Maybe you remember rope climbing from PE (or "Gym Class") in school. Maybe you did some as a kid just for fun, or as part of fitness training as an adult. It's good exercise, and can be good fun, too.
But what if you want to climb indoors and don't have a high ceiling? Or what if your upper body strength relative to your weight isn't so good? Never fear, a modification is here!
In the classic movie Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (you know, the first one), Luke is getting schooled in the ways of The Force by Jedi master Yoda when Yoda tells him to use The Force to levitate his X-Wing fighter out of a swamp. Luke is skeptical, to say the least, and tells Yoda, "Alright, I'll give it a try." Yoda's response is a classic within a classic: "Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try." (Luke gives it a shot but fails.)
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a proven way to develop your conditioning. They're also excellent for fat-burning. And one of the best exercises for doing both is hill sprints.
Now, for those of you who think sprinting up a hill is too much for you, let's use our own definition of "sprint" here. While it's normally considered to be running at (or near) full speed, we'll consider it to be moving at (or near) your full speed. So a "sprint" might be a fast walk for some people; that's OK. The important part is the intensity, which must, obviously, be high. So moving at (or near) full speed uphill for a short time constitutes a hill sprint. See? I knew you could do it!
There's no shortage of "challenges" to choose from these days. A 28-day Squat Challenge, 30-day Plank Challenge, 30-day Triceps Dips Challenge (seriously?). The allure is pretty obvious: it's just 30 days and you're done. Not to mention the often ludicrous claims associated with some of them. (Planking to lose inches from your waist? Gah!)
Challenges of this sort can be useful, if used properly. But there are, as always, caveats.
Jumping on boxes has become rather popular in some fitness circles. Jumping for fitness has been around for a long time. Jumping onto extremely high boxes or platforms has only recently become a fitness fad of sorts. Unfortunately, it's also led to a number of unpleasant consequences.
But you don't need a really high box to get the benefits of box jumps.
Last time, we wrapped up the movements of the Walking Wapping Warm-up:
(By the way, the picture above doesn't have anything to do with the warm-up, although it was used in the Knees post. It's just a neat picture.)
Now, just to get some closure, here's a brief wrap-up about putting it all together.
We're on the last movement of our Walking Wapping Warm-up series. Oh, the sadness! For handy dandy reference purposes, here's how we got this far:
As you know, the second half of the warm-up focuses on the lower body. And this one follows suit. It's the mythical, legendary...outside knee!
