Jumping rope is way more than just an activity for kids. It can be an extremely effective full-body workout that you can do almost anywhere and can save you time by combining your cardiovascular workout with toning your lower body, abs, and arms.
6 Health Benefits of Jumping Rope from Adrianne Finn's blog:
- Excellent form of cardiovascular exercise improving heart health.
- Burns close to double the calories pre minute than traditional cardiovascular exercise does.
- Helps build muscles by providing resistance for the lower body and tones the arms as they quickly circle the rope.
- Is a plyometric exercise and helps develop muscular power.
- Helps prevent injury such as ACL tears.
- Helps improve proprioception and coordination.
6 Different Ways to Jump Rope:
Basic Jumping: Begin with the rope behind you at your heals and swing it over your head, jumping over it as it approaches your toes to allow for a consistent swinging motion to occur around your entire body.
To make sure you are lessening stress on your knee joints, make sure to stay on the balls of your toes and only jump high enough to clear the rope. Focus on low, fast, jumps using your wrist to turn the rope instead of your elbow.
Reverse Jump: To alter the the basic jump and increase difficulty, reverse the direction of the rope swing so that the rope approaches your feet from your heals instead of your toes. Begin with the rope at your toes an swing it over your head in the opposite direction of the basic jump.
Criss-Cross: One of the more difficult and beneficial ways to jump rope, most commonly recognized in boxing training. While jumping rope, cross your arms as the rope swings over your head and keep them crossed until the rope passes under your feet. Start by integrating criss-cross jumping into your regular jumping while maintaining a controlled rhythm and increase the ratio of criss-crossed jumps to regular jumps to increase intensity.
Side-to-Side: While jumping rope, simply jump a few inches to each side to targets calves, quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes, and inner and outer thighs. To increase intensity, increase the distance of your jumps, but be sure to maintain balance and stability as to protect the ankles from injury.
One Leg: Jumping on one foot helps to enhance your sense of balance while strengthening your core, calves, hamstrings, and glutes. While jumping rope, bend one knee slightly so you're only utilizing one foot to jump over the rope while maintaing balance. Make sure to jump on each leg either an equal amount of repetitions, or an equal amount of time.
Front-and-Back: This is useful to target all muscles of the lower body and prevent shin splints. While jumping rope, slightly jump a few inches front to back maintaining balance. Increasing distance of jumps to increase difficulty.
Have a low ceiling or don't want the hinderance of the rope? Check out this rope-less jump rope called
Airope
Medicine Ball Lunge to Chest Pass: This exercise can be done with or without a partner and it an effective full body exercise that focuses on the abs, back, butt, hips, chest, and shoulders.
Overhead Medicine Ball Slams: This integrated full body exercise targets your back, butt, hips and thighs and is also a great cardio burst.
Reverse Medicine Ball Throw: This full body exercise focuses on the butt, hips, thighs, and shoulders.
Lunge with Overhead Press: This awesome full body exercise targets your abs, butt, thighs, and shoulders. Just remember, posture is key!
Overhead Medicine Ball Throws: This exercise can be done with or without a partner and is a full body exercise targeting the butt, hips, and shoulders.
