Skip your way to fitness!

Here is the UK we call it skipping, in the US it’s called jumping rope. Call it whatever you like, it’s still an amazing way to get fit! And it doesn’t call for an expensive piece of kit or a membership fee. All you need is a skipping rope … er, I mean a jump rope :/ You can even take it with you, wherever you go, whether that’s local or travelling internationally; it’s tiny and takes up practically no room at all.

We’ve all done it as kids, and some kids are very, very good at it. But very few adults ever use the rope for fitness. One notable exception are those doing boxing training, or any fight training. They know the value of skipping (I’m going to stick with ‘skipping’, so get used to it!), and they know that it does more than just add a bit of cardio to your workout. Skipping is a very high intensity exercise, or at least it can be if you’re capable of doing it well. And it calls for dexterity and rhythm.

Why are kids so good at skipping? Maybe they’ve got a more natural feel for rhythm … but probably more importantly they’re a lot less self conscious about how they look when they’re skipping, or about the fact that they might get it wrong. Adults, on the other hand, tend to be a lot more self conscious. Ask an adult if they’d like to do a bit of skipping to get fit and they’re likely to laugh it off as a silly idea, seeing it as trying to use a kids’ game for fitness. And if they do have a go, they’re often scared to really ‘let go’, imagining how they’re going to mess it up, and how bad it’s going to make them look.

Well, it’s time to get rid of all those daft ideas about skipping! Let’s start afresh and take a good look at it.

Is it difficult?

Mmm … depends … some people find the whole rhythm of skipping demanding (me included), and for some people it’s almost impossible. All I can say is stick with it! Forget about trying any fancy moves and stick to the basics. Just do single turns of the rope, and take your time. Do a little bit every day, just a minute or two, and give yourself time to get used to it.

Bit by bit you’ll start to feel more comfortable using the rope. But just keep to single turns for now, and resist the temptation to move on to better things. Giving yourself targets can help. Count your turns and see if you can do 20 without making a mistake and getting all tangled up, and then 50. If you can manage that, try a set of 100. And all the time try to just allow yourself to skip comfortably and naturally. I say ‘allow’ because you don’t want to try too hard to do it right. That’s when you start to get it wrong and catch the rope under your feet, or get the rhythm completely wrong and have the rope slap against your ankles.

The thing is, it’s easy to get it wrong – all you have to do is try too hard to get it right! Instead, just go back to being a kid, and do it as a bit of fun. Take all the competitiveness out of it, specially if you messing it up. Forget going for a set fo 50, or whatever number, and just skip purely for fun. You’re far more likely to just get in the swing of it quite naturally (just like I naturally got ‘in the swing’ of using the appropriate phrase in that sentence).

And be aware how important it is to get your hand position and movements just right; drop your shoulders and keep your arms relaxed and close to your body, and just spin the rope with gentle turns of your hands, no need to make big, exaggerated movements.

Fitness comes easy with skipping

Once you can skip for a few minutes without practically strangling yourself with your own rope, you can keep going pretty easily. And the longer you keep going, the greater the cardiovascular benefit. A few sets of just two or three minutes skipping can really boost your heart rate and promote strong, healthy circulation.

You might like to do a set of a couple of minutes at the start of a workout, just as a warm-up, or maybe you’d prefer to tag it on the end, when you can skip longer and faster, seeing how much work you can pack into a fairly short skipping session. Remember, boxers use skipping to really increase their fitness, and once you start to use it regularly you’ll see why.

Take a look at the legendary Mike Tyson in training …

Upping the pace … and the style!

When you get into it, you can really up the pace, skipping much faster and more surely (meaning fewer false steps and interruptions). And you can start to slowly and gradually start to introduce a few nifty moves into your routine.

You might want to go for double-unders first, getting the rope to spin so fast that it goes under your feet twice before they hit the ground again. Or you might want to change the way you move – ‘skipping’ first to one side as you skip, then the other, like you often see boxers doing. I have to admit I find it an awkward move to get right, but it’s that way for lots of people, with various moves. You just have to keep at it till you get it, even if you just do a minute or so a day trying whatever new move is giving you trouble.

Actually, I don’t just find that move awkward, the whole thing is more awkward for me than I’d like to admit. I tell myself it’s because I’ve had a pretty serious back injury and I have one or two ongoing health issues, but I have a suspicion it might just be due to not having much natural rhythm. There, I’ve admitted it  :\

When you do double-unders, be content to do one for every five or ten single-unders. Stick with that for a while, before you even try doing repeated double-unders. It calls for a lot of rope speed and a fair bit of agility, so don’t be put off if it seems really difficult till you start to get the hang of it.

And get a rope that’s thin and has a bit of weight to it; trying to skip with a light rope is just making life difficult for yourself.

Meet the Jump Rope Ninja!

You might want to visit the site of Srdjan Popovic (‘Serge’), who is an authority on the sport. He enjoys skipping and has a passion for it, and he uses it to generate a terrific level of fitness.

His site is called Bloom to Fit, and it’s about more than skipping. He loves the idea of being able to stay fit with the absolute minimum of equipment, and apart from his rope all he really uses are kettlebells. And he has a real passion for life, and for improving it and making the most of it.

Read his blog, there’s some great content in there, such as “30 little things you can do to start living a better life”. It’s thought-provoking stuff! Serge really does enjoy life and I think you’ll really enjoy visiting his site.

And if you really want to reach expert level using the skipping rope, he has created a course you might like to check out. It’s called Jump Rope Ninja, and it carries a  60-day, no quibble guarantee.