Jumping Rope Can Help With Weight Loss And Management
You don’t need heavy machinery to get in a good cardio workout. Jumping rope requires minimal space and equipment and can offer a ton of health benefits—from improving your heart health to building muscle definition and increasing your VO2 Max.
Since jump rope requires you to practice balance and hand-eye coordination, it can even make you sharper in your other workouts or sports. Halle Berry made jump rope one of her go-to workouts because it helps her improve her footwork in her other fave activities—boxing and martial arts. She has actually been practicing it for five years, and can now burn up to 250 calories jumping rope in one 15-minute sesh.
If that’s got you thinking that jump rope sounds like a good form of exercise for weight loss or management, you’re definitely right. It can help you burn fat and gain muscle, and a jump rope will only cost you a few bucks.
But there are some things you should consider first. While jumping rope is definitely a fun form of cardio, it’s not the only thing you should incorporate into a fitness routine designed for losing weight. So before you go off and buy a jump rope (or dig for the one in your storage closet), here’s what you should know about jumping rope for weight loss.
Benefits Of Jumping Rope
From promoting bone health to burning calories, the benefits of jump rope are plenty.Jumping rope is a weight-bearing exercise that puts stress on your skeleton (which is important for strong bones). That’s why it’s especially encouraged in pubescent and postmenopausal women.
During puberty, the exercise can help peak bone density, and it can help fight osteoporosis in postmenopausal women prone to it, per findings published in BioMed Research International. Because it improves bone health, jump rope is also a great way to prevent injuries. Plus, it promotes ankle mobility by strengthening the muscles that support those joints.
Not only that, but since it’s a high-intensity workout that gets your heart going it’s also good for your cardiovascular health, preventing weight gain, and warding off chronic conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.
Jumping rope requires you to be completely aware of how your body’s moving, so by doing it enough you can also improve your coordination and rhythm, which is especially useful for all those who consider themselves a bit clumsy.
The physical benefits of jumping rope also extend to your shoulders and calves. Jumping can help you achieve leg muscles that pop, while strengthening and toning your shoulders. But one of the best benefits of taking jump rope on as a workout is probably that it’s accessible and portable. A jump rope fits into your bag, and you can practically do it anywhere. If you’re interested in progressing once mastering a lighter jump rope though, you can opt for a weighted to up the intensity.
4 Jump Rope Workouts For Weight Loss
First things first, don’t skip your warmup. You should get in some dynamic stretches that loosen up your hips, hamstrings, and calves. One way you can do that is by tackling three rounds of standing toe touches, deep squats, and calf raises. Try doing 20 reps per move, holding each for about one to two seconds at a time.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to grab your rope. You can break up your workout into intervals, or find your rhythm with one of these workouts below:
The Fire Starter: Pick a song that’s three to six minutes long and jump along to the beat. For the final 30 seconds, add some intensity with some high-knee skips.
The Burnout: To get your heart rate going at the end of a workout, do 1,000 rotations as fast as possible, breaking them into 10 sets of 100. Take note of how long it takes you. Then, try to beat your time during your next skip session.
The Long Haul: Set an alarm for a set time like 10 minutes, and jump at a consistent pace until the buzzer sounds. Gradually build up your time until you can go for 30 minutes. straight.
The Snack: This one’s going for in-between workouts, or when you just need a break from sedentary activity. Skip for a set amount of time like 3 minutes, or keep going until you git 3 rotations.
How many calories does jumping rope burn?
Jumping rope can burn major calories. If you can build up to 120 skips a minute, you can burn between 667 and 990 calories an hour. Some research shows you can burn more calories while skipping rope than you can while running.
How To Jump Rope To Support Weight Loss
Though there are nuances to losing weight, a simplified formula for doing it is to burn more calories than what you consume within a given period, says Cordelia Carter, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at NYU Langone Health. This is known as a calorie deficit.
Given its ability to burn calories, “jumping rope may be an excellent component of an overall physical fitness regimen undertaken in an effort to lose weight, and ideally decrease fat mass or percentage of body fat rather than just lose weight,” says Dr. Carter.
But it shouldn’t be the only thing you do to lose weight, she says. While jumping rope is a fun form of calorie-burning, it should complement a larger workout routine geared toward your overall wellness goals. “Optimal physical fitness is more likely achieved through some combination of building strength through bodyweight training and/or resistance training, flexibility training, and cardiovascular fitness, including both endurance training and higher-intensity training, rather than by simply continuing to work on one of these components of fitness day after day,” says Dr. Carter.
Another reason you don’t want to make jump rope your only form of exercise is to reduce your risk of injury. “Varying one’s workout routine is essential for the prevention of overuse-type injuries such as tendonitis and even stress fracture,” adds Dr. Carter.
Bottom Line: You can totally jump rope for calorie burn and weight loss or management, but it should be part of an integrated fitness routine that includes strength, cardio, and flexibility training for overall health.
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