Well, a couple of days ago I asked the peanut-gallery for a high-gain, low-time-investment cardio workout. Rebecca came through and suggested jumping rope. As it turns out, my wife had a jump rope hanging in the garage, so this evening I decided to give it a go.

First the good news. It did get my heart rate up very efficiently. Now the bad news. The best I could do was 11 revolutions in a row. At first the rope was hitting me in the ankles. After I fixed that, it started (I kid you not) hitting me in the ears. Bear in mind that when I was 8-9 I jumped rope for a couple of hours straight in some charity thing, so this was unexpected to say the least.

So I just talked to my wife about it on her way home from work. It turns out that jump ropes come in different lengths. Makes sense, but I hadn’t even thought about it. Turns out that this one, while right for her, is too short for me. The test she told me that she’d heard about was to stand on it, feet shoulder width apart, and make sure that you could bring your elbows up to 90 degrees. I could only manage about 45.

D’oh…

So, now I have another item on my shopping list.

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