Jump Rope Ouch

Sorry for the delay in getting going on the month for Jump Rope. On Sunday, November 1st, I attended a workshop for a kick ass jump rope exercise class and it took almost an entire week to recover from the damage done to my calves.

So here's how it went.

10:00am - I arrived at the YMCA, found the room, shook hands, signed in, and did all the friendly introduction stuff. There were probably 15 people there, 3 of which were men.

10:30am - The demo class started. Yeehaw! Seeing that it was the day after Halloween, it wouldn't have been right to ignore the obvious theme opportunities here. Class started with a little warm up, just to get the muscles woken up and informed that they were about to have their little asses kicked something serious.

10:40am - This is a guestimation of course, I was far too busy to stare at the clock to know for sure. Time to start jumping over those ropes people. Just a basic little hop, no big deal. Hold it for about 2 mins. Keep with it, don't quit on me, it's just 2 mins. Have any of you jumped rope for 2 mins without stopping..ever? Give it a try and tell me how you feel.

10:43am - Time for some interval switcharoo stuff now. How about a few squats and various other calisthenics.

10:46am - Pick up your ropes and starta jumpin'. This time, on every verse of the Rob Zombie, I want you to switch it up. Maybe start with a basic jump, then switch to some cross overs, how about changing direction and swing the rope backwards, and continue that through the entire song. Nice job.

10:50am - Ready for your first relay race? No? Too bad...let's do it. Since it's Halloween and all, how about we use pumpkins. You know, the plastic kind with the black handle that you used when you were a kid for trick or treating? Ya, those ones. Run half way across the gym, place your pumpkin on the line, run the rest of the way, return to pick up your pumpkin and hand it to the next racer. Run run run. 3 mins. Nice.

10:53am - You guessed it, time to jump rope again. This time, we're going see how many double-unders we can do. Oh ya, you know what I'm talking about. Where you swing the rope twice under one jump. That'll get the heart rate up there if you haven't managed to get it working so far. Again, keep up for the entire song.

10:56am - Game time. Oh boy, time to rest? Not so fast. Game time in Punk Rope means you're going to be moving around at a vigorous pace for no less than the duration of the next song. This game is called witches brew. Fun game. And very very tiring. You wanna know how to play the game? Guess you'll have to go to a class in your area around Halloween to find out. :) Neener Neener.

11:00am - Jump jump jump that rope. This time, we're going see how fast we can jump to the fastest song in music history. Can you make your feet keep up with the nasty fast beat? Oh, and don't forget that you get to keep it up for the entire song. Oy!

11:04am - Another relay race? Na. I'll be nice and give you some calisthenics to do instead. Hows about a few push ups, squats, and so on. Ya. That'll do it.

11:07am - Freestyle jump rope now. Do whatever you want for the duration of the song. Fun.

11:10am - Another game. This time, it's ZOMBIE TAG while skipping of course, because that's what zombies do, they skip. :) So much fun. I feel like a kid again. I very very tired kid.

11:14am - More jump rope. Maybe we can play double-dutch or egg-beater now. How about jump rope baseball? Whatever works. Just jump rope.

11:17am - Time for a team exercise. This is fun, we can get creative. Yay!

11:20am - Okay, with 10 mins left of class, perhaps we should start to cool down a little. Do some upper body work, get that heart rate to slow down, do some good stretching, maybe a bit of abs. That should do it.

Congrats! You made it, if you're lucky. :)

Okay, so that was the first hour of the workshop. Now add 5 hours to that. That was pretty much my day, give or take.

My calf muscles were screaming at me all week. I think the real theme of the Halloween class followed me home because I was walking like Frankenstein until Friday.

The best thing about it is...I'm now one of the lucky few allowed to teach this class. So, I get to do it over and over and over to lots of other people. Yay! Now I need to work out the details and figure out when, where, who, and how much. Damn details.