I’m talking to a friend about visiting his CrossFit box and keeping him company for a workout. “Ok, but promise you won’t make fun of my kips and my double-unders!”, I ask.
“Ha. So you have a DUI, eh”, he grins.
“A what???”
“DUI = double-unders impairment”, he explains patiently.
Indeed. It’s been months, and my double-unders got worse, not better. 🙂 I am really good at whipping myself with a rope though.
So if you are struggling with the same issue, and cannot do double-unders, here’s a possible reason why:
- your rope is too short
- your rope is too long
- your rope is too cheap
- your rope is worn out and catches on the floor
- your shoes have too much traction, so the rope catches on them
- your shoelaces are too long
- your pants are too baggy
- you are not moving your wrists fast enough
- you are not jumping high enough
- your rhythm is off
J.P. Morgan once said that a man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. It is perhaps telling that J.P. Morgan was a banker (cue loud laughter). Morgan, as in Morgan Stanley – a global financial services firm. But the sentiment stands.
All reasons above are good reasons for why you (and I) can’t do double-unders.
But here’s the real reason I can’t do double-unders…
I haven’t done enough double-unders.
A client, who is an Olympic lifting coach, learned during one of her certifications that it takes 5,000 snatches to actually get a decent snatch. To feel that movement. To develop muscle memory.
Malcolm Gladwell actually says something similar in his “Outliers” – mastering a specific task takes 10,000 hours of practice. While I definitely hope it will take me less than that to get a hang of the basic movement itself, I’d better start jumping…
***
In other breaking news…
I CAN KIP. Not very well. Not for very long.
But I can fucking kip.
Few more months of this, and I will feel fully justified in making fun of the kipping pull-ups.
Signing off,
SOLO
