Skipping rope

[Damian1977]

I have decided to add rope skipping into my cardio routine, since stationary cycling does not work the hamstrings and calves.

My routine is as follows:

I do joint mobility exercises for my upper body from Pavel Tsatsouline's book on stretching, and i do stretching for my achilles, then I walk 10 minutes on my treadmill at 3 mph to warm up, then I do static stretching for my lower body, then I do pushups and ab work, then I do some upper body stretching, then ride the bike immediately afterwards for 40 minutes at 17 mph at high level moderate resistance, then i walk 10 minutes at 3 mph to cooldown then finish with some cooldown static stretching.

I would like to add skipping rope to take care of this hamstring and calves neglect.

how would yall do this?

and, also is my routine I detailed above, good, or does it have errors?

[Bubba3000]

It sounds okay, but are you training to compete? It's a good workout for your average guy to keep in shape, not for a combat athlete.

As for rope work, I'd recommend mixing it up like any cardio. Skip in two and three minute rounds with 30 second rests, mixing up your steps and patterns throughout each round (feet together, then alternating single steps, alternating double steps, then jogging forward and backward). I'm not going to recommend any of the fancy cross-over stuff, because I still suck at it myself.

Make sure to include some sprints where you go as fast as you can for 20 seconds, then slow right down for 10. Try and do that 6 to 8 times.

I love the rope. It's my favourite kind of cardio -- way more fun than running, because you can challenge your coordination with new steps and patterns.