How to Jump Rope

Hi again, Jonathan here. We are learning today about weight loss through diet and exercise. We are going to go over right now, my most favorite and I feel most under utilized piece of cardio equipment, the jump rope. This is actually a Boa 2000, it's a weighted rope but any rubberized rope would do. You will notice that my pant legs are rolled up. For the purpose of jump rope you should be wearing shorts, but for our purposes today, I am just going to go ahead and do it the old fashioned way and roll up my pant legs.

Now, I am going to start with a lengthen rope, I am going to step in so that the rope is behind me and my arms are down by my side and you will see that one thing that stays kind of, since throughout all of our cardiovascular activities and pretty much through all of our exercise is that my -- again my posture is neutral with my spine nice and long, my arms are down at my side. I am going to start, I am going to take myself and you viewers through three phases of a jump rope. So, a very basic warm up phase, a more moderate, quicker pace jump and then a more advanced, higher intensity jump with some varieties of different ways of how to jump.

So, let s go ahead and get started. I am going to go ahead and throw the rope in front of me and take my feet off of the ground and you will see this is a very easy pace for me. I could do this all day. You will see as the rope hits the floor, my feet leave the floor. My heels are up off the ground, feet are parallel and I am on the balls of my feet. Now, this positioning or biomechanics of my feet make it such that the back of my leg and thighs are really getting a hard work out and they are going to be really toned.

I always use that as an advocate of the jump rope to get people to pick it up and get started. It s a great way to tone your lower body, shoulders, arms and core. Now, this -- there are quite a few ways to utilize a rope. One would be in round, timed round which would say for example, be a five minute and a half jumping intervals with breaks in between.

Today, I am just going to take you straight through and so let s say that I am nearing my beginning intervals, the finish at my beginning intervals and I am going to get started jumping a little faster and you can hear, physically hear the roping turn faster and hitting the floor faster and you can see the positioning of my feet has changed it slightly. So, I am now jumping laterally or on one leg at a time, from one leg to another. So, my rhythm is one-two, one-two, two-one-two, two-one-two and narrow the intensity level. Again, my arms and legs are working completely in unity and you will see my posture and body alignment is tall and long.

Now, we are going to go into the more advanced phase, turn on and pick up that turn of the rope and with the turn of the rope being my arms moving faster, my knees move higher, are raised higher and subsequently, my feet pick it up and move faster as well. This really kicking my butt. I am going to change it up for you guys and show you guys a couple of variations on how to make jump rope challenging throughout the course of your exercise, health and wellness career.

So, first we are going to do a crisscross which essentially is a crisscross of my arms so that the rope crosses in front of me and then as I jump over it I uncross it to continue. Moving right along we can then engage the arms a little more and go side to side with it which is a lot of fun. Here we go. One-two, one-two, one-two, two-one-two, one-two, I am going to pick up the pace and then we will go into double jumps.

You can see me what I am doing here. I am jumping a little higher and over rotating my arms quite as fast so that in one jump I clear two revolutions of the rope. Here we go. This is hard, it's taking my butt. So, I am again going to again take my five minute cool down and slowly stop the rope and I have completed the jump rope portion. I hope you guys go out and get yourself a rubberized rope and really burn, knock those calories off and enjoy your workout. Thanks and we will be moving next to some weight training.