One month into the New Year and I am wondering how many people are still heading to the gym 3 to 4 times a week as per their New Year resolutions. I found out a while ago that the best way to avoid failing my New Year’s resolutions was not to make any! Instead, I just quietly and diligently do the things that need doing. One of the things that I have been doing diligently for a few years now is skipping. While many of us remember skipping as something we did as children, I became re-acquainted with this discipline through martial art training.
One of the reasons why people are struggling to make the most of their gym membership is that it requires effort to get to the gym. Having access to a gym right at your doorstep is not a given. One-hour gym session may turn into a 2-hour plus event if you add the time to get to the gym and back. If you are the type of person who is pretty busy, doesn’t like exercising indoors or can’t face the prospect of driving through traffic to get sweaty in a gym, I suggest that you grab a rope and skip yourself to health.
A skipping rope is the most convenient exercise equipment to have because it is easily available, you can carry it and use it anywhere, anytime. Skipping rope = accessibility, portability, versatility & a lot of fun.
Grab a rope, improve your cardiovascular fitness, and reduce your body fat index.
Jumping rope has long been used by boxers as a form of training to help improve their footwear and general conditioning. Jumping rope will improve your cardiovascular health, will lower your blood pressure, and reduce your resting heart rate.
Jumping rope will also increase your cardiorespiratory fitness which essentially means your body becomes more efficient at taking up and using oxygen. Research has shown that cardiorespiratory fitness is linked to improved health and longevity.
Jumping rope is a full-body exercise that requires speed and coordination and is a form of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT exercise is where you have short bouts of high-intensity efforts followed by a short rest interval. This is repeated several times. HIIT workouts are the ideal type of exercise for a busy schedule. The average HIIT workout is between 15 to 30 minutes. Research has shown that you can achieve more progress in 15 minutes of interval training than you can jogging on a treadmill for an hour.
Another reason why HIIT workouts are so popular is that they are extremely effective for weight loss. When trying to lose weight, you want to burn fat and build lean muscle to continue to burn more fat. HIIT forces your body to use energy from fat as opposed to carbs. Not only do you burn more calories during a HIIT workout than steady cardio; but the most amazing benefit of all is that all that intense exertion keeps your body working long after you’re done with your exercise for the day. In effect, you jump rope for 30 minutes and your body keeps burning the fat for the next 24 hours! Raise your hand if you want to turn your body into a fat-burning machine whilst sleeping!
In addition to increased fat burning and muscle preservation, HIIT workouts stimulate the production of your human growth hormone (HGH). It goes up by 450% during the 24 hours after your workout. This, in turn, increases your metabolism. An increased metabolism makes it less likely for you to gain weight.
Grab a rope and have a full-body workout.
Skipping is a full-body workout that uses abdominal muscles to stabilize the body, your legs for jumping, and your shoulders and arms for turning the rope. It will also improve your coordination and balance. A study found that jumping rope is one of the most effective cardio exercises out there – and it can whip you into shape with just a few minutes a day of skipping. In the study, after six weeks of daily 10-minute jump-rope exercises, participants demonstrated the same levels of improvement in their cardiovascular health as individuals who jogged for 30 minutes a day.
Research has shown that jumping rope will also increase your bone mineral density. Your overall bone strength is a combination of the amount of bone tissue you have (your bone density) and how healthy or strong that bone tissue is. Both of these things are affected as you age. Jumping rope involves making an impact on the ground with every jump. These impacts cause our bones to remodel themselves to become stronger, thus increasing bone density. Higher bone density makes you stronger and less likely to break a bone.
Your Quest my dear friend is to skip like nobody is watching and gain all the benefits of a short, intense, and fun workout anytime, anywhere! Off you go.
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