JUNE 2020                                       SEPTEMBER 2020

JONNY SHAPLAND

HI! My names Jonny Shapland and I found out about jump rope when I was 13 and set foot in a boxing gym. The coach simply stated you cannot train here if you don't learn to jump rope, and since then I have developed a passion for jump rope. It was always a skill I used to developed coordination, footwork, speed and athletic performance but this year it really hit me how insanely effective jump rope is for weight loss! 

After the gyms closed I quickly gained a fair amount of weight and felt so sluggish, lacking energy, and motivation to complete daily tasks. This was a common feeling during this time of house arrest and it really did make me realise (and I know it made others realise) just how important leaving your house is.

Whether it is to socialise and meet with friends, or to go exercise somewhere, go to the beach, go for hikes, meet for games nights and drinks and the list goes on. The second thing I realised was that daily exercise and the sanctuary that is the gym is really crucial for daily routine, maintaining good energy levels, sleep and general mood. So without that I quickly began to feel lose all my good habits, my diet slipped and I generally didn't feel good in my body! 

Where the Jump rope journey really began...

So like everyone else, I baked banana bread, learnt the rubbix cube, chords to 3 songs on a guitar, even learnt to backflip, expending quite possible every learn at home skill on the internet. But I was still missing the gym. So I was digging through my gym bag to see if I could find my resistance bands I used to use for rotator cuff warm ups and found my cheap plastic jump rope. I grabbed it straight away and took to the patio for the first jump rope session of lockdown. I can safely say the extra weight made me feel very slow, uncoordinated and stiff. However I instantly was hooked, and so like all the others skills I had managed to master (I count 3 songs as mastery soz Jimmy Hendricks mate I'm in your league now). I hopped on YouTube and started consuming all content to do with jump rope. I began training about an hour of jump rope daily, and started to feel nimble and back to my agile athletic self.

Why create SHREDROPE™?

So this new found daily habit led to me becoming aware of the flaws different styles of ropes had. I broke 5 ropes in the lockdown period;

1x Leather jump - as I had seen boxers use them, I was instantly interested in getting one as the way with role models you assume if you buy what they're using you'll get the skills they have as a bonus (not the case). This rope broke in the 10 minutes of my workout, i'm not sure if I used it wrong, it was a single faulty one or if that was an accurate reflection on leather ropes but I wasted £14.99 so never again.

2x Pvc ropes - one with, and one without a nylon core. These are the ropes you find everywhere, the go to design it would seem every brand wants to recreate. I had minimal problems and for the money they lasted much longer than the leather one! My only complaints were the £6.99 one (without a nylon core) was very kinked, you would end up tripping because the rope would bounce awkwardly due to this. Which is really infuriating when you're trying to get into the flow of a 30 min jump rope workout. The second rope, was much better and I had so much fun learning the tricks with this rope. This is definitely a cheap rope to purchase if you just want to have fun and I recommend Rush athletics money rope. Super easy to follow his tutorials and learn the tricks. But and there's a but, the handles are plastic and the ropes become worn very quickly, my speed rope literally pinged out of the handle while I was doing some sick trick combos. So that's £12+£6.99 down. So we've spent. total of -£33.98.

1x wire core, thin speed rope. This rope is really not for tricks! Do not buy one of these if you would like to do tricks, it really hurts and they're very difficult. So I bought this rope because it had a wire core and a bearing in the handle. I started to skip for fitness so the fun tricks were not necessarily important, you don't do handstands or backflips on the treadmill if you want to get fit and lose weight...

I wanted a smooth rope that had a bearing so it wouldn't put stress on the rope and break mid use. So the rope in general was fun, I mixed it in with some Crossfit style DU pyramid workouts and it was a killer. However the rope handles once again were plastic and one accidental trip and I dropped the handles and one smashed. ugh frustrating another £14.97 down the drain. Bringing the total to -£48.95.

The final rope was a combination of all the above ropes, so it had a thicker pvc rope with a wire core, plus it had an internal bearing for a resistance free workout. This rope was my most expensive purchase out of the 5 costing me £24.99 and it really seemed like it was worth the money. However their were multiple things I was disappointed with. The rope said it was easily adjustable, but when it came it was far too long and the instructions weren't clear, for the price of £15 on the previous rope I got a little drawstring bag but this rope came in a single use plastic bag, that wasn't reusable! The final frustration was that even though advertised as tough plastic, a few weeks of use and drops and the handles were no match for the patio slabs. So we've got a whopping total of -£73.94. 

This is where my desire to create Shred Rope really begun. I had found a niche in which I had accidentally conducted my own product research. Which I had then found what seemed to be a gap in the market for a product which I myself was looking for. But most importantly I had found a passion for jump rope that was unique to what I had seen everyone else do. I enjoyed doing the tricks that looked good but my aim was to get an effective, efficient, high intensity workout to get me shredded. So I set about to create a jump rope which encompassed all my desires for a jump rope, at an affordable price!