Jumping rope is a neglected but effective workout in the quest to be fit. As such, I decided to outline the 15 benefits of jumping rope.
If you are planning to lose weight, instead of reading the benefits of jumping rope below, it is better you read a comprehensive post in which I penned down how you can lose 30 pounds in 30 days.
1. Leg Strength and Health
The first and most obvious benefit of jumping rope is it’s almost unparalleled ability to isolate and target most of the leg muscles.
Like the barbell squat, jumping rope targets the thigh and hip muscles, with other muscles in between.
Repeated engagement of these muscle groups causes them to have microtears, which when repaired naturally by the body, improves the overall leg health and strength.
2. Improves knee health
The knee is an important part of the human body since it helps in maintaining balance and coordination in a human being.
Jumping rope is an activity of repeatedly jumping over ropes, which requires a good knee to make the activity possible.
Jumping rope also increases the springiness of the knee ligaments, which are responsible for maintaining balance in an individual.
3. Improve heart health
The heart is an organ responsible for pumping blood to all the organs and systems in the body. It is also indirectly responsible for regulating the flow of immune fluids in the body and pumping blood to the brain.
Needless to say, the heart is one of the most important organs in the human body. Yet it has to function at all times without rest because stopping for a minute might prove fatal to the human.
As such, it is important that the heart must always be in good condition (health), so it can function properly during the lifespan of the owner.
Skipping rope is an aerobic exercise, and since it causes the body to sweat, toxins lodged in the body are flushed out from the sweating enabled by skipping rope.
Overall, the general health of the body improves, most especially the heart, after the toxins are flushed out by sweating.
4. Burns lots of calories
On average 1 hour of skipping (jumping rope), burns about 600 calories.
Now doing some simple mathematical solving, an hour has 3600 seconds.
Dividing 600 by 3600 we get 0.167 calories per rope jump (skip jump).
Using this estimate we can say that
1 jumping ropes burn 0.167 calories
10 jumping ropes burn 1.67 calories
100 jumping ropes burn 16.7 calories
200 jumping ropes burn 33.33 calories
500 jumping ropes burn 83.33 calories.
5. Improves running speed
Like I said earlier, one of the main benefits of jumping rope is the improvement of leg strength and health.
Now, the most important part of the body when running is the legs. So it isn’t an understatement to say that bad legs mean poor running speed.
When the legs have been strengthened from skipping rope, then the sprint or running speed of the said individual improves considerably.
This is the main reason why so many boxers engage in skipping rope to improve their running speed during boxing bouts.
6. Improves bone strength
The body goes through tremendous amounts of stress during the jumping up and down when skipping. This causes microtears in the bone that heal up and increases and improves the strength of the bone in general.
7. Targets Back muscle mass
Back muscles are the foundation of all muscles in the body since all muscles are directly or indirectly connected to them.
Since the back muscles are used to generated jumping force, during skipping they are indirectly trained.
8. Targets abdominal muscles
Skipping rope (jumping rope), targets the abdominal muscles, most especially the lower rectus abdominus muscles and obliques (side abdominal muscles) during a workout session.
Constant skipping is known to increase the mass and size of these target muscles.
9. Improves Eye-hand Coordination
Skipping rope is a hand and eye coordination movement, just like riding a bicycle.
The body has to constantly make an adjustment to the eye and the hand that is swinging the rope repeatedly, so it doesn’t trip on it.
Frequent rope skippers like boxers have some of the best hand-eye coordination in the world today, due to the sheer amount of time they have spent skipping rope.
10. Increases Stamina
Like all exercises, skipping rope increases the stamina of people who engage in it regularly.
Stamina is a gross effect of the body’s efficiency to do work, and skipping rope improves the body’s efficiency with time.
As such, the body has no choice but to increase its stamina, due to the stress put on it by skipping.
11. Reduces Blood Pressure
Like I said earlier, jumping rope helps remove toxins from the body in the form of sweat.
When toxins are removed, the body is able to heal itself naturally from all ailments including blood pressure.
12. Improves body reflexes
Reflexes are a product of the high twitch muscle fibers in the body.
Jumping rope increases the mass and size of these muscle fibers, which in turn increases and improves the reflex of the body.
13. Energizes your body
After every skipping (jumping rope) session, the body is filled with endorphins (feel-good hormones), which energizes and refreshes the body.
The effect of these feel-good hormones can be felt for hours and even days after every workout session.
14. Improves the body’s posture
A good indication of overall health in humans is their body’s posture.
Jumping rope improves the posture of the body since it engages many muscle groups in the body, which over time become ripped and engorged with blood.
15. A Cheap and affordable way to workout
Many people today complain today about the cost of gym memberships, and for this reason, they give excuses and refuse to workout.
As a fitness trainer, this can become a problem, trying to convince somebody to adopt a healthier lifestyle when they themselves are filled with excuses.
This can be negated by simply offering them jumping ropes.
Jumping ropes (skipping) can be done anywhere, at any time, in every situation, since it requires only on equipment (jumping rope).
It is so inexpensive, yet very powerful for people of all ages and sizes.
In summary, these are the benefits of Jumping rope:
- Leg strength and health
- Improves knee health
- Improve heart health
- Burns lots of calories
- Improves running speed
- Improves bone strength
- Targets back muscles
- Targets abdominal muscles
- Improves Eye-hand Coordination
- Increases Stamina
- Reduces Blood Pressure
- Improves body reflexes
- Energizes your body
- Improves the body’s posture
- A cheap and affordable way to workout
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