Jump rope exercise is a full-body aerobic activity that can help promote weight loss and improve cardiovascular health. Jumping rope is a full-body workout that can improve your cardio health and strengthen your muscles. It’s also fun. For many people, exercise can feel like a chore. However, jumping rope can be a fun yet highly effective exercise that can bring joy back into your exercise routine. What’s more, you can modify your jump rope routine to add novelty and difficulty as you become better at it. In fact, the more you enjoy your exercise, the more likely you are to stick to it long term.
The Science of Weight Loss and Calorie Deficit
Though it was once thought that weight loss was simply “calories in, calories out,” it’s more complicated and nuanced than this. While it’s true that a person must be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, achieving meaningful weight loss requires a well-rounded approach.
You can achieve a calorie deficit by eating fewer calories, expending more energy through movement and exercise, or a combination of both. However, the size of your calorie deficit depends on your body composition and calorie needs. For instance, most research suggests that a 10-20% calorie deficit is sustainable for most people and will help promote fat loss and preserve lean muscle mass. To illustrate, let’s say a person needs 2,200 calories per day to maintain their current weight. A deficit of 10-20% would equal around 220-440 calories per day, which can be achieved through eating less, moving more, or both.
Additionally, a person who is 5’2” (157 cm), weighs 150 pounds (68 kg), and leads a sedentary lifestyle will have very different calorie needs than a person who is 6’5” (196 cm), weighs 300 pounds (136 kg), and works a physically demanding job. If you’re unsure how many calories your body needs in a day based on your age, sex, height, weight, and activity level, using an online calculator that uses the Harris-Benedict equation or the Mifflin-St Jeor equation can give you a rough estimate. Along with this, as a person loses weight, they’re going to expend fewer calories and need to eat fewer calories to maintain their weight, which can make weight loss harder.
While it may be easy to dismiss failed weight loss attempts for a lack of effort, many factors are at play and can help or hinder your weight loss goals, such as:
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- muscle vs. fat mass (e.g., having more muscle mass burns more calories at rest)
- sleep duration and quality
- chronic stress
- medications
- medical conditions (e.g., hypothyroidism)
- age
- genetics
- diet quality
- a history of yo-yo dieting
What’s more, losing weight may not be as important as changing your body’s composition in favor of more muscle mass and less fat mass, which is usually a better determinant of health.
Since muscle is denser than fat gram-for-gram, it takes up less space on the body yet weighs the same. Therefore, while you may not see the number on the scale change, you may observe noticeable differences in your waist circumference and muscle definition. Instead of focusing on the scale, focus mainly on leading a healthy lifestyle that promotes exercise, following a healthy diet, reducing your stress levels, and getting good quality sleep, which will likely help you feel more energetic and support fat loss and muscle growth.
Cardio Fitness and Calorie Burning
Jumping rope is excellent for improving your cardiorespiratory fitness. Jumping continuously for a period of time requires more blood and oxygen to be pumped to working muscles, which increases your heart rate and respiratory rate to accommodate the increased demand. Over time, this can strengthen your heart and improve your lung capacity, allowing you to exercise for longer.
Jumping rope is an effective workout that can burn many calories in a short time frame. For example, a 200-pound (91-kg) person can burn an impressive 362 calories from 20 minutes of jumping rope quickly, or 241 calories when jumping rope slowly. Therefore, adding jump rope to your daily routine can help contribute to achieving a calorie deficit, which is needed for weight loss.
Benefits of Jumping Rope
Aside from familial history, one of the most common causes of diabetes is weight gain due to reduced physical activity. By increasing daily physical activity, it can increase insulin sensitivity and reduce the risk of developing diabetes.
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Here's how jumping rope may benefit you:
- Improves cardio fitness: Jumping rope is excellent for improving your cardiorespiratory fitness. Jumping continuously for a period of time requires more blood and oxygen to be pumped to working muscles, which increases your heart rate and respiratory rate to accommodate the increased demand. Over time, this can strengthen your heart and improve your lung capacity, allowing you to exercise for longer.
- Strengthens muscles: If you’re looking for an effective full-body workout, try jumping rope. The act of jumping rope relies on your lower body muscles (e.g., calves, thighs, and buttocks), upper body (e.g., shoulders and biceps), and abdominal muscles. This can not only help improve muscle strength but also your muscular endurance, which allows your muscles to exercise for longer, and increase explosive power for quick, sudden movements that are common in sports.
