Jump Rope Techniques

I get these from Buddy Lee’s Jump Rope Training. It’s an excellent book, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who jumps rope. And I believe everyone should jump rope, it’s great fun and an excellent form of conditioning. So, basically, I recommend this book to everyone!

I can only currently only do two techniques, and to be honest I can’t do them very well. As I said in my first post, before boxing I did next to no form of physical exercise, especially skill-based stuff such as rope jumping. But now I’m doing it fairly often, I’m improving rapidly, and without meaning to sound arrogant I do think I am the best (or at least in top 3) skippers in my EBC group (the beginners group ).

Onto the moves. The ones I can well do so far are:

Bounce Step
This is the most simple one, just involving jumping up and down with both feet at the same time. By far the easiest, and the easiest to do fast.

Alternate-Foot Step
This is the one most boxers and wrestlers use. It is similar to the Bounce Step, although it involves alternating feet each jump. Harder than the Bounce Step, it requires more coordination, fitness, timing and lightness on the feet. Great fun though, and it’s the one we’re recommended to do at boxing practice.

Those are the only two I’ll cover for now.

First “A Boxer’s Blog” Workout!

Last post I promised I would go for a run today. Well…I didn’t. When I got home from school, it was dark, raining and cold. I didn’t mind the wetness and cold too much, but running where you can’t see where you’re going isn’t great. I suppose that’s a side effect of it being mid November and nearing Christmas. Looks like I’ll have to keep running for summer and weekends, when I’m free to do what I want! So, next run will be this Saturday.

Now, normally I would have just felt crap and not bothered doing anything. I would have come inside, turned on the PC and waste time on the internet doing nothing constructive. But I thought of this blog, and though “Hey, I don’t want to appear a pussy to all my adoring fans (yeah, right!).” So, rather than coming inside I did another workout. It was still conditioning, but it was anaerobic rather than aerobic. I got out my jump rope and went jumping (a.k.a. skipping). I was planning to only do 3 rounds, but once the endorphins got going I had to do more, I couldn’t resist it.

I did all my timings using my Gymboss Interval Timer. It’s a digital timer, allowing you to set two timers that run one after the other and repeat (from 00:01 to 69:59), with a round count, customizable alarm and vibration, all done with 3 large, simple buttons. I intend to do a full review of one sometime soon. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend getting one. Get one from Training Timers (where I got mine) or from Gymboss themselves.

Anyway, onto the workout itself:

• Warmup (about a minute of jogging and sprinting)
• 2-Minute Rope Jumping (bounce step), 1-Minute Rest
• 2-Minute Rope Jumping (alternate-foot step), 1-Minute Rest
• 2-Minute Rope Jumping (bounce step at fast pace), 1-Minute Rest
• 2-Minute Rope Jumping (bounce step at fast pace), 1-Minute Rest
• 2-Minute Rope Jumping (alternate-foot step), 1-Minute Rest
• 2-Minute Rope Jumping (bounce step), 1-Minute Rest
• 1-Minute Pushups
• 1-Minute Squats
• 1-Minute Rest
• 1-Minute Situps
• 1-Minute Wall Squat (fully contracting)

Nothing special, but I enjoyed it! When I came in my food was ready too – smoked fish, carrots and peas. Yummy!

Well, until next time, keep training and have fun.