Skip To Your Own Beat!

We all remember when we were kids and would skip away to our hearts' content at break time, jumping for hours whilst singing rhymes and ditties. But skipping is not just for the playground, it's a fantastic workout so here are the reasons why we love to skip as well as some tips and techniques to get you started!

Benefits of skipping
Skipping is a fantastic and effective way to exercise because it

• Burns calories
• Improves overall health and fitness
• Builds stamina and endurance
• Tones and strengthens your whole body
• helps your agility, balance and coordination
• improves flexibility

What's more, it's a fun way to work out! you can try different moves and skills, improve your speed and work on your technique. It's an easy piece of equipment to carry around with you to use at the gym or as a part of a run and even at home.

Tips and techniques
If you don't remember how to skip, don't worry! Here are some tips to get you started with the basic jump.

• The key is to keep your core engaged throughout. Not only will this help with toning it will help your balance and assist with more advanced skills
• Start with the rope behind you, holding the handles in front of you, hands together with elbows close to your side. Bend your knees slightly to prep the jump; as you do this start to swing your arms back.
• As the rope comes up behind you, take one jump and bring the rope over your head. You don't need to take a big jump, it should be a small bounce on the balls of your feet.
• Clear the rope and land with it back behind you, That's one jump! Now practice this continually until you find your rhythm and start picking up speed

Once you've mastered that you can try some different moves.

High knees skipping is a brilliant way to up your cardio intensity whilst helping tone your whole body. It also helps improve your strength, coordination, speed and endurance.
Double unders are a great cardio workout for maximum calorie burn and improving your strength and power.
The crossover is a great skipping move that helps increase your cardio, tone your shoulders and arms and give you an overall full body workout. It also improves your balance, agility and coordination.

Skip HIIT - Join the club!
Now that you've got some tips to get you started why don't you pick up a rope or even better join us at one of our Skip HIIT classes! Our classes combine skipping and resistance exercises for the ultimate calorie burning workout. Visit our AK Fit Club website for more details on our classes!

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