Skipping for fun and fitness!

Skipping is cheap. A simple skipping rope can start from $10 and can get ones which come with counters that track the number of revolutions for a higher price.

Skipping is easy. As mentioned earlier anyone who’s been through primary school knows what the right skipping form is but here are a few pointers:

• Tuck your elbows into your sides, hold the skipping rope handles.
• Hold your wrists out (parallel to the ground) and use small circular motions from the wrists to move the skipping rope over your head and under your feet.
• Skip or jump only enough to give adequate clearance to the rope under your feet.
• Keep your back straight.
• Keep your knees soft, or slightly bent.
• Always land on the balls of your feet. Never, under any circumstances, land on the heels of your foot.
• Keep your head and neck straight and steady.

You can skip anywhere. You don’t need a gym membership or even a large space to skip. You can do it in your lounge, garden, apartment deck.  Basically anywhere where there's a high enough ceiling so you don't hit the ceiling. But you'll probably need good shoes as you're still creating an impact on the floor with your body.

Skip slowly into it.  Like with any new exercise, introduce yourself slowly into it as skipping is a different kind of fitness.  Since skipping is a great exercise for the arms, you'll find they might tire before your legs do! 

Start with a pace you’re comfortable with and increase it gradually. Measure your performance by counting the number of skips per second, number of skips per minute, or just time – how long you can skip for without running completely out of breath. Make sure to buy a rope as per your height requirements ( 5ft=7ft, 5ft to 5.5ft=8ft, 5.6ft to 6ft=9ft, over 6ft=10ft). Don’t forget to breathe steadily while skipping, and play around with workout routines where you skip for warm up, and then in between different exercise sets for extra mileage.

Skipping as part of your weight training.  Mixing up your training is always a great way to challenge your body.  So why not put in skipping as part of your leg/cardio day.  Instead of doing your straight sets of 10-12, do it by time and superset that with skipping to increase your heart rate. 

This is much more fun with a training partner!  An example:
- leg press while your partner does 1min of skipping.
- leg extensions supersetted with skipping is a great leg killer.
- or superset 1min skipping with lunges if you dare!

Happy skipping!
Lisa, Go Figure
February 2012