Bobby Hinds is the best advertisement for his own products.

At 78, he's energetic and enthusiastic about exercise.

Once a rebellious, poor kid from Kenosha and later a boxer at UW-Madison, Hinds has parlayed his personality and a product, his original jump rope, into a thriving business that sells exercise equipment.

"So much of what happened in my life was just pure luck," Hinds said.

Lifeline USA sells portable, adjustable exercise equipment and, of course, the jump ropes that propelled Hinds from a struggling insurance man to the entrepreneur known as the jump rope king.

"When I first started out, I was making jump ropes in my backyard," he said.

After a brief teaching stint, he became an insurance salesman who tried to set himself apart by growing a beard and donning a jump suit with his telephone number emblazoned across the back.

"I wanted to be different, so I would make these jump ropes and give them away instead of a pin or a calendar," Hinds said. "You can be a little bit socially unacceptable in insurance if you know what you're talking about."

Someone made an offhand comment that if Hinds marketed his jump ropes like his insurance, he'd make millions. He pondered the idea. A bit later, he saw an athlete exercising with rubber tubing, and another idea was born.

Easy to use

"The whole idea about the jump rope was it was portable," Hinds said.

Today, his 35-year-old company, which has 35 employees, touts its equipment as lightweight, portable and easy to use for effective exercise routines. One of his most popular items is his $39.95 portable gym, which promises a full-body workout anywhere, any time.

Hinds said he holds more than 50 patents on his equipment, including its adjustable handles and interchangeable cables. He believes research and development set him apart from competitors.

Buoyed by testimonial raves from big-name athletes and trainers and popularized at his son's Monkey Bar Gymnasium on Williamson Street, the equipment sells well at the gym and through distributors, infomercials, catalogs and the company's Web site. Hinds hopes retail sales will begin next year.

"The market in pumping rubber instead of pumping iron has exploded," he said.

He said he anticipates sales of $150 million to $200 million next year.

Hinds uses Lifeline equipment every morning. In good weather, he heads from his Downtown condo to the steps of the Capitol, bounding along with his newest product, the Powr Walk.

If you can stand up

With a band around each foot anchoring elastic cables attached to adjustable grips in both hands, Hinds demonstrates the product he promises will triple the benefits of walking, jogging and cross-country skiing by adding upper-body exercise. It costs $29 with an instructional video.

"I finally found something that can be done by virtually anyone who can stand up," Hinds said.

Lori Thein Brody, a physical therapist at UW Health, said elastic resistance equipment offers a good way to exercise.

"It's remarkably versatile in terms of the ways it can be used," she said, and an exercise program can be tailored to very specific needs.

In the past, a patient with shoulder rotator cuff tendonitis for example, might see a physical therapist three times a week for 12 weeks, she said. Now, after a few visits, the patient is more likely to be assigned to work independently.

"So there's much more reliance on the patient to do the exercise independently," she said, and high-quality, adjustable elastic resistance equipment helps the patient follow the program.

Hinds credits his company's success to feedback from his customers and ideas from his employees. "My accountant came up with one of the best ideas we had all last year," he said.

Even criticism from customers is taken to heart. "We don't like to hear negatives, but we learn a lot from the negatives," Hinds said.

He'll be 79 this month and calls himself a lucky man.

"Money's one thing, but the real reward comes when we get positive responses from people, and people who work here are happy," Hinds said. "I couldn't have written a better script."