- Builds stronger bones: Jumping rope is a high impact exercise that stresses the bones in a healthy way to make them stronger. As a person jumps, the body responds to the temporary stress on bones caused by ground reaction forces by building them back stronger and denser. In fact, one 22-week study including Olympic swimmers observed significant increases in bone mineral density of the lumbar spine and femoral neck (a part of the thigh bone) after participating in 20 minutes of jump rope and full-body vibration twice per week. Other studies have also shown similar results with jumping rope and similar exercises.
- May improve your coordination and balance: Adding the jump rope to your workout routine can be a great way to improve your balance and coordination. Learning to jump rope involves the coordination of your arms, legs, and torso while also keeping a constant rhythm. Furthermore, you must have proper balance to maintain your center of gravity and allow your feet to push off of the ground in a repeated fashion. Fortunately, you decide how fast you’re jumping and rotating the rope, meaning you can slowly build your coordination and balance based on your needs.
- Increase lung capacity: In a study published in 2017 in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science, when overweight women in their twenties performed jump rope workouts with dance music for four weeks, they ended up with greater lung capacity.
- May Improve Cognitive Performance: According to an study published in October 2021 in Brain Sciences, a jump rope routine may elevate brain chemicals related to maintaining attention.
- It increases your heart rate: Jumping rope can be a good form of cardio, which increases your heart rate and can help decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease.
- It burns calories: And when you increase your heart rate, you also burn more calories. So, how many calories does jumping rope burn? While it depends on your pace, on average, someone may burn about 100 calories jumping rope for 10 minutes.
- It improves coordination and balance: Research shows that jumping rope regularly can improve your balance and coordination.
- It may build bone density: Your bone density decreases as you age. But jumping rope may help keep your bones strong, research shows. As jumping rope is a load-bearing activity, the small impact or stress from landing after a jump helps strengthen your bones.
- It's easy to do: All you need is a rope and yourself. And you can jump rope almost anywhere, making it a great option for on-the-go or when you’re traveling.
- It makes you feel good: And that it may help improve your mental health?
- Jumping rope is a lower-impact exercise: than you might think - so long as you stretch properly beforehand and practice proper technique.
- Jump roping taxes the cardiovascular system quite a bit: so we see improvements in cardiovascular capacity, blood pressure and heart rate.
- The exercise is also great for getting the heart pumping: Some reports show that you can burn as many as 500 calories in only 30 minutes of the activity when practicing the most vigorous techniques.
- Regular practice of the sport strengthens upper body muscles: in your biceps, core, back, forearms and shoulders along with lower body muscles like your calves, hamstrings, glutes and quads.
- Jumping rope is a cognitive workout: It forces you to stay present in the workout (as opposed to other cardio, like running). If you zone out or let your mind wander, you’ll trip.
Jump Rope and Belly Fat
A 2018 study investigated the effects of a 12-week jump rope exercise program on risk factors for cardiovascular disease in adolescent females with prehypertension and central adiposity. Prehypertension is blood pressure that is slightly higher than typical, while central adiposity describes an accumulation of fat around the abdominal area. Participants who completed the exercise program showed significant reductions in waist circumference and central adiposity compared to participants who did not complete the regimen.
Likewise, a 2021 study found that an 8-week health intervention combining jump rope exercise with a calorie-restricted diet improved various health measures, including reductions in body fat mass and body fat percentage. The study authors concluded that a combination of jump rope exercise and calorie restriction may boost weight loss and cardiovascular health to a greater extent than either of these interventions alone.
Jump rope exercise is a full-body aerobic exercise that increases heart rate, respiration rate, and body temperature. Research suggests this activity can help reduce abdominal fat and waist circumference and promote overall weight loss. Like other forms of vigorous-intensity exercise, jump rope can also help improve cardiovascular health.
Jump Rope Workout Plans
ACE provides the following three jump rope exercise plan levels: beginner level, intermediate level, and advanced level. The ACE recommends people who are not used to high intensity, high impact exercise start with a beginner-level workout. From here, a person can progress to the intermediate level and finally to the advanced level. For each level, the entire circuit should take between 15 and 25 minutes to complete, including rest periods. People also need to allow additional time to warm up before exercising as well as some time to cool down after the exercise. Warm-up and cool-down periods are important for preventing injury.
