Not THAT kind of shredded
May 14, 2020 7:17 PM Subscribe
How do I make my jump rope routine easier on my legs?
I've started jumping rope for cardio in quarantine, and I love it -- it gets the blood moving, it's fun, and I'm feeling the benefits in my heart and lungs. But it also puts a ridiculous amount of strain on my calf muscles! I can do five minutes maybe two days in a row, but then I need to take a couple of days off to jump again without significant pain. I've tried doing just a couple of shorter sprints (two minutes) with a break in between; I've made sure my technique is right; I've introduced a better warm-up, but nothing I do seems to help. I've been at this for a month and the problem hasn't gone away. Do I need to change tack? Start even slower? Are some people just not built for this?
If it helps, I'm a short, lightly built trans man who's not used to cardio or intense exercise (I always stayed reasonably in shape from walking and having an active job lifting boxes of old documents all day). I do a little yoga and a lot of push-ups instead now that I'm working from home. I'm jumping on a wood laminate floor.
I've started jumping rope for cardio in quarantine, and I love it -- it gets the blood moving, it's fun, and I'm feeling the benefits in my heart and lungs. But it also puts a ridiculous amount of strain on my calf muscles! I can do five minutes maybe two days in a row, but then I need to take a couple of days off to jump again without significant pain. I've tried doing just a couple of shorter sprints (two minutes) with a break in between; I've made sure my technique is right; I've introduced a better warm-up, but nothing I do seems to help. I've been at this for a month and the problem hasn't gone away. Do I need to change tack? Start even slower? Are some people just not built for this?
If it helps, I'm a short, lightly built trans man who's not used to cardio or intense exercise (I always stayed reasonably in shape from walking and having an active job lifting boxes of old documents all day). I do a little yoga and a lot of push-ups instead now that I'm working from home. I'm jumping on a wood laminate floor.
Hello fellow jump roper! I also started using this as my main form of exercise, as I don't feel safe running outdoors these days. I find that jumping rope needs the same slow build-up that I used for running, a sort of couch25k program to increase muscle strength and endurance.
Definitely make sure you are wearing good supportive shoes, try not to jump too high, consider foam rolling as speakeasy mentioned, and keep taking breaks. It will take a while for your body to adjust to this kind of stress and the right muscles to find their strength.
The /r/jumprope subreddit has been useful to me just for browsing, too - figure out what tips other people recommend to beginners, what's normal pain and what may be caused by improper form while jumping, and also inspiration for all the amazing tricks I hope to accomplish one day. The Jump Rope Dudes on YouTube are pretty fun as well.
posted by erratic meatsack at 11:05 PM on May 14, 2020
Definitely make sure you are wearing good supportive shoes, try not to jump too high, consider foam rolling as speakeasy mentioned, and keep taking breaks. It will take a while for your body to adjust to this kind of stress and the right muscles to find their strength.
The /r/jumprope subreddit has been useful to me just for browsing, too - figure out what tips other people recommend to beginners, what's normal pain and what may be caused by improper form while jumping, and also inspiration for all the amazing tricks I hope to accomplish one day. The Jump Rope Dudes on YouTube are pretty fun as well.
posted by erratic meatsack at 11:05 PM on May 14, 2020
High-intensity -- and this is relative, so you're doing highly instense stuff for you right now -- will need a longer recovery time. It might be harder to build habit if you start with 5 minutes every other day, but you'll be able to build a sequence of these and make the sessions longer and more frequent.
posted by k3ninho at 1:24 AM on May 15, 2020
posted by k3ninho at 1:24 AM on May 15, 2020
>Are some people just not built for this?
Some people are more vulnerable to injury from high impact than others for a variety of reasons, absolutely. If you’ve got pain happening such that you need to stop after two five-minute sessions, I think the best idea is to find a different form of cardio to enjoy, ideally a low impact one. If you have no other kind of pain, consider low-impact HIIT workouts (eg bodyweight ones with burpees & mountain climbers, or circuit-style workouts with dumbbells and/or a step).
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:48 AM on May 15, 2020
Some people are more vulnerable to injury from high impact than others for a variety of reasons, absolutely. If you’ve got pain happening such that you need to stop after two five-minute sessions, I think the best idea is to find a different form of cardio to enjoy, ideally a low impact one. If you have no other kind of pain, consider low-impact HIIT workouts (eg bodyweight ones with burpees & mountain climbers, or circuit-style workouts with dumbbells and/or a step).
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:48 AM on May 15, 2020
Use a varying schedule of how long you skip. Skipping counts as weight training or intense cardio or both so you should be resting at a minimum one day out of every three to five days. You're not supposed to be doing it more than four days in a row even when you are in good condition and running at your peak. To get to the four days in a row stage reduce your workout intensity so that you can do four days in a row. Quite possibly that won't allow you to get the intense cardio that burns cortisol that you are looking for, so you may need to substitute other cardio in the meantime.
