Exercise Gimmicks Vol. I: JumpSnap
Jumping rope is a great cardiovascular exercise, for sure. But if you can’t do it, then the folks selling “JumpSnap” have the perfect solution for you.
Or maybe not: it sure looks catchy, and the video is awesome. But forget the background music and choreography for a moment and look a little closer at what everyone is doing…
That’s right. They’re simply jumping up and down while waving a pair of talking handles around. Can you get a good workout by jumping up and down? Absolutely…but do you really need to fork out $59.95 for the privilege? Even though I have two left feet, I’m quite certain I could manage to jump around without the handles and set of instructional DVDs, thank you very much.
Forget the gimmicks. If you can’t jump rope, faking it with a pair of expensive (and useless) handles isn’t the solution. The solution is to practice. It won’t be long before you can keep going long enough to get in a solid cardio workout.
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Paul on 31 Mar 2008 at 4:11 pm #
A few years ago, CBC radio had a contest with listeners to come up with words to describe certain phenomena for which no words existed. One listener came up with the word “crapitilism” to describe “an economic system that derives wealth from seducing people into consuming vast amounts of crap” (useless stuff, things that break easily, etc, etc). To me, the JumpSnap is the perfect demonstration of that word.
Why spend $5 on a skipping rope, and learn what any 5 year old can master in about 10 minutes, when you can spend $60 on JumpSnap?