skipping Or Rope jumping

Benefits of Jumping: The Unique Value of Jump Rope Training

Jump rope training is one of the best kept secrets in fitness right now.

Even though the popularity of jump rope has grown over the past few years, many are still unaware of the numerous jump rope benefits available.

It’s great for all fitness and ability levels. It fits in with all workout goals – fat loss, endurance, strength, or performance. And it gets the job done, anywhere.

In this post, we’re going to dissect the benefits of jumping rope and show you why we (and many others) believe the jump rope should be a staple in your routine.

Quick Jump Rope Benefits

The jump rope is a versatile and convenient tool. Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the benefits of jumping we’ll be covering in this post.

1. Increased calorie burning: Research has shown that jumping rope can help you burn over 1,000 calories per hour.
2. Increased muscle engagement: With weighted jump ropes, you engage more muscle groups with every workout, leading to better results.
3. Improved cardio: jumping rope can raise your heart rate two to three times faster than other exercises and offer the same aerobic building benefits as running with less impact on the joints.
4. Improved mental sharpness:  jumping rope helps with the development of the left and right hemispheres of your brain, which enhances spatial awareness, improves reading skills, increases memory and makes you more mentally alert.
5. It’s fun: jumping rope is a fun way to achieve your fitness goals. It’s fun to work on new skills, like double unders and criss crosses. It’s fun to be able to take it on the road and do your workouts anywhere. It’s fun to share with a partner.

Let’s expand a little bit on each of the benefits (and explore a few more).

Benefit 1: High Calorie Burning

We’ve covered jump rope fat loss in depth in other posts.

We’ve seen it over and over again through the jump rope fitness challenges we host inside our jump rope community.

In fact, one of our community members Chad lost 8 pounds in 30 days with our challenge.

Research has shown that jumping rope can help you burn over 1,000 calories per hour. Specifically:

“This aerobic exercise can achieve a “burn rate” of up to 1300 calories per hour of vigorous activity, with about 0.1 calories consumed per jump.Ten minutes of jumping rope can roughly be considered the equivalent of running an eight-minute mile.”

When compared to other activities, jumping rope is one of the most efficient forms of exercise you can do when it comes to calorie burning.

Benefit 2: Improved Mental Sharpness

How many training tools can you say make you smarter?

According to the  Jump Rope Institute, jumprope helps with the development of the left and right hemispheres of your brain, which further enhances spatial awareness, improves reading skills, increases memory and makes you more mentally alert.

As described in this article from BrainHQ, the best exercise for the brain involves a combination of timing, rhythm, coordination, and mental strategy.

When you’re jumping rope, you’re combining timing and rhythm while having to make quick calculations to ensure your brain is recognizing the rope’s distance, speed, direction, and position relative to your body to ensure the rotations keep going. This combination of physical and mental activity has a greater effect on cognitive function.

Benefit 3: Great For Aerobic Exercise

Boxers and martial artists have long used the jump rope to build the aerobic capacity needed for long-lasting battles in the ring.

But they’re not the only ones who can benefit from this workout.The jump rope is a great tool for building cardio and endurance, no matter what your current fitness level is.

Check out Dane’sha’s post in our community about what she’s been able to accomplish over the course of her jump rope journey -

Many of the jumpers in our community have also completely replaced running with jumping rope because it offers the same aerobic building benefits with less impact on the joints.

Benefit 4 - It's Fun

The fun factor is crucial when it comes to finding a sustainable workout routine.

We all know that when it comes to exercise, consistency is everything. You need to be able to stick with your routine over the long-haul if you want to see lasting results.

But in order to be consistent with something, you have to actually enjoy doing it.

While everyone has a different outlook on what’s fun, we think the jump rope offers a fun workout for a few different reasons.

A. It gives you the freedom to take your workouts on the go and break free from the gym. No more staring at walls or screens.

Bonus: with our free jump rope workout app, you can get easy-to-follow jump rope workouts with you wherever you go.

B. It gives you the ability to learn new skills. Unlike running, jumping rope allows you to learn and progress with new skills like criss-crosses, double unders, and side swings. Each exercise is a new adventure and something you can add to your repertoire of skills.

C. It gives you the ability to compete both with yourself and with other jumpers. You can challenge yourself with one of our app workouts or tackle a workout with a partner (like this).

D. It gives you endless versatility. There are hundreds of ways you can structure a jump rope workout to get lean, strong, and fit at your own pace. If you want to get a taste of what that looks like, try one of our fun fitness challenges in our app.

Firas, one of our jump rope fitness community members, said:

“I've always hated the cardio warm-up part of working out whether it was on a treadmill or elliptical machine as they're boring for me. What I love about the jump rope is that it's challenging and forces me to be more mindful of what I'm doing. This way it's both a warm-up for my body and my mind that helps me go into my workouts with more focus.”

Those are your basic jump rope benefits that most people already know. But that’s just the beginning. Let’s dig deeper.

