4 sets x 20 sec + 16 sec recovery
1. Warm-up
2. Run & touch (6 yards)
3. Basketball shuffle (6 yards)
4. Side hops over cone
5. Water strider
6. Power skip (18 yards)
7. Plie squat jumps
8. 400 meter run
9. Forward walking lunge (60s)
10. Push-ups – staggered (4 x 20 sec)
11. Prone hip exten (4 x 30 sec)
12. Criss cross (4 x 30s)
13. Cooldown
Beastanetics Workout of the Week
Beastanetics Workout of the Week
4 sets x 20 sec + 18 sec recovery
- Warm-up
- Backpedal & run (6 yards)
- Carioca (18 yards)
- Butt kickers
- Break dance
- Extended skip (18 yards)
- Squat jumps
- 400 meter run
- Reverse lunge (60 sec)
- Push-ups – wide (4 x 20 sec)
- Maidenhead (4 x 30 sec)
- Ab curl – 1 leg extended (4 x 30 sec)
- Cooldown
Punk Rope Takes to the Streets
Shana Brady, Tim Haft, Rich Mudge, Jeremy Rafal, Howard Wu, and Tatsuya Yamada broke out the ropes on a deserted street in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Watch the video below to see what happened.
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Beastanetics – Workout of the Week
BEASTANETICS RECAP 8/2/12
4 sets x 20 sec + 20 sec recovery
1. Run (18 yards)
2. Lateral shuffle (18 yards)
3. Star jumps
4. Mountain climbers
5. Speed skip
6. Speed squats
400 meter run
Forward lunge (60 sec)
Push-ups – regular (4 x 20 sec)
Baby cobra (4 x 30 sec)
Single leg stretch (4 x 30 sec)
And the winner is….
Phat Positive.
Jeff Wood (aka Heavy Watt), Joe (Fat) Katz, Alanna Rios (aka Chubb Rock), and Heather Wagner (aka Krutch Groove) put on quite the show in capturing the Punk Rope Cup at the 4th Annual Punk Rope Games at William Sheridan Playground in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. More photos and videos to come soon.
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Martin Kirwan Interview: Part 2
This is the final part of our interview with Martin Kirwan, a former semi-pro soccer player, who hails from Ireland. Martin has 10 grandchildren and a great grandson. How many great grandparents do you know that are jumping rope?
You’ve created your own routine blending rope jumping with the TRX. Can you give us a snapshot of the routine?
Obviously the warm-up is very important, and I stretch my whole body, with particular emphasis on my leg and groin muscles. I do 3 minutes of jump rope, starting with the basic jump, then the jogger, straddles, playground hop, the skier, the boxer, and high knees to finish. With the TRX I focus on the abs. The first set I can do with no problem, but after my second and third sets of jump rope, my strength starts to falter. This is followed by a complete leg workout, which is also intense, then arms, shoulders, back, and core. All of these are done with very little recovery time. I then take a minute’s rest before my next jump rope set, which is the same as above. I have to remember I’m not the young stallion I was when I played semi-pro soccer.
What do you enjoy most about rope jumping? What do you find most challenging?
I would never have dreamed of doing jump rope as part of my routine, but I purchased a jump rope workout download from the TRX site, which features Buddy Lee (the rope jumping star), so I tried it and was amazed at how enjoyable the jump rope is. I like to push myself to my age limit, letting my body guide me on intensity so I don’t overdo it, but I never underdo it either. My heart is pumping near its maximum for my age. The jump rope is very challenging from set two to three, but I always manage to finish my routine. I might miss a few jumps, but hey I’m a beginner.
Do you listen to music while you workout? If so, any favorite tunes?
Not really. I start about 6:30am so don’t want to annoy the neighbors or the Rottweiler, but if you want to know my taste I am a big Doobie Brothers fan. I also like Steely Dan, James Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, and at the moment when working at my PC, Ludovico Einaudi. He really calms the system down.
Tell us a bit about your semi-pro soccer career.
I played for my hometown club — Club Drogheda United — from 1976 to 1985, having been part of their successful youth team that won the F.A.I. Youth Cup. My fondest memories are signing semi-pro forms, and then captaining the club in my final season. I always wore my heart on my sleeve for the club, and no matter how bad times were, the hairs on the back of my neck always stood up when I pulled the shirt on. My one regret was when Brian Kerr (who then managed the Irish national team) offered me a contract to play for Saint Patrick’s Athletic in Dublin, but I couldn’t commit as I had a young family, didn’t drive, and travelling to Dublin four times a week for training and matches would have been too much. The following year, on the last day of the season, we played St. Pats and they won the league at our ground. So I missed out on a League of Ireland Winners’ Medal. Also when I returned to Ireland from England I lost all my memorabilia from my soccer career, so I have no newspaper cuttings or anything to show my grandchildren, however my 21-year-old grandson is always telling me that he met this person and that person (he doesn’t remember names too well) and they always tell him how good a midfielder I was.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Yes Tim, I was really struggling to get a momentum going with the jump rope. As much as I watched videos on YouTube they never really showed the basics — just guys showing off their skills. Then one day Punk Rope appeared on the list and I viewed some videos, and these were very helpful to me, so I purchased your downloadable DVD. It takes me through the very basics of the skill, which is what I need to perfect it, and now I am doing 3-minute sets without hardly any breaks. It’s all on account of the attention to detail on your jump rope DVD so many thanks for that.
Can rope jumping lower cholesterol? Ask Martin.
This is part 1 of our interview with Martin Kirwan, a former semi-pro soccer player, who hails from Ireland. Martin has 10 grandchildren and a great grandson. How many great grandparents do you know that are jumping rope?
