Our lives have become much busier, that means for most people it is proving extremely difficult to find time to hit the gym for a workout. Most people spend all day at their job, get through stressful traffic on their way home, and then fix-up something to eat. It is rather difficult having gone through a day like this to find the emotional fortitude to head back to the gym and get some workout done.
Luckily, there are pretty good alternative ways to get an excellent cardio-workout session right in your house. You don’t need to be outdoors in the snow or rain either. It turns out that jumping rope workouts, that children’s toy you had from the fourth grade is in fact a way to keep-up your shape and it is an incredibly low-cost investment as well.
Start By Getting A Quality Jump Rope
Getting a jump rope is incredibly inexpensive so you may want to avoid compromising on the quality of jump rope to purchase. Avoid, of course, the kid’s toy jump rope, and get one that was specifically made for an adult workout.
The one you get should be one that has a shatter-proof polyethylene handle, these tend to hold-up nicely under severe use and abuse. The form should be solid, not hollowed out, and the rope ought to spin easily without obstructions when you try it out. This is a vital consideration for speed and general purpose skipping.
The skipping rope should be a vinyl cord that is both solid and free of phthalate. The length of the cord should be easily adjustable and if it’s made of vinyl material will be able to strike the floor thousands of times and show no signs of wear. The solid vinyl cord has a small wind resistance so the cord maintains a perfect arc overhead even when it is being used at high speeds. The the length of the rope can then be adjusted by tying a knot at a shorter or longer distance from the handle.
Getting The Perfect Length For Your Jump Rope
The trick to determining the right length of rope is to just stand on the center of the rope and then raise the tips of the handles till they reach to the armpit level. After that, you may need to further shorten the rope, this depends on how you grasp the handles when jumping. When jumping with the rope, it should brush the floor directly below your feet each time you jump. If it strikes the floor in front of you, it’s too long and if it fails to strike at all, then it’s too short.
Jump Rope Benefits:
You may be wondering about the benefits of jumping rope workouts, below are a few of the benefits that accrue from using this simple exercise in your workout routine.
Jumping Rope Workouts: A High-Calorie Burn Cardio Exercise
Although making use of the jump rope can be a fun way to get fit, but the biggest reason to use a jump rope in your workout is that it will burn approximately 10 calories per minute. That’s an insanely good amount for such a simple movement. In addition to the calorie count, using jump ropes does an excellent job of strengthening your thighs, legs, arms, butt, ankles, and shoulders.
So, in addition to getting a very effective cardio workout, you will also be burning a lot of calories and getting thighs, legs, arms, butt, ankles, and shoulders toned-up. Very few single workouts can boast of such. Plus, you can jump the rope in your home, on vacation, during lunch hour at work and almost anywhere else since the rope is essentially all you need.
Jump Rope For Heart
In addition to burning calories, with regular use of the jump rope comes decreased blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels. All this accompanied by higher energy levels. cardiovascular exercises such as skipping with a jump rope can prevent coronary heart disease. Using jump ropes is shown to help prevent blood clotting, which is a major indicator of heart attacks. All of these serve to underscore the importance of using jump rope for heart. It will interest you to know that 10 minutes of working out with a jump rope is equivalent to a mile of running.
If getting a good workout without going to the gym is one of your goals, you can’t go wrong with a jump rope. All you need to do to have a complete body workout is add a couple of core body exercises, like planks, squats, or sit-ups, all of which you can do nearly anywhere when you have a few extra minutes to spare.
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