Benefits Of Weighted Jump Ropes

If you’ve never tried a weighted jump rope, let me tell you a quick story.

Back in 2015, the Crossrope team exhibited at the Arnold Classic tradeshow where over 200,000 fitness enthusiasts

We had a small booth but made room for a place to jump. To generate some buzz, we started running a 60 second 1 LB rope challenge where we challenged people to try to complete as many jumps as they can in one minute.

1 LB? Sounds easy. Until you try it.

We had hundreds of people of different ages and fitness levels stop by to give the challenge a try and after 60 seconds they all had their hands on their knees and completely out of breath. They didn’t expect it to be that tough.

It’s no surprise Men’s Health said the following:

We’ve talked about the advantage of weighted jump ropes in the past, but here are some of the key benefits of heavy jump rope training:

1. Greater Muscle Engagement

With heavy jump ropes, you engage more muscle groups on every rotation. Here’s the difference between the use of light and heavy ropes:

The heavier the rope, the greater the resistance. And the greater resistance, the greater the muscle engagement.

That means with weighted ropes you can work on your core strength, upper body strength, grip strength, and much more in the same workout.

2. Easier to Learn

Learning how to jump rope can be frustrating if you’re using a cheap, plastic rope. That’s because there’s very little feedback from the rope which makes it difficult to know when to time your jumps.

A slightly heavy rope – like our 1/2 LB Jump Rope from our popular Get Lean Set – slows down your rotation and offers just enough feedback to help you get the feel you need for the rope to time your jumps better.

If you’re not naturally co-ordinated, this is a game-changer.

We’ve often seen new jumpers go from struggling to get two jumps in a row with an average jump rope to stringing 50 jumps in a row with a heavier rope.

“For the first time ever I was able to consecutively jump for 50 jumps without missing a step!!!!”- Jennifer Q

3: All Other Benefits Are Amplified

Each of the jump rope benefits outlined in our first section is amplified when you start using heavy ropes.

The calorie burning is more substantial because more muscle groups are engaged. The mental component is heightened because of the increased level of fatigue. The aerobic conditioning effects are greater, as are the new elements of strength and power. The versatility is enhanced because now you have a variety of rope weights to work with. And yes - it’s way more fun when you’ve got more ropes to work with.

And speaking of having more ropes to work with ...

Benefits of Interchangeable Jump Ropes

The best benefits of jumping rope come from being able to utilize a combination of light and heavy jump ropes in your workouts.

Think about how you use other training tools, like dumbbells. You don’t just train with a single set of weights. You have different weights that you mix and match depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

The same goes with jump ropes.

Lighter ropes are great for getting lean and improving endurance. Heavier ropes are great for building strength and power. Together, the combination gives you the ability to get a complete, full-body workout wherever you go.

We designed the Crossrope Fitness System to give you this type of workout. Clip in different weights of ropes and follow along as our app guides you through fun workouts and challenges.

Quick Jump Rope Benefits Summary

We hope you found this post helpful. Whether you’re looking to add something fresh to your routine or for a workout you can do anywhere, the jump rope is a great solution.

Like we said, it’s the best kept secret in fitness.

We’d love to hear from you. What jump rope benefit resonates the most with you? Leave your response in the comments below.Jumping rope? Isn’t that for boxers — and, um…little girls? Well, believe it or not the simple act of jumping rope can do more for you overall than the same time spent jogging. Jumping rope is also easy to do anywhere. A jump rope slipped in your backpack or bag can be brought along on a trip, to work, school or done in the living room while you’re watching your kids — or watching TV.

To start jumping rope, head to your nearest sporting goods store and get a rope. While you probably don’t want to get a lightweight rope from the toy department for a workout, if that’s all you’ve got, it will work. Plastic ropes are usually used in gyms and they are a little easier to use for speedwork. Once you have your rope, make sure it fits you comfortably. Most ropes range from 8 to 10 feet long. You can cut it to adjust it – but once you cut it you can’t make it longer. Stand on the middle of the rope and hold the handles comfortably at waist height. Adjust accordingly.

Pick a nice, flat surface to jump on like a gym mat or concrete floor. Something that gives a bit will be more comfortable but if you choose a grassy or dirt surface — as I have to do out here in the middle of nowhere — make sure there is nothing in the way like rocks, sticks, grass that’s very long, that kind of thing.

The benefits of jumping rope are many. Here are a few you might not have known about:

1. Improves Coordination

Jumping rope actually improves your coordination by making you focus on your feet. Whether or not you’re paying attention to them, your brain is aware of what your feet are doing. This practice, over and over again, makes you “lighter” on your feet. Training for one of those warrior-style obstacle course races? Jumping rope can help. According to expertboxing.com‘s Boxing Training Guide, “the more tricks you do with the jump rope, the more conscious and coordinated you have to be.”

