Now that the new year is here, it's time to discover other possibilities to make your workouts interesting and keeping up with your ability to keep going. As you know, I'm a fanatic on certain areas of conditioning and learning different styles to test my mental and physical abilities. I know full well I'm not a pro athlete and as a fan of real wrestling like Catch & Folkstyle/Greco-Roman Amateur Wrestling, I can never be in the type of condition those men and women are in, but I can however, learn how to handle my body to stay healthy but challenge the norm of just working out.
Rope Skipping has been a staple for athletes for decades from Combat to Football, Olympic Champions, Soccer Players and Wrestlers; so it's safe to say that it can be very beneficial and sometimes overlooked with the way technology is today. I'm not very coordinated with the typical jump rope, I never really was and couldn't put myself through getting smacked all the time. That's where I went with the Weighted Ropeless Jump Rope (sounds like an oxymoron don't you think?) where it cuts out the smacking and do exercises that a regular jump rope provides.
When I would do workouts like the Animal Dice Game, Deck Of Card Workouts, HIIT or swinging the Indian Clubs or the Mace, I would walk around and breathe deeply as an active recovery, I didn't want to just stand there or sit down, I wanted to keep moving but every now and then, I would feel fatigue set in faster from that and my recovery didn't feel right. I started trying something different which I'm sure many athletes learned either from themselves or by a coach which was to use the rope for the active recovery. During my Animal Workouts, if I felt fatigue set in or to the point where my breathing was hard, I'd back off for a bit, take up the Rope and work my legs with focused breathing until I felt ready again. So this has been successful for me and it keeps my endurance levels going and was able to accomplish, 500, 600, 700 and even 800+ Reps/Steps of a workout still feeling energized and not fatigued.
Even if you use a regular jump rope or speed rope, this can be a hell of a step towards developing some serious physical conditioning. It keeps the calories burning, it strengthens the heart and the lungs and builds real world fitness. Start with a warm up of a couple minutes just to get the blood flowing, do your workout and as you "rest", skip until you feel ready again, keep going and then use it a finisher (optional).
Test this out for yourself and see how you do. You don't have to sprint as you recover, just do enough where you're moving at a moderate pace, pay attention to your breathing and have at it. This can help keep you from being tired and able to keep going with less risk of injury. Some like to sit and rest or walk around and breathe deeply like I was but in order to be in awesome shape, you have to keep moving and give your a body a "break" without actually fully resting. Train until you feel like you've done enough. You can be crazy strong but if you don't last long, it can bite you in the ass later. Be healthy, stay in top condition regardless of your age and have a blast wit what you do.
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