Get Yourself a Skipping Rope and Try Skipping for Fitness
Forget ‘Skip, skip, skip to my Lou’ - did you know that
skipping can burn up to 320 kcal per 30 minutes? Definitely worth
the effort!
Definitely worth buying yourself a
skipping
rope if you are trying to get fit, lose some pounds or maintain
a healthy weight. The science of skipping shows that it strengthens
your cardiovascular system, improves your agility, tones the muscles
in your legs as well as toning your abdominals, back, chest and
shoulders. It’s inexpensive, can be done almost anywhere and it’s
really good fun.
Skipping for Improved Cardiovascular Fitness
Skipping is definitely an excellent exercise for improving
cardiovascular fitness and whilst this might be surprising, if done
correctly, using that skipping rope is medium impact, rather like a
brisk walk. Medium impact activity, like skipping, places less
stress on the joints than high impact activity. The health benefits
of improving cardiovascular fitness are well understood and skipping
as a moderate activity can really take you a long way towards
reaching the recommended goal of including 30 minutes of activity in
your lifestyle 3 times a week.
Skipping for Overall Health Benefits and Weight
Loss
Regular exercise with a skipping rope can help reduce the risk of
heart disease, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels and let’s
not forget it also helps if you are trying to lose or maintain a
healthy weight. Most organisations involved in health and weight
management tell us that keeping food and exercise diaries and
setting clear activity goals is a more effective way of motivating
yourself and sticking with your chosen activity. The
Tanita Calorie Jump Skipping Rope can be
used to measure what you have achieved – number of skips and
calories burned. Combine this with keeping
a diary of
your food intake and exercise expenditure and you are well on the
way to successfully improving your health and fitness.
Why Skipping?
Here are a few of the benefits of getting a skipping rope…
Improves heart rate and blood pressure
Cheap and convenient
Almost anyone can do it at a level that suits them
Promotes fat loss
Improves flexibility
Improves co-ordination and balance
Improves muscle tone in both the lower and upper body
Can help in improving bone density
According to the
British
Rope Skipping Association, 10 minutes of skipping can have the
same health benefits as a 45 minute hard run. For those of us who
have hectic lifestyles where fitting in exercise is always a
struggle - this is great news.
Highly portable and very convenient, skipping can be done in most
places and at your own level. If you are a beginner, creating a
‘circuit’ by mixing short periods of skipping with marching on the
spot or some
strength training is ideal and will help you build up to longer
periods very quickly.
Basics to skipping for fitness:
Skip in trainers
Keep your elbows tucked in
Try not to lean forward
Skip reasonably fast so you do not get the rope caught under
your feet
Keep the skipping rope tight and close to your head
Try to alternate feet – it takes practice and worth trying to
jump a few times on one foot them the other as a starting point,
once you have mastered this then jump from one foot to the other
alternately
Skip to some cool music and combine different foot
combinations
Start with a 3:1 ratio, 1 min skipping to 3 mins of lower
intensity exercise such as marching on the spot or strength
training
Mix the skipping with some strength training to really improve
your fitness
Skip to music to keep up the pace and maintain motivation.
There are lots of free downloads on the internet such as ‘Exercise
Radio’
If you have joint problems or are starting exercise for the first
time, it is worth checking with your doctor first before starting a
programme of exercise.
