A Jump Rope – The Cheap Tool That Will Melt Fat Like A Knife Through Butter
Let’s cut to the chase: a jump rope will change your world! Trust me, keep reading!
A jump rope workout is a fantastic way to burn a lot of calories, improve your overall conditioning, and use as part of a metabolic resistance training program for some serious fat loss. I tried it for the first time this summer and found it really challenging–but so fun! It was like bringing me back to my childhood roots!
Building a jump rope routine into your daily workout is great for 3 reasons:
- you can take it anywhere
- You don’t need a lot of room to get in a workout.
- You. Will. Sweat.
You can also use the jump rope as part of your training program, whether you’re using weights or just using body weight exercises in your training.
You’ll get a lot more out of a jump rope workout that’s only 10 minutes long than you will doing 45 minutes on the stationary bike the way most people do it. You know what I mean; the people at the gym who pedal, pedal and pedal some more while reading a magazine or watching television, yet they never even break a sweat. What a waste of time! When I was first starting out this summer, I really struggled to skip for more than 50 loops at a time – I eventually increased that number over double in the same amount of time- but it was all due to how fantastic of a workout it was! I would get more tired skipping than I would going for a 5km run!
Where To Start With The Jump Rope
As you can see, there are a lot of things you can do with the jump rope when starting out:
If trying to jump rope for 10 or even 5 minutes straight is daunting for you at this point, a great way to get started is using the Tabata Protocol of performing an exercise for 20 seconds as hard as you can, rest for 10 seconds and then repeat. You do this 8 times for a total of 4 minutes of working out (less, since one third of that time is resting)!
Once you can do that, try adding a second cycle of the Tabata Protocol. Do 8 sets of 20/10 (again, 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest), rest 1 to 2 minutes and then do it again.
Once you can do this, you can start adding more time to your jump rope workout and also start adding different techniques like jumping on one foot for 10 jumps, then switching feet, alternating feet, doing double jumps, etc.
But get the regular old two foot jump down first!
Add Jump Rope To Your Routine
You can also combine jumping rope with other body weight exercises. Here’s an example:
30 seconds – Push ups
30 seconds – Jump Rope
10 seconds – Rest
30 seconds – Alternate Forward Lunge
10 seconds – Rest
30 seconds – Body weight Squats
30 seconds – Jump Rope
10 seconds – Rest
30 seconds – crunches
30 seconds – Jump Rope
Rest 2 minutes. Perform 3 to 5 sets
Another great way to use the jump rope is to incorporate it into your resistance training sessions, whether you’re using body weight exercises or weights, or both.
Instead of resting between all your sets, do some cardio, like the jump rope! As the fat just melts off of you, you’ll find such a reward in the numbers on the scale, as you’ll burn a ton more calories.