2. Decreases Foot and Ankle Injuries

Jumping rope is beneficial for those active in other sports. Many athletes in basketball, tennis, football and other sports often suffer foot and ankle injuries from running and then stopping quick and turning. This is very common in both tennis and basketball. Jumping rope not only improves your foot coordination but also increases your strength in the muscles surrounding your ankle joint and in your foot, decrease the chance of injury to those areas. According to the Jump Rope Institute, “jumping rope teaches players to stay on the balls of their feet, as opposed to being flat footed or on their heels. And since you are on your toes the entire time you jump rope, you will find that staying quiet on your toes when playing tennis will become easier and second nature.”

3. Burns Major Calories

Compared to jogging for 30 minutes, jumping rope actually burns more calories. According to Science Daily, “This aerobic exercise can achieve a “burn rate” of up to 1300 calories per hour of vigorous activity, with about 0.1 calories consumed per jump.Ten minutes of jumping rope can roughly be considered the equivalent of running an eight-minute mile.”

4. Completely Portable and Fun

A jump rope can go anywhere with you. Take it to work, take it to school. Warm up before your basketball game or cool down after a bike ride. Learn to do tricks and double dutch with your kids or have competitions between you and your family — how long, how low you can jump, how high, spinning — all kinds of tricks can be done with a jump rope.

5. Improves Bone Density

Dr. Daniel W. Barry, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, at Denver, and a researcher who has studied the bones of the elderly and of athletes, says that the best exercise to improve bone density is simply jumping up and down. “Jumping is great, if your bones are strong enough to begin with,” Dr. Barry says. “You probably don’t need to do a lot either.” (If you have any history of fractures or a family history of osteoporosis, check with a physician before jumping.)

According to The New York Times, “in studies in Japan, having mice jump up and land 40 times during a week increased their bone density significantly after 24 weeks, a gain they maintained by hopping up and down only about 20 or 30 times each week after that.”

6. Improves Cardiovascular Health

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, skipping rope is highly recommended for aerobic conditioning. In order to increase your heart and lung health you must do it three to five times per week for 12 to 20 minutes at a time.

7. Improved Breathing Efficiency

In addition to improved heart health and stamina, jumping rope also improves how efficiently you breathe. This becomes very beneficial when doing other activities because you won’t be as out of breath after running down the court or swimming laps in the pool.

8. Makes You Smarter

Believe it or not, jumping rope can make you smarter. According the Jump Rope Institute, jumping aids in the development of the left and right hemispheres of your brain, which further enhances spacial awareness, improves reading skills, increases memory and makes you more mentally alert. Jumping on the balls of your feet requires your body and mind to make neural muscular adjustments to imbalances created from continuous jumping. As a result jumping improves dynamic balance and coordination, reflexes, bone density and muscular endurance.

9. Improves Your Ability to Stay Calm

Because you are actually working your brain and your body at the same time, boxers in the ring who jump rope actually are more calm overall than those who don’t. The Jump Rope Institute attributes this to the biomechanical perspective. “As one dissects this exercise further and views it from a biomechanical perspective, it represents a composite movement combining a circular motion with an angular momentum. The body resembles a projectile subject to all the laws that govern projectile motion while the rope becomes a dynamic flywheel subject to all the laws that govern rotary motion. It is in the synchronous and harmonious coordination of these movements where the secrets and benefits are received.”

Your improved ability to jump rope and be synchronous with your body, mind and the rope, can actually help you be more calm in other situations.

Grab a jump rope, get hopping and be amazed by the different ways your body and mind will benefit.

Jumping rope can decrease belly fat

No workout is effective on its own — without dieting — to get rid of belly fat. But HIIT exercise like jump rope has been linked to faster fat loss results, particularly around your abs and your trunk muscles
Skip for as long as you can, rest for 60 seconds, repeat for 5 minutes. Skip for as long as you can, rest for 45 seconds, repeat for 7 minutes. Skip for 20 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, repeat for 5 minutes. Skip for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, repeat for 10 minutes.
I personally jump rope every day or every second day. The advantage is that you can choose your intensity depending on if you want to warm up, burn calories or build strength. In fact, jump rope exercises and intervals can challenge your entire body in a small space of time. ... Plus it's a great cardio workout.

Some of the fitness benefits of skipping include:

• Cardiovascular fitness.
• Leg strength.
• Stamina.
• Coordination.
• Bone strength.
• Balance.
• Agility.
• Full body workout.
• When you utilize all three systems as Smallwood has described, skipping allows you to burn a lot of calories. Skipping is arguably a better exercise than walking, running, and jumping rope. ... “Skipping is certainly less impact on your joints and works more muscle groups [than running],”
• A healthy Rockstar!! Skip rope! You'll have burned a whopping 502 calories after skipping for just 51 minutes; you can break it up into two-minute segments during commercial breaks of your favorite shows. Punish a punching bag for 70 minutes to burn 500 calories
• Jumping rope is a full-body workout, so it burns many calories in a short time. ... But jumping rope alone won't be enough to help you lose weight. Jumping rope can be a part of a diet and exercise routine that revs your metabolism and helps you drop pounds fast.