Build a Leaner Body by Including Rope Skipping Into Your Workouts

Everyone talks about weight loss and acai berry supplements, but to achieve a real lean body means having a low body fat percentage. The only way to reduce your body fat is to burn more calories than you intake everyday.

So what can I do to burn more calories? You can do that by doing cardiovascular exercises, or cardio for short. Running can be a very boring cardio, so that's why I chose rope-skipping.

Skipping ropes can give you the burn and feeling of accomplishment like no other cardio exercises can give. Now, in order to start incorporating rope-skipping in your workouts, you must first buy a quality rope.

Plastic speed ropes are recommended for anyone that's starting out. Once you've mastered a few skipping techniques, you can upgrade to a weighted one.

Rope-skipping is a full body workout, in which it can help you burn calories in places you never knew existed. You've got to gradually increase the period of time you spend skipping ropes in order to build your stamina.

Too many rope-skipping beginners start out hoping that they can achieve a lean body overnight, only to find out that they have crashed and burned their own body.

A starting point of 5 minute sessions is ideal for beginners. Although it may seem like hours for the 5 minute to end, grit your teeth and force yourself through it. Once you can handle the intensity, up the ante to 20-30minute sessions.

If you're training in a gym, find a spot where you won't be interrupting other gym-goers when you skip. Watch out for the height of the ceiling and what type of floor you're skipping on.

Once you're comfortable in your skipping spot, put your feet together and skip with a rhythm while co-ordinating your body to learn the patterns of your skips. Slow is key if you have never done anything like this before.

After the initial period, you can start to increase your tempo and adding variations to your routine. The most basic variation is to skip with alternating legs, the double under(where the rope goes under your feet twice with only a single skip), and the crossover (where you cross your arms while rotating the rope).

In order to prevent boredom from kicking in, I always listen to music that have a certain tempo or beats and I skip along with it. You can also vary the leg movements, speed of the rotating rope and the height of your jump with one song.

Add in a couple of songs in your iPod and you'll start loving rope-skipping.

References:
1.Jump For Your Health - Jumping Rope is a great aerobic exercise. Retrieved from http://www.new-fitness.com/jump.html on June 28th 2009
2. Benefits of rope skipping exercise to losing weight Retrieved from http://www.weightlossforall.com/exercise-skipping-rope.htm on June 28th 2009