NSTC goes sky high with MrTrampoline

When it came to fitting out the National Snowsports Training Centre at Jindabyne with the highest quality kit for our elite and aspiring athletes to use, there was only one direction to head for trampolines.

MrTrampoline (formerly Steelfasat Trampolines) is 75 years years old this year, and in that time technology and sports have changed dramatically. Since making its first trampoline at a humble factory on Dandenong Road, Carnegie in 1949, MrTrampoline has gone on to supply thousands of all-Australian Made high quality, high performance trampolines… and manufacturing remains in Carnegie.

“MrTrampoline is very proud to be an integral supplier to the snowsports industry,” said Mr Trampoline’s Adam Richards, whose association with Australian winter sports really kicked off just over a decade ago. 

“Around 2012, Amber Gardner approached me with the idea of building a multi-use facility at Mt Buller to improve the set up in the Sports Hall which included a selection of trampolines and other apparatus, but was unstructured.

“This highlighted to me the benefit of trampolines to the skiing program, but it was a number of years before we made further progress at Mt Buller.”

After supplying more equipment to the the likes of NSWIS at Jindabyne, the Water Jump at Seville, Hotham Free Ski, Falls Creek Race Club, Mt BawBaw Alpine Village and Team Buller Riders (TBR), MrTrampoline was then approached to help design and install a venue in Thredbo village.

“We built the ACE (Acrobatic Centre of Excellence “Zero Gravity") at the Sports Centre which has been both popular and relevant to the industry ever since,” said Richards. “This in turn, set in motion more interest from Mt Buller and Jindabyne.

“In 2017 we commenced planning for “BAZ” - Buller Air Zone - a multi-user facility built in conjunction with a number of organisations including Snow Australia and the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. 

“The idea was to create a venue which would satisfy the needs of the athletes in the Pathway and the Elite Program, and also be suitable for day trippers as a facility for fun activities. The trampolines, overhead harnesses, airbag, climbing wall and other activations were installed and the facility has been in operation all year round, ever since.”

Fast forward a new more years and MrTrampoline has kitted out the state-of-the-art NSTC with athletes already seeing the benefit of the facility in their performances on the world stage.

Richards loves seeing the world-beating exploits of Australia’s aerial and moguls skiers, and warmly remembers when snowboarder Shaun White trained behind closed doors using his equipment in the lead-in to Sochi 2014.

“It is exciting to know that the progress of athletes is not only reaching new levels event after event, but being learned and practised on MrTrampoline equipment time and time again before attempted on snow,” he said. “What is not widely recognised, is that all of the winter sport disciplines can benefit from the trampolines.

“Aerial awareness, core strength, injury rehabilitation are all made possible with MrTrampoline equipment. Proprioception is the ‘feeling of body parts in space’ - this is better understood and acutely improved with time spent on a trampoline. A strong sense of your body’s proprioception is inherent in all extreme-sport athletes.”

In addition to snowsports, MrTrampoline also supplies equipment to state and national level gymnastics programs, circus programs, Diving Australia, BMX Australia, Surfing Australia and many Olympic and other elite sports which use trampolines for core strength and conditioning training.

Richards is proud of the fact that the high quality of equipment MrTrampoline supplies for high performance centres such as the NSTC can also be accessed by communities and families and smaller facilities or even in the home.

“Domestically, our trampolines are no different,” he said. “If we supply a trampoline to Moscow Circus, Cirque du Soleil or another other high-end user, it comes off the same shelf as a MrTrampoline model for a domestic backyard.

“There are plenty of podium athletes present and past, who have had a personal family MrTrampoline in their backyard which has knowingly or unknowingly played a significant part in their sporting success.

“I only wish we had a MrTrampoline image on every sleeve of every athlete that regularly uses MrTrampoline products!”