Jump Rope

It’s been raining every single day lately, so I figured I can’t keep running if the weather’s like this — I need some other way to work out…

So I bought this:

Jump rope…

A Mi Home Yunmai jump rope.

Honestly, at first I didn’t think much of it — figured it was just a crappy piece of rope. And I never took jump rope seriously as a sport anyway. It’s just bouncing, right? What’s so hard about it? Running’s better.

Yamamoto Nozomi once said she was going to jump rope to lose weight, and I thought it was a joke. Jump rope losing you weight, my ass… go run…

Then I took the thing out and actually tried it. Three sets the first time, a few minutes’ rest in between, maybe a thousand skips total.

I felt like I was going to die. Absolutely wrecked.

First off, jump rope is genuinely exhausting. Second, it’s really hard to keep going without stopping — trip over your own feet once and the frustration hits you hard.

If you want to improve your success rate, you have to jump higher. Jump higher and you get tired faster…

They say jump rope is one of the training drills for boxers, and guys like Zou Shiming make it look effortless.

Meanwhile I’m still wiped out doing it, way more than running…

I’m never looking down on jump rope again. Gotta find some time to get better at it.