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Beginner Jump Rope Workout
The following exercises are appropriate for the beginner-level jump rope workout:
- Forward jogging: This involves jogging on the spot while rotating the jump rope in a forward motion.
- Backward jogging: This involves jogging on the spot while rotating the jump rope in a backward motion.
- Hopscotch jumps: This refers to jumping from a hop to a jump with each revolution of the jump rope.
At this level, people should aim to jump rope for 15 seconds at a time, followed by a 15-second rest period. The aim is to complete 18 sets in total.
Intermediate Jump Rope Workout
The following exercises are appropriate for the intermediate-level jump rope workout:
- Side hopping: This involves hopping from one side to the other.
- Double jump: This involves jumping with enough height to allow for two revolutions of the jump rope.
- Single-leg: A person hops on a single leg for one, two, three, or four hops in a row.
At this level, people should aim to jump rope for 30 seconds at a time, followed by a 30-second rest period. The aim is to complete 18 sets in total.
Advanced Jump Rope Workout
The following exercises activate more muscle groups and are appropriate for the advanced-level jump rope workout:
- High knees: A person lifts the knees high toward the chest.
- Criss-cross jumps: Individuals bring one arm over another to form a loop in the jump rope.
- Butt kickers: A person brings the heels of the feet up to meet the butt.
- Double jump: People jump with enough height to allow for two revolutions of the jump rope.
At this level, people should aim to jump rope for 60 seconds at a time, followed by a 60-second rest period. The aim is to complete 18 sets in total.
Other Ways to Add Jumping Rope to Your Workout
- Endurance workout: For this workout, the goal is to jump rope as long as possible, which will help to build your cardiorespiratory endurance. The focus should be slow, moderate intensity jumping, rather than jumping as fast as you can. To begin, start a stopwatch and see how long you can jump at a consistent pace without needing to stop. If you’re able to, take a short break and do this again. Over time, try to increase your jumping time, ideally aiming for up to 20-30 minutes without stopping.
- Warmup: If you want to use a jump rope to warm up your muscles before another workout, try jumping rope for 3-5 minutes at a moderate, consistent pace.
- Finisher: To finish off your workout, try to raise your heart rate as high as possible by completing a quick, burnout jump rope session. At the end of any workout, jump at a fast pace for a count of 100 jumps. Take a short break, and continue jumping in intervals of 100 for up to 500 or more cumulative jumps. This can also be its own workout if you’re short on time. Aim to do as many intervals as you can in 10-15 minutes.
- Sedentary break: If you’ve been sitting for a long time and want a quick break from being sedentary, grab a jump rope and skip for a few minutes. Doing this a few times during the day can add up and may give you a boost of endorphins to help you with your other tasks.
- Mid-workout: If you don’t like waiting between your sets while weight training, try skipping rope for 30-60 seconds to keep your heart rate up between sets.
How Often and How Long to Jump Rope
The AHA recommends that people perform 75 minutes of jump rope exercise or other vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week or 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. Alternatively, people can incorporate both high- and moderate-intensity exercises into their weekly exercise routine. The AHA notes that this level of weekly physical activity can help people maintain a moderate weight and reduce their risk of cardiovascular diseases.
You can jump rope anywhere between two or three days a week. Jumping rope can be part of your plan to get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity. How long you end up jumping rope for each session is up to you. You may only be able to do 30 seconds at a time - and that’s OK, you can build up to longer periods. And there’s a variety of jump rope programs out there, to help you determine how long to jump and how long to rest. One example: Jump for 60 seconds, rest for 30 seconds. Repeat this sequence 10 times.
Regardless of how long you jump, it’s vital that you do it correctly. You want to make sure your jump rope is the right length for you: If you stand in the center of the rope, each end should reach your armpit. When it comes to jumping, slightly bend your knees and keep your arm close to your body. Try to keep your shoulders and neck relaxed - avoid shrugging your shoulders. The movement should primarily be in your wrists. When making contact with the ground, make sure you’re landing quietly.
It may be beneficial to do some calf strengthening and stretching exercises if you plan on