Women: How To Get Into Shape FAST Without Spending a Fortune

The majority of the women I know are throwing their money down the toilet. You might be doing the same as them.

Are you one of the thousands of women in the UK who are a member of a gym? Are you, like some girls I know, paying upward of £50 a month to keep fit? Why are you doing this?

The Greek “Gymnasium” means “place to be naked”. The meaning had changed somewhat by the time gyms became popular across the US in the 1970s, particularly after the documentary Pumping Iron, that which shot this young man to fame:

This documentary inspired a generation of men to hit the weights and get huge. In the 70s and 80s, gyms sprung up all over the country. The UK, like the US, went gym-mad. With the introduction of cardio equipment in the 80s, women started to work out too.

Most men pay money to go to the gym to build muscles. The cardio equipment in the gym I use to warm up, to stop my muscles from being damaged when I start lifting weights. I do test my cardio alongside my strength, but I mostly go to the gym to get strong.

If all I wanted to do was stay slim and trim, I’d use a skipping rope. A while back, I performed an exercise experiment. I went skipping for sixty minutes. My weight dropped from 64.4kg to 64.0kg. That equates to 100g every fifteen minutes.

If you skip for fifteen minutes every day, you can lose a kilo in a week and a half. You’ll tone up all the muscle sets in your whole body. It won’t turn you huge, but it will develop a fair amount of natural, balanced strength. It’s also the easiest way of lifting your heart rate above normal, meaning a healthier heart. Skipping is also the token warm-up exercise for most combat sports, including boxing, Muay Thai boxing and Mixed Martial Arts. In these sports, competitors must make a certain weight in order to fight. If they are above that weight, they are given a rope and are to skip until the weight comes off. If it works for heavyweight fighting types, it can work for anyone.

The thrust of my argument: Why do women spend so much money just trying to “get into shape”, when they can buy a skipping rope for £10 in most sports shops and do this at home?

Here’s a video for those who’ve not done it since they were ten.

The fact that this would free up a lot of space on the machines for men like me, well… that’s by the by…