With the cooler weather sneaking up on us, a lot of people are turning to the indoors for their workout routines. A jump rope workout is great for the indoors. You don’t need much space, just make sure you don’t get it wrapped around the TV and pull it off the wall or anything. Just kidding, but be careful. All you need to do is clear a radius of about 5-7 feet and make sure you don’t have anything that the rope can get caught on.
Another thing to watch out for as you do your jump rope workout in the house is to make sure you don’t whack anybody who happens to be walking behind or in front of you. I only mention this because I’ve come close Let people (especially kids) know not to come close as you’re swinging the rope.
It’s actually kind of nice to do your jump rope workout indoors. You can watch TV or listen to music, which is nice because it takes your mind off getting tired and before you know it, you’ve done fifteen minutes. It’s surprising how many calories you can burn when you’re distracted!
I prefer doing my workouts outdoors, but with cooler weather, sometimes it just makes more sense to do it in the house. This way you don’t have to worry about freezing your tail off in the snow, rain, or cold. You can simply pop in some of your favorite tunes or turn on one of your favorites shows and start jumping away the pounds.
Jump Rope Start-Up Guide
The first thing to think about is getting your heart rate up to a good and safe level. This is sometimes called the ideal heart rate training range. A fast formula to use to get your ideal heart rate training range is to subtract your age from 220. Then multiply that number by .9 to get the high range and then by .6 to get the low range. If you’re 32, a good heart rate training range would be lower than 169 and higher than 112 beats per minute. At this rate is where the heart is strengthened most, this is also the rate the most belly fat is lost.
To learn how to jump rope, don’t get frustrated when you miss a skip or your feet get tangled up in the rope. It takes time, just like anything else. If you feel uncoordinated the first few times you jump rope, it just means that it’s something you probably haven’t done since grade school.
Another cool little side benefit of using a jump rope in your workout routine is that they are so darn cheap. Instead of forking over $600 bucks or more every year at the gym, you can get a jump rope for about $10 and it will last you several years. Now obviously, sometimes you’ll want to do more than just a jump rope workout.
But if you want a very cheap and fun workout, it’s nice to have a rope in your arsenal. When you do a jump rope workout, it feels like being a kid again! And you can get one on a kid’s salary.
Another nice element of a good ole fashioned jump rope is that they are so portable. You can chuck it in your bag and forget that it’s there, until you want to get it out. When traveling, you don’t always have access to the gym, so it’s nice to have a jump rope in your suitcase or backpack. That way you can still do a phenomenal cardiovascular routine on the road, just by busting out a quick jump rope workout.
So whether you’re out on the road or right at home, a jump rope can be a great tool to getting and staying in shape. Not only are they cheap, they make good traveling buddies.
Lose the unwanted arm fat by doing a couple tricks with your jump rope workout.
One of the biggest problem areas for some people is the back of the arms. Sometimes the fat on the back of the arms just has a lot to do with genetics, but fortunately there are several things to do to get rid of that unwanted arm fat and tighten the muscles in that area. One of these things to do is a jump rope workout.
By making a few adjustments to a regular jump rope workout, you can really target your arms and get a great triceps workout. The first time I experimented with this, I could tell the next day that my triceps had gotten an unbelievable workout. They were pretty sore!!
You can also add a simple dumb bell workout to tone and strengthen the arms.
You start out by doing a normal jump rope workout, and then you gradually start to hold your arms out away from your body while continuing to swing the rope. You’ll feel the burn in your arms after just a few seconds of this. Swing the rope with your arms away from, the side of your body for 20-30 seconds or as long as you can. Then you lower your arms back to your side and just use your wrists for the most part to swing the rope.
After ten, or so, seconds begin to raise your arms again and swing the rope with your arms in this raised position for another 20-30 seconds and then lower them back down to your body and swing the rope with your wrists. Do as many repetitions of these motions as you can during your jump rope workout and you will begin to see a difference in the ‘flabbiness’ of the back of the arms.
A jump rope workout has too many side benefits to name, but for Kung Fu and the other martial arts, the foot speed, hand speed and balance are things that come in super handy. In a Kung Fu match, you feel terrible when you have to go up against someone that is in better shape than you or that is just plain faster than you. You feel like you might as well just bow down right then.
I think any competitive martial arts master wants to be the one that is faster, quicker and more agile. They want to be the one that others fear having to match up against. They want to be the best out there. For this reason, many good Kung Fu teachers have encouraged their students to use a jump rope workout. A wise teacher knows that a jump rope workout will speed up the feet, develop overall quickness, and increase hand/eye coordination. All in an effort to be able to put the smack down when they enter the match.
A jump rope workout causes the athleticism of the martial artist to increase greatly. It takes dedication to keep up with the rope routines, but they really can be very simple to start.
Bruce Lee was a very disciplined jump roper
In the beginning, you probably won’t be able to hang with Bruce Lee when it comes to the jump rope workout, he was a very disciplined jump roper. But with a little integration of a jump rope workout into your routines you’ll start to see very noticeable differences. Get better with the rope and you’ll be able to dominate and become better, faster, and more agile.
Exercise the Heart
A phenomenal way to exercise the heart is to perform a total-body jump rope workout. It will burn a good amount of calories, as well as get the heart pumping. It’s nice too, because you can do it from home and without a bunch of bulky equipment. Jumping rope will also integrate nicely into a cross-training program, where you do a variety of combined aerobic and resistance activities. This creates a very complete cardio workout and helps you achieve total-body fitness.
Be good to your heart by exercising it with a jump rope workout.
As you start your jump rope workout, keep your feet shoulder width apart and keep your arms close to the side of your body. Turning the rope should be done with your wrist, and not your whole arm. Keep your shoulders relaxed and the back straight; then just start to jump as you swing the rope. Slowly but surely you’ll start to feel the burn.
To minimize the strain on the joints, keep your jumps small and your feet about an inch off the ground with each jump. As you get better, you can start doing a boxer’s step where you hop on one foot and then the other in a rotation. With a step like this you can increase the speed of your jump rope workout, which will in turn, speed up your heart rate and your overall heart workout.
A couple things to think about as you start to introduce a regimen is that it’s important to build up some stamina before you start working out at a normal level. It’s good to start at an easy level, unless you’re experienced with the rope. You don’t want to take your heart rate up too fast, or keep it at a high level for too long. It’s like revving the engine in your car. You don’t want to redline it. But by building up your stamina with a jump rope workout, you’ll be conditioning your heart and getting in great shape.
Along with almost every other muscle in your body, the jump rope workout will cause your core muscles to burn, especially your abs. Your abs get a great workout because they have to balance the rest of the body while jumping up and down. Because so many people consider their ‘mid-section’ to be a problem area, a jump rope workout is just what the doctor ordered.
Some jump rope workout tricks
You can also implement a couple of neat tricks while jumping rope to target the abs even more. The first trick is to lift one knee at a time a little higher than normal towards the chest. What this does is cause the oblique musculature to work harder. The effect you’ll feel afterwards is a warm or tightening feeling in that area. You’ll know at this point that you’ve gotten a great oblique workout.
The second trick to target the abs during your jump rope workout is to bend over slightly and with each jump, you bring your knees as close to your chest as is comfortably possible. Again, you’ll feel your abs burn afterwards, which is a sure sign that you’ve gotten a great workout.
These tricks may not be for someone that is just starting out with a jump rope workout routine, but after a few days of getting use rope skipping, you can definitely add these little tips and get your abs workout in at the same time. It’s a great way to save some time and still shape the mid-section.
By learning how to jump rope, you can also tighten the lower area of the body. Just 5 minutes of jumping rope will equate to the same amount of lower body toning that running a half a mile would.
You’ll also see dramatic results in the amount of fat you’ll lose in the backs of your arms when you learn how to jump rope and stay with a consistent jump rope workout routine.
Keep at it and you’ll start to notice more energy, a tighter lower body, and flatter belly.
No comments:
Post a Comment