Dialing up the jump rope skills

Dialing up the Jump Rope skills

There is something about that thin, black, nylon rope whistling toward our feet that can make us seem uncoordinated and act a little goofy.  But why? We’re the one in control of the rope and all we’ve got to do is jump an inch or so of the ground to clear it.  None the less, we slam that bad boy into our feet time and time again.  Never mind if the instructor is yelling at us not to stop. Then the rope is possessed like the yelling calls forth some crazy jump rope demon that not only trips us every time the rope comes around, but also wraps it around our foot.  We spend more time untangling ourselves from the rope than jumping over it. Now we’re concentrating on suppressing our more colorful vocabulary and not a bit on our work out.
 
If that’s not bad enough, there is usually some hot shot watching himself in the mirror not missing a beat as the rope whizzes cleanly under his feet at some ridiculous speed.   To make thing worse, he’s dancing around the whole time like he’s trying out for the next Zumba instructor position. So what does this Jump-rope-showoff have that we don’t?

As a bit of a Jump-rope-showoff myself, I’m going to tell you. The answer is simple: the show-off just has a little more practice. And, you may be surprised to find out not much. I wasn’t always a jump-rope showoff. If you could get your hands on the KI fitness security footage from six months ago you might find me laying on the fitness room floor in a pool of my own sweat looking like I’d been hog tied by Walt Garrison himself.  Here is the best part. The transformation from hog tied to show-off took less than two weeks of practice.

I know when you think of practice you’re envisioning long hours alone with your jump rope experiencing failure after failure until you finally have a breakthrough like some Rocky movie montage.  But, really, practice has very little to do with failure and long hours a lot to do with a few minutes a day of success. (It may have something to do with you being alone with your jump rope but that’s between you and your jump rope).   If you really want to get good at something keep your practices short, frequent and filled with success.   You’re much better off with several starts and stops over a period of time than cramming it all into a few long practices.

So why do short frequent practices work? Very simply, it’s not our feet, hands or body that is learning to jump rope, it’s our brain. Our brain learns new skills by forming new connections between neurons and those connections are reinforced and made permanent through practice.  Just like anything else, it takes time to grow those connections.  The connections grow while you’re not practicing. (They grow like crazy when you’re sleeping.) So, really you’re doing you best learning when you’re not practicing – up is down, back is white and Yin is yang.  Think about it this way. If you want bigger muscles you need to rest right? You workout, tear up the muscle fibers the let them heal and grow while you rest.  It’s the same deal with growing the connections between neurons.  Moreover, you are going to do the movement correctly more often in the beginning of practice when you’re not tired.  Short practices equal short bursts that reinforce the correct movement.

Try this: pick a time every day or come to class five minutes early and jump rope. Set some sort of goal – ten jumps without missing twenty, thirty, a hundred… whatever. If you start missing a lot stop. You’ll know what makes sense for you. Keep it to a few minutes, no more. As soon as you achieve a goal change it or increase it. You can go from 30 jumps without missing to five crossovers without missing.  It doesn’t matter pick what you want to be able to do and set small obtainable goals that you go after in frequent short practices.

So why get good at jump roping? It’s one of those things that has been around for a long time and shifts in and out of vogue.  The truth is it’s not the sexiest thing on the block. (We’ve got Zumba for that!) Jump roping is an old standby.  Quite frankly, I think it’s us fighters (boxers and kick boxers) that have kept it alive. But, none of that takes away from the fact that it is a great cardio exercise and gives the added bonus of working our rhythm and coordination.  We can’t quite say it’s a low impact exercise but, because you’re absorbing the shock of the jump on the balls of your feet and not on your heals (like when you run,) it’s relatively kind to your joints.  It also nicely involves the upper body.  Simply by changing your step it becomes very dynamic, working your muscles from different angles.
 
Now you know how you should practice and why. What about jump roping itself? The concept is simple – swing the rope over your head then when it gets to your feet jump over it. As we’ve discussed, it doesn’t always work out as planned. It’s one of those few exercises that we really have to work at to get good enough for it to be effective.
 
To help understand how to jump rope let’s take one good jump with the rope. Stand with your elbows close to your sides and your hands out so you look like a lowercase “t.” The rope should be behind you. Now, relax and swing it over your head. Take a little jump to clear it when it gets to your feet.  You’ll notice that you have to really move your arms to get the rope around.  Here is the cool thing, you don’t have to keep moving your arms that much to keep the rope going. A small circular motion with your wrist and hardly any movement in your forearms is all you’ll need after that first swing. In fact, the more economic your arm movement the better speed you can achieve. The limited movement also creates a very consistent and predictable swing helping your rhythm and timing.  That and a small controlled jump are the real secrets to jump roping and the two most important things to focus on during your practice.

Now you’re feeling good about your jump roping. Right? You’re not missing a beat, jumping over the rope without get caught up in darn thing and working up a sweat with good long workouts. Then, you look over at the jump-rope-showoff and he’s got all sorts of crazy footwork going, he’s crisscrossing the rope and throwing in double jumps. So, don’t just stand there jumping over your rope! Learn some of those fancy moves. If you don’t, who’s going to show up the showoff?
What are the fancy moves and how do you do them? We’ll there’s a ton and probably no end. Who knows you may even make one up yourself some day.  If you want to learn some of them you can start by asking the Jump-rope-showoff. I sure he would be glad to show you. You can also jump on YouTube and search on jump rope. There are some descent tutorials out there and some videos of people doing some pretty cool stuff.  Learning some of the fancy stuff will make your jump roping more fun and a better workout so let’s take a look at a few here.

The Alternating Foot Jump
Keep one foot off the ground and jump over the rope with the foot that is on the ground switching feet each revolution.

Variations on this include kicking forward or backward with the foot that’s off the ground. You can get into a nice rhythm where you doing this as you switch feet.

Foot Cross
Start with your feet side by side. On the first jump land with them crossed. On the next jump, land with them side by side again. On the next jump, cross them with the other foot in back and so on. 

Rope Cross Over
On this on you’re doing a normal jump with your feet but as you come down with the rope you cross your arms. The key here is that you really need to cross them so that the handles of the jump rope clear the opposite side of your body. (You’ll know it if you don’t because you’ll end up back in that familiar hog tied position.)

Double Jump
This one is simple in theory. You just jump a little higher than normal and swing the rope a little faster than normal so that it passes under your feet twice before you land. 

Don’t stop there. Check out some of these links and have fun:

www.betterbodyjournal.com/fitness-exercises/jump-rope-training-for-explosive-power
www.fitness-made-fun.com/jump-rope-history.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O31_Av5oY64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVkYjp4mqnc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MfhJjbNNJE
 

Feel free to post comments on this article or email me directly with any questions.

Mark Miller