for beginners and expert hoopers combined.

It comes with intuitive steel inserts to slide inside the hoop to customise its weight, all the way up to a serious 2kg, and is lined with colourful, flexible plastic gradations that help the hoop grip to you without bruising. Both our novice and experienced testers loved this hoop, and its grippy casing made it one of the easiest to get started with.

Best for: Working your way up the weights

The newest hoop in this range is a super light 1.25kg, making it ideal for a longer workout. At this weight, we found we could keep the hoop in the air for much longer without feeling like our core and glutes were overworked. The foam is a little thin, so wear plenty of layers until you get your technique down to avoid bruising, but it grips well when you get a spin going.

Best for: Physiotherapy and recovering from injury

Building up core strength is a great way to protect your back from injury, so it’s no surprise to see a number of physio-orientated hoops entering the market. Our favourite is without doubt Vivomed’s foam-covered wavy hoop, which comes with iron weights that you slip into the hoop to increase the weight. This makes it great to use with a physio – they can help you find the right weight for your rehab. The foam covering means the hoop is comfortable to spin, even with the “wave” texture.

Best for: Your first hooping session

Our beginner hooper was a fan of the smoother, unridged hula hoops, which feel more like the kind you might have once used in the playground and less like a piece of gym equipment. ResultSport’s smooth hoop has a perfect mix of padding and grip, thanks to the foam casing. It comes in weights that are categorised by expertise – level one is a beginner-friendly 1.2kg, while level three is 2kg.

Best for: Experienced hoopers

One of the heaviest hoops we tried, our beginner tester found that they could only keep this hoop in the air for a few rotations, with some serious core burn. We also found it could be quite bruising, although the foam padding helped, and wearing a fitness belt helped a bit here too.

But despite being heavy it packs down easily, so won’t take up a huge amount of space. If you are exploring hooping purely as an ab workout and don’t have any plans to try any tricks or routines, this is the one to buy.

Best for: Beginners on a budget

A fantastic budget option that, because it’s at a low weight (1.4kg) feels comfortable even without the thicker padding you’d get with a more expensive hoop. A great hoop to try if you’re not sure the workout is for you, it comes apart really easily thanks to the click-in system, making it easy to store. You can reassemble it with fewer segments if you want a smaller hoop: the smaller the hoop the easier it is to spin.

Best for: Family hooping

Powerhoop’s lighter model is beginner-friendly, at a gentle but challenging 1.4kg. It lets you change the diameter of the hoop by removing or adding a link – this is so it can be used by kids and adults – but we found it also meant you could easily vary the intensity of your workout (bigger for a slower spin and gentler workout, smaller for a harder workout).

The squishy foam casing made it comfortable to use for longer, and our beginner found the soft, thick lining welcomely gentle when starting out.

Best for: Festivals and showing off your skills

One of Jess Love’s favourite brands, Hoopspin’s awesome, colourful hoops are handmade to exactly the level of sparkle you select, making them perfect for festival hooping. At 333g, they’re really light: you’ll still get a workout keeping them in the air, but you won’t end up feeling battered and bruised. You can also customise size and diameter, and the push-button release makes them effortless to collapse and store.