Jump Ropes and the Disadvantage of 24 Hour Gyms

I did something the other day that I hadn't done in years; I used a jump rope. I found a nice little workout to do on days where I don't have a whole lot of time. It involves two different weight exercises with 45 seconds of jump rope in between. It sounded simple enough, so I wrote it in the notebook where I keep track of those things and headed off to the gym.

I am a member of a twenty-four hour gym. I love it. I can go late at night when no one is there, get in, do my stuff, and get out. I can count the number of times I've been there during the normal business hours on one hand. I did discover one disadvantage of that on this particular night. I found the jump ropes and got a couple of dumbbells and went about my workout. I somehow broke the rope within thirty seconds. I was trying to find my rhythm and I ended up stepping on the rope and it broke. It was worn near the handle and I was the proverbial straw on the proverbial camel's back.

I was alone in the gym. I just stood there staring at it for a second. If this had been during the normal business hours I would have found one of the gym staff and explained the situation, but I was alone. And the little kid who is constantly afraid of getting in trouble that lives inside me, begin to freak out. I debated just running and leaving and pretending that nothing happened. That's when I looked up and remembered that the place has twenty-four hour surveillance cameras, which sent said inner child freaking out again. To do my best to calm him down I wrote a note and stuck the busted rope in the door handle of the owner's office telling him to contact me and tell me how much I owed him. I doubt it's the same price as the stupid jump ropes we got in elementary school during Jump Rope for Heart events.

That brings me to the other detail of this night. I don't think I'd used a jump rope since those elementary school days. I remembered those weeks in gym being fun and easy days with lots of jump rope games and such. I had often wondered over the intervening years why jump ropes were part of so many workouts I'd seen. I didn't realize that it becomes infinitely harder when you are no longer eleven years old. Finding a rhythm that worked was awful (hence the broken rope). Once I did find some clumsy semblance of a rhythm I became winded super quickly, so much so that I was only able to do half of the workout, because I began creeping close to an asthma attack, something else that hasn’t happened much since those elementary school days.

So this workout night allowed me to learn three things:

1.     There are disadvantages to a twenty-four hour gym.

2.     My asthma is not as dormant as I had thought.

3.     Young children on playgrounds and street corners everywhere should be commended for the extreme effort they put into their rope skipping.