There is a reason why athletes have a leg day and an arm day at the gym, and it is so they can continue to train during the necessary rest days.You need those rest days to heal the minute muscle tears that happen with intense exercise, and you need those muscle tears and the healing to gain stronger muscles. Don't try to skip every day, find alternative exercises for the rest days. You can't sustain the intensity you are now at until you have trained enough with rests to get there.
If you need to keep in a daily routine to avoid faltering and giving up, stand on your skipping mat (you are using one and good shoes, right?) and do arm weights slowly and unweighted intense arm motions to get your heart rate up at least a little bit on your rest days. Think an upper body dance routine. Throwing and catching a ball is another upper body workout that you could use as a placeholder on rest days.
Do lots of stretches, not just as warm ups. Maybe do them six or eight times a day, not just hamstring stretches but leg stretches of all kinds including squatting and the one where you lean back as far as you comfortably can while kneeling to stretch the front of your legs. A minute and a half while waiting for your game to load, or the kettle to boil or for a reply on messenger are good routines.
Do cool downs possibly including massaging your own legs. Cool downs are important. You get rid of a lot of metabolites by walking after you exercise. Flopping into a chair exhausted is a sign you are seriously over training. You need to walk a quarter mile comfortably when you have finished skipping, if necessary on the spot watching a walking trail video.
Hydration and salt balance. If the third day after exercising is painful it could be that you have burned enough fluid over those two days that by the second one your are just dehydrated enough not to be metabolizing out the by products of exertion sufficiently.
If you don't already have one get a non-skid anti fatigue mat to jump on. This is important, as are the really good shoes with soles designed to protect you from high impact. A great many people blow their knees and end up with permanent knee and foot problems. Please, please, for the love of God, do EVERYTHING you can to prevent this. Ideally you want to say "Huh, what a waste it was to use the mats and spend so much money on shoes all these years, seems like ti was completely unnecessary," when you are in your sixties, instead of, "I used to skip in my twenties but I started to have problems in my thirties, and then I was hobbling in my forties. The right one is polyethylene and stainless steel and they'll be doing the left one in another couple of years but I do really well on the arthritis meds and only have to use my cane on a bad day..."
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:53 AM on May 15, 2020
There is a reason why athletes have a leg day and an arm day at the gym, and it is so they can continue to train during the necessary rest days.You need those rest days to heal the minute muscle tears that happen with intense exercise, and you need those muscle tears and the healing to gain stronger muscles. Don't try to skip every day, find alternative exercises for the rest days. You can't sustain the intensity you are now at until you have trained enough with rests to get there.
If you need to keep in a daily routine to avoid faltering and giving up, stand on your skipping mat (you are using one and good shoes, right?) and do arm weights slowly and unweighted intense arm motions to get your heart rate up at least a little bit on your rest days. Think an upper body dance routine. Throwing and catching a ball is another upper body workout that you could use as a placeholder on rest days.
Do lots of stretches, not just as warm ups. Maybe do them six or eight times a day, not just hamstring stretches but leg stretches of all kinds including squatting and the one where you lean back as far as you comfortably can while kneeling to stretch the front of your legs. A minute and a half while waiting for your game to load, or the kettle to boil or for a reply on messenger are good routines.
Do cool downs possibly including massaging your own legs. Cool downs are important. You get rid of a lot of metabolites by walking after you exercise. Flopping into a chair exhausted is a sign you are seriously over training. You need to walk a quarter mile comfortably when you have finished skipping, if necessary on the spot watching a walking trail video.
Hydration and salt balance. If the third day after exercising is painful it could be that you have burned enough fluid over those two days that by the second one your are just dehydrated enough not to be metabolizing out the by products of exertion sufficiently.
If you don't already have one get a non-skid anti fatigue mat to jump on. This is important, as are the really good shoes with soles designed to protect you from high impact. A great many people blow their knees and end up with permanent knee and foot problems. Please, please, for the love of God, do EVERYTHING you can to prevent this. Ideally you want to say "Huh, what a waste it was to use the mats and spend so much money on shoes all these years, seems like ti was completely unnecessary," when you are in your sixties, instead of, "I used to skip in my twenties but I started to have problems in my thirties, and then I was hobbling in my forties. The right one is polyethylene and stainless steel and they'll be doing the left one in another couple of years but I do really well on the arthritis meds and only have to use my cane on a bad day..."
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:53 AM on May 15, 2020
Response by poster: Thank you so much for the advice! The answer to virtually every question y'all had is "not yet" or "not enough" -- I'm going to improve cushioning, alternate with more kinds of exercise, limit my time, and consider the possibility that other forms of home cardio will be better suited for me.
posted by thesmallmachine at 3:03 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by thesmallmachine at 3:03 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
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I'd try foam rolling (start carefully, it can huuuurt), building leg strength and yeah, def. a good warm up and shorter sets. Skipping rope is intense! That's why you need like a Rocky Balboa type soundtrack.
posted by speakeasy at 8:34 PM on May 14, 2020