Kate Sullivan from CBS News visited a special edition, “Australia-themed” Punk Rope class at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan back in late January and the piece just aired today. Check out the video by clicking the image below.

First we need to set the record straight as there were a few errors in the report.

1) This particular class was NOT at the YMCA. The 14th Street Y is a JCC.
2) Punk Rope doesn’t necessarily burn 600 calories per class. It could burn more. It could burn less. Caloric expenditure is based on numerous factors.
3) We change themes every week for our classes at the 14th Street Y and the Greenpoint Y. Every day would be a bit much.
4) Rope jumping can be relatively low impact and with good technique should not be a problem for your knees.

On Tuesday we conducted a Hopping for Health workshop at PS 157, an elementary school, in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. We had the pleasure of jumping and playing with 14 members of the school’s staff for 3 hours.

After it was all said and done, one of the participants told us it was the best professional development workshop she had attended in 20 years! The assistant principal was so pleased that the school plans to have us back for another workshop before the semester is out.

Our hope is that we can continue to bring our style of fun, but intense fitness to schools all over the country.

Interval training, which is the training philosophy on which Punk Rope is predicated, garnered more support with a spate of articles on its effectiveness.

Some experts say intense exercise sessions could help people squeeze an entire week’s workout into less than an hour. Previously, it was thought that such intense workouts would be too extreme for the average person, but recent research on older people and those with health problems suggests that interval training may be able to be implemented safely for most individuals. If true, that could revolutionize how officials advise people to exercise — and save millions of people hours in the gym every week. It is also a smarter way to exercise, experts say.

“High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise,” said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “This is like finding a new pill that works twice as well … we should immediately throw out the old way of exercising.”

Intense interval training means working very hard for a few minutes, with rest periods between sets. Experts have mostly tested people running or biking, but other sports like rowing or swimming should also work.

Helgerud recommends people try four sessions lasting four minutes each, with three minutes of recovery time in between. Unless you’re an elite athlete, it shouldn’t be an all-out effort.

“You should be a little out of breath, but you shouldn’t have the obvious feeling of exhaustion,” Helgerud said.

In Britain and the U.S., officials recommend that people get about 2 1/2 hours each week of moderate exercise. Those guidelines target a mostly sedentary population and are intended to help with weight control and heart health, not boosting fitness levels, increasing strength or endurance.

Some experts have cautioned that ordinary people shouldn’t substitute their regular exercise routine for intense training.

“There isn’t enough evidence to say people should do one or the other,” said Gary O’Donovan, a sports and exercise expert at the University of Exeter. “Any bout of exercise has the potential to improve your blood pressure or lower your cholesterol, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be intense.”

Still, O’Donovan said more intense exercise would probably produce better benefits.

Helgerud says the time people spend in the gym could be slashed dramatically if they did interval training instead. He said officials have been too afraid of recommending intense training for fear it would be too much for some people.

“I’m much more afraid of people not exercising at all,” he said. “Inactivity is what’s killing us.”