ROPING 'EM IN WITH NEW WORKOUT : LOOK HERE BEFORE YOU LEAP.

Byline: Judith Zimmer The New York Times

Lisa Weber, 23, started jumping rope when she was 10, and she hasn't stopped. In elementary and junior high school, she was on rope-skipping teams and competed in tournaments. ``Even now, in college, you see people doing it,'' said Weber, a senior at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley. ``At my college, I have four or five former team members, and we get together to jump.''

Weber is used to participating in a sport that is little understood. ``You rarely find someone who knows what rope skipping is about,'' she said. ``But I think it will catch on. People are amazed by what they see.''

What they see is an activity that is not just for children. Long confined to the playground crowd, the sport is becoming more popular among adults. ``Twenty years ago, jumping rope was for kids and boxers,'' said Bobby Hinds, the president of Lifeline International Inc. in Madison, Wis., which makes portable exercise equipment and has sold jump ropes, mostly by direct mail, since 1975. ``Now my biggest sales are to 35- to 55-year-olds.''

Accomplished rope skippers like Weber are skilled athletes who use a single rope to create a fluid movement of kicks, turns and spins, all while jumping through the rope and seeming to hover just a few inches off the ground.

Rope jumping can be done just about anywhere. It is inexpensive (a rope costs about $10), and exercise experts and trainers consider it one of the best cardiovascular exercises around. Jumping, long used as a training tool for boxers, is now being used by tennis and basketball players and is an alternative to other cardiovascular fitness activities. Exercise videos promote jumping, and some health clubs offer classes.

Eric Anderson, 42, of Manhattan was introduced to rope jumping three years ago in a boxing class at Equinox Fitness Clubs. ``For me, it was a throwback to learning something new,'' he said. It is now Anderson's main aerobic activity. When not taking classes, he jumps in a corner of the club, and he takes a rope with him when he travels. ``I jump in hotel rooms and gyms,'' he said. ``I never have to quit.''

The cardiovascular intensity of rope jumping, along with fears of boredom and injury, keep many people from trying it.

``Jumping rope labors under too many myths and misconceptions,'' said Ken M. Solis, an emergency-room physician at the Beaver Dam (Wis.) Community Hospital who has held two Guinness world records and is known as Dr. Jump by his colleagues. ``One is the potential for injury. In jumping rope, the stress to the knee is less than running.'' He explained that the calves and shins absorb the impact of jumps, while in running, the impact is transmitted to the joints above.

``Essentially, rope jumping can improve every major area of fitness, with the exception of flexibility,'' Solis said. ``You develop upper and lower body muscles. You develop quickness and speed, coordination, timing and rhythm. Rope skipping will be a more popular exercise as people realize the benefits.''

Ron Bouvier, the president of Ex-U-Rope in Hubbardston, Mass., can already attest to that. Ex-U-Rope, which makes children's jump ropes for the American Heart Association, sold about 500 adult jump ropes to sporting goods stores in 1985. In 1994, he sold more than 16,000, and last year, more than 42,000. At Paragon Sporting Goods in Manhattan, which sells about 10 kinds of jump ropes for adults, sales are 50 percent higher than they were two years ago.

Now there is even an organization for jumpers: the U.S. Amateur Jump Rope Federation, a nonprofit group that sponsors competition for jumpers of all ages and is trying to have jumping recognized as an Olympic sport. Created last year when two children's jump-rope groups merged, it now has 300 adult members, said Bud Pickett, the executive director of the organization, whose headquarters are in Huntsville, Texas.

The American Heart Association, in a fund-raising and education series called Jump Rope for Heart, has introduced rope jumping to about 25 million children since 1979 and may have led adults to jump as well, said Bob Melson, a physical education teacher in Seattle who was on one of the heart association's first demonstration teams.

``The kids that started in the AHA program are now young adults, and they are still jumping,'' said Melson, whose ``Rope Skipping for Fun and Fitness'' was published by Woodlawn Publishers in 1986. ``The kids that I worked with talk about rope skipping for fitness. They're teaching classes to others in college.''

For some, jumping rope is performing. Louis Garcia and wife Madeleine Falk of North Hollywood call themselves the Rebel Ropers. Their training video, ``Freestyle Roping,'' which combines dancing and rope jumping, has received positive ratings as an exercise video and has sold about 25,000 copies at $14.95 each since it was released a year ago. The tape, available by calling [phone], shows everything from the simplest move to jumping to music with twists, lunges and shuffles.

Garcia said the techniques in the tape go far beyond a simple hop. ``I've never conquered the rope,'' he said. ``I can continuously add moves that are infinite. I can also get the beginner going.''

Melson said one theory holds that rope jumping originated with ancient Egyptian and Chinese workers who made ropes for the shipping industry. ``There were huge ropes laid out side by side, and they had to twist them together,'' he said. ``They did this by jumping over one rope and under another. When given small bits of rope, their children imitated them and ended up jumping over them.'' Rope jumping came to America with the Dutch in the 1600s, he said.

There are three basic methods of rope skipping: single rope, with an individual spinning the rope; long rope, with two people spinning, and double dutch, with two people turning two ropes in opposite directions.

At least two health clubs in Los Angeles are considering adding jump-rope classes to their offerings, joining the few health clubs in the country that provide the challenging classes set to music for adults. of the classes alternate jumping with upper- or lower-body exercises. Reebok Sports Club New York recently introduced Jump, an hourlong class, but plans to drop it shortly and incorporate it into another kind of class.

``It was too intense,'' said Kirk Moore, the aerobics manager at Reebok. ``One hour was more than we could chew.''

Exercise experts have long debated the efficiency of rope jumping compared with other exercises. A study in the late 1960s showed that 10 minutes of jumping was equal to 30 minutes of jogging. Some exercise physiologists, including Bud Getchell, a professor of kinesiology at Indiana University in Bloomington, set out to disprove that study.

``We were able to measure the energy expenditure of jumping rope by putting a mouthpiece in and collecting air,'' Getchell said. His study found that jumping and running expended nearly the same amount of energy: 12 calories a minute for jumping, and 14 for running on a treadmill. Today, most exercise physiologists discount the 1960s study.

Dr. Ken M. Solis, an emergency-room physician at the Beaver Dam (Wis.) Community Hospital and two-time Guinness world-record holder for jumping rope, said that, to be safe, beginning jumpers should start with short intervals (10 minutes or less), gradually adding a few minutes to the workout at two-week intervals. Impact can be reduced by wearing aerobics shoes with good cushioning and by jumping on a surface like a suspended wood floor that absorbs impact.

Technique is also important. Beginners tend to jump too high, said Dr. Richard A. Stein, the chief of prevention and rehabilitation cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. ``As your timing gets better, you become lower to the ground,'' he said. Good jumpers rise only half an inch to an inch. As jumpers improve, they can add tricks like crossovers and knee lifts.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1) Louis Garcia and wife Madeleine Falk of North Hollywood, a husband-and-wife jump-rope team, have sold about 25,000 copies of their exercise video, ``Freestyle Roping.''

(2--Cover--Color) Jump to it

Athletic rope-skipping is not just for kids anymore

Terri Thuente/Daily News

Box: Look here before you leap (See text)