By REYNALD MAGALLON
Filipino Ryan Alonzo successfully broke the world record for most number of double under skips in 12 hours during the Jump to Greater Heights event at Ayala Malls Circuit Makati on Saturday, Oct. 2.
Alonzo, also known as the “Skipman” in jump rope community, officially surpassed the 20,000 mark of double under skips by doubling it to a total of 40,980 during the 12-hour event which started from morning until 7 p.m.
The nephew of vice presidential candidate Dr. Willie Ong only needed six hours to make the record after completing 21,327 double skips at noontime and with six more hours left. Alonzo went on with the challenge for the remaining time to officially enter his name to history books.
It was not an easy task as Alonzo had to take a break seven minute before the end of every hour to have some rest and breathing exercises. He also did some stretching between every session to ensure that his legs can endure the physically demanding feat.
Alonzo admitted he had doubts on whether he could set the world record especially after suffering from cramps early on.
“I’m out of words, it is super overwhelming. Halfway through my legs were cramping. I didn’t expect talaga na maaabot ko pa and when you guys started cheering parang becoming happy lang, suddenly mataas na pala number ko in that hour,” shared Alonzo while also thanking all the people that made the extraordinary feat possible.
The preparation the in lead-up for the world record attempt was not easy either as training partner and coach Gadric Chusenfu revealed that Alonzo went under a similar training needed in preparation for a marathon with variation on strength, speed and endurance workouts just to make sure that he is physically ready for the challenge.
What’s also more crucial according Chusenfu was the nutrition and the strategy to which Alonzo’s team also focused on.
“The way we approached the training for this one was quite similar to how we trained for the marathon we did four years ago. We had a periodized training program and we did variation of speed and strength workouts, Ryan did a lot of speed ropes,” Chusenfu shared in an interview with event host Chiqui Reyes.
“He did a fair amount of running but most importantly is nutrition and recovery and also the pacing and the strategy,” he added.
A double under in jump rope is a 720-degree revolution of the rope in a single jump which means the rope has to pass twice under every single skip.