How’s your cholesterol now that you’ve been upping the intensity of your workouts?
The reason for me training again is because my cholesterol was 8.2, which is serious. 3 to 4 is considered acceptable. I hadn’t done any training of any sort for 18 years, so if I may say so myself I am surprised at my level of fitness. I started off with a 5-minute run around the block and I was absolutely knackered after it, but I gradually built it up and then moved on to The Sean T Insanity program. My 38-year-old son tried it and lasted 12 minutes. He was mortified that his old man could do the complete program. Anyway, I just had my cholesterol retested an it is down from 8.2 to 4. My doctor was very impressed that I accomplished this without any medication. He said for a man of my age to achieve this is impressive indeed. He told me to keep up the good work. I told him “I’ll just keep jumping.”
Have you made any modifications to your diet? If so, which ones?
Because of my soccer background, I know how important my diet is for results, so just some basic modifications where I never drink fizzy drinks at all, cut down on the chocolate, and take plenty of vitamins, and protein drinks.
You mentioned that you played semi-pro soccer for many years. Did you do any skipping for fitness back then?
In my time we usually stuck to the fitness routines for our particular sport, however I had a friend who was a boxer and every time we would have a drink together he always brought this up that skipping was great for the cardiovascular system and for coordination, but his advice always fell on deaf ears.
Would you recommend rope jumping to today’s youth soccer players? If so, why?
My 7-year-old grandson is doing very well at the soccer academy. He’s scored 29 goals in 16 matches, and all from midfield, so when he turns 8 in October I am going to introduce him to some basic jump rope techniques to improve his balance, speed, and coordination.
Punk Rope Rocks Highway to Health
We’ve made appearances at countless health fairs and festivals over the years, but you never really know what’s going to happen until the event actually starts. Fortunately, yesterday’s Highway to Health Festival, which was produced by HealthCorps, was one of the best we’ve ever attended.
Thanks to Joe, Liz, Howard, and Shana, the Punk Rope booth was hopping all day. Since the event took place at South Street Seaport, we had the pleasure of teaching rope jumping to a large number of tourists, as well as locals. The broad jump mat (see photo below) was a big hit with kids of all ages including those over 50. People love immediate feedback and it doesn’t get more immediate than looking down to see how far you jumped. One of the highlights of the day was turning the long rope for our friend, Adam, the founder of Just One Wheel. What made it especially cool was that Adam was jumping over the rope while on a unicycle!
The Punk Rope demo on the main stage featured rousing renditions of Olé by the Bouncing Souls and Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones. And the day concluded with a raucous competition under the tent. Events included crossing, double unders, spoons, long rope, “pull it together” (3-person squat), standing broad jump, and push-ups. Four lucky folks received pairs of Ropix rope jumping shoes and we also gave away some jump ropes, T-shirts, and DVDs.
Yes, we have a rope jumping instructional DVD!
Nearly four years in the making at a cost of countless millions, Rope Jumping for Maximum Fitness is finally a reality. Okay, we’re kidding about the countless millions, but there’s no doubt that a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into the project.
Lovingly directed and shot by Cynthia Malaran, the 74-minute DVD was shot on location at Location One, an art gallery in Soho and stars two time Punk Rope Games champ, Howard Wu, Beastanetics all-star, Heather Wagner, and Tim and Shana. Alfred and Tonka appear courtesy of their agents.
The DVD focuses on rope jumping basics and provides detailed instructions on how to perform more than 20 steps, which improve timing, coordination, agility, speed, endurance, power, strength, and more. Also covered are how to fix common mistakes, proper warm-up and cooldown protocols, and some simple exercises, which help ward off injury.
56 minutes of the video are devoted to instruction and 18 minutes to an actual workout, which is fueled by the sonic boom of New York-based bands Alice Texas, ps xo, The Likely Hoods, and The Shalitas.
The physical DVD is available for $15.00 (and includes the Jump Rope Made Easy PDF Manual) or as a digital download for $6.00.
You can check out the DVD trailer by clicking here.
Leave a commentWhen Punk Rope Comes Marching In
Last Wednesday, Shana and I, along with our Dixieland jazz band—comprised of Jeff Wood, Heather Wagner, Matt Maley, and Frank Cohen—were honored to represent Punk Rope at the HealthCorps’ Annual Gala. The event was held at the famed Waldorf-Astoria hotel and approximately 700 guests were in attendance including HealthCorps founder, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and honorees, Diane Sawyer and Matthew Modine.
If you’re not familiar with HealthCorps, it’s a wonderful organization, which places recent college graduates in inner city high schools to help students improve their health, nutrition, and fitness habits. Currently HealthCorps is operating in 53 schools in 12 states. Punk Rope has been pleased to be a partner since 2008.
We presented two Punk Rope demonstrations, in formal attire no less, to provide the guests with a sense of how we put a playful and sometimes “fantastical” spin on exercise, which hopefully captures students’ attention and provides them with a good workout and maybe a few good laughs as well.
The demonstrations were set to “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “New Second Line” and featured a “Dixieland jazz band drill,” partner punk-ups, playfighting with foam swords, a rubber chicken relay race, and a Mardi Gras procession. All the activities were performed flawlessly by our volunteers (see photo at left)—Gerlena, Karim, Cosima, and Jennifer—all high school students.
We’ll be partnering again with HealthCorps on Sunday, May 20 at their Highway to Health Festival at South Street Seaport. Stop by between 1 and 2:30pm to compete in a scaled-down version of the Punk Rope Games. You might just win a prize!
Our hope is that next year we’ll have an opportunity to share our philosophy and methodology with the entire HealthCorps staff nationwide.
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