Might as well jump
jumping rope, circuit training, cardio
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As the saying goes, it's a sad day when you don't learn something new.
Well, today I learned something cool ... I learned to jump rope!
I've been following the Men's Fitness series "The Eternal Beach Body Plan." Several of the most recent workouts have included jumping rope, which until now I had never been able to learn.
This morning when I was warming up for my workout at the gym, I noticed a guy jumping rope in the aerobics studio. He seemed to have mastered it...doing all sorts of cool variations.
I got up and went into the studio, grabbed a jumprope off the rack, and when he was taking a break, I went up to him and asked if he had any pointers on how to get started. He suggested that I try jumping up and down while twirling the rope in one hand to get the rhythm. I took his advice, and did the jumping for a minute. Then I tried it with the rope, and of course caught it on my feet on the second jump.
But even with the jumping alone, I could feel an awesome burn in my abs. Hmmm...maybe this is the way to get a sixpack, after all!
The way the workout was structured, I was to do a circuit of 10 exercises, which included two sets of jumping rope alternating with lifting exercises. When I came back for the second set, I jumped for 70 seconds, and to my amazement after that I was able to jump with the rope about five times! Excited, I told my new friend that was the most I'd ever done in my life!
By the last set of jumps, I was up to 10! It felt so cool!
As soon as my workout was finished, I drove straight to Sports Authority and bought a speed rope. As soon as I got home, I started practicing on my driveway...doing a few more jumps each time. The last time I kept count, I was up to 28!
I got my son Doug to take pictures of me as proof of my new skill. As an aspiring trainer, the more exercises I know that I can teach, the better I'll be.
Besides being a lesson in how it's never too late to learn something new, this also taught me something about the value of belonging to a friendly gym. It's really nice when people are willing to share their knowledge with their fellow members.
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on 6/22/2008
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