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Almost every year I see an article pop up on one of the news sites stating how the Victoria’s Secret models get in shape. I’m always curious if jump rope is involved in any of their workouts (and mentioned in the article). My assumption is that most of the models do some form of jump rope in their workouts from time to time. This year one of the Victoria’s Secret models by the name of Stella Maxwell made the following quote when talking about her workouts: “I really like jump rope and headstands I love jump rope because it’s a challenge to time yourself toRead More →

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A new study just came out that shows how exercise can help you shed fat (and prevent it from forming) by way of a hormone that is released when you exercise. You can check out the article I read over at science daily. To sum up what they found, a hormone called irisin is released when you exercise (I am going to use jump rope since that is always my focus), and what happens is that when it is released, it boosts “the activity of genes and a protein that are crucial to turning white fat cells into brown cells, the researchers found. It alsoRead More →

Jump Rope for Cardiovascular Health

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The journal Circulation released a statement which found that most children in the U.S. between the ages of 2-19 years old do not meet the American Heart Association’s classification of ideal childhood cardiovascular health. You can read a detailed analysis of how they determine their findings and procedures at the following link. Healthy eating, not smoking, etc. are all important factors in their determination, but I like to focus on the exercise component. I have worked for decades in conjunction with Jump Rope for Heart, which is one of the exercise initiatives of the American Heart Association. In fact, my schedule in January and FebruaryRead More →

Asthma feels like you're stuck in smoke

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I have a confession to make: I have asthma. This is something I’ve struggled with my whole life and has led to many interesting experiences throughout my career as an athlete. However, as I’ve gotten older, I have noticed that I have had less asthma attacks and when they do happen, they are significantly less severe. I don’t often discuss this with people, but when I do I mention that I have long held the belief that all the jump rope activities I do have helped my asthma. In fact, the more I push myself in jump rope (like when I was trying to breakRead More →

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Hopping (or jumping rope) on one foot for 2 minutes per day may reduce the risk of hip fracture. Today they published a study that followed some over 65 year olds for one year to see how hopping on one leg would impact their bone density. They only had them hop on one leg for the year so they could measure the difference between the hips. They found “Bone mass increased by up to 7% in parts of the exercised hip’s outer shell or cortex. The results also showed increases in the density of the layer of spongy bone under the cortex. These effects wereRead More →

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I love reading exercise related research studies because they so often prove the really obvious stuff. They certainly come out with some genuinely shocking news from time to time, but often it is verifying things that would seem rather obvious to most of us. This is a good thing since we shouldn’t blindly accept an idea, but I do find it entertaining to say the least. A recent study had this awesome headline “Exercise may reverse age-related bone loss in middle-aged men“. The study that was completed at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that “certain types of weight-lifting and jumping exercises, when completed for atRead More →

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Over the last couple of days I got to visit one of my best friends. Dennis Rogers is easily one of the strongest men in the world (pound for pound he is known to be the strongest man in the world) and one of only 2 living Grandmaster Strongmen in the world today. I asked him about some strengthening exercises for the forearm that would help with rope skipping and we ended up filming a number of videos that will be added to the site as soon as I get back to my computer (early next week). I’m excited to add a new section toRead More →

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From time to time, I think we all suffer from the notion that we can have everything we want, regardless of the contradictions between our desires. When my wife and I got married one of the first things we made a decision on was what our immediate and long-term financial goals would be. As with most young couples, we had the dream of paying off our house, traveling around the world and some other forgotten ideals. Soon after we got hitched, we signed up for an intense school tour where we spent 3 years traveling around the country performing around 375 shows per year. Awesome!Read More →

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Being a Professional Jump Roper has many perks and the one thing that everyone assumes is summed up in the most common question people ask me, ‘You must be able to eat whatever you want, right?’ Sure I can, but it’s not what you think. A few years ago when I started my business, I worked part time as a personal trainer. At the time I was either at the gym training people, jumping rope, unicycling, lifting weights or playing racquetball. I spent about half of my non-sleeping time working out. My body fat dropped into the 4 percent range and to be honest, IRead More →

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Once you have your Double Dutch turning down, it’s time to add a jumper. I do want to stress the importance of working on your turning first, if you can’t turn, nobody can jump. In fact, if you have 2 good turners, almost anyone can jump inside Double Dutch. Not too long ago I performed at a few different special needs schools in the Northeast. When I called up a couple volunteers during the show and said we were going to have them jump Double Dutch, I could see some of the workers grimace thinking there was no way their kids could do it. However,Read More →