What’s The Secret Weapon?

Let’s cut to the chase. You have been crushing it since the beginning of the year. Now it’s vacation season. You take a couple of weeks off and BAM the gains start to fade.

The secret weapon is the simple jump rope!  Trust me, keep reading!

A jump rope workout is a fantastic way to burn a lot of calories, improve your overall conditioning, and use as part of a metabolic resistance training program for some serious fat loss. And more importantly, can fit in your suit case without taking up any extra room.

Two of the great things about a jump rope is you can take it anywhere and you don’t need a lot of room to get in a workout.

You can also use the jump rope as part of your training program, whether you’re using weights or just using bodyweight exercises in your training.

You’ll get a lot more out of a jump rope workout that’s only 10 minutes long than you will doing 45 minutes on the stationary bike the way most people do it.  You know what I mean; the people at the gym who pedal, pedal and pedal some more. All while reading a magazine or watching television. And, they never even break a sweat.  What a waste of time!

There are a lot of things you can do with the jump rope.

If trying to jump rope for 10 or even 5 minutes straight is daunting for you at this point, a great way to get started is using the Tabata Protocol of performing an exercise for 20 seconds as hard as you can, rest for 10 seconds and then repeat.  You do this 8 times for a total of 4 minutes of working out (less, since one third of that time is resting)!

Once you can do that, try adding a second cycle of the Tabata Protocol.  Do 8 sets of 20/10 (again, 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest), rest 1 to 2 minutes and then do it again.

Once you can do this, you can start adding more time to your jump rope workout and also start adding different techniques like jumping on one foot for 10 jumps, then switching feet, alternating feet, doing double jumps, etc.

But get the regular old two foot jump down first!

You can also combine jumping rope with other bodyweight exercises.  Here’s an example:

30 seconds – Push ups

10 seconds – Rest

30 seconds – Jump Rope

10 seconds – Rest

30 seconds – Alternate Forward Lunge

10 seconds – Rest

30 seconds – Jump Rope

10 seconds – Rest

30 seconds – Bodyweight Squats

Rest 2 minutes.  Perform 3 to 5 sets

 

More Ways To Use a Jump Rope:

Another great way to use the jump rope is to incorporate it into your resistance training sessions, whether you’re using bodyweight exercises or weights, or both.

Instead of resting between all your sets, do some cardio, like the jump rope!  You’ll burn a ton more calories.

Best of all, you can do this while you are on vacation, and keep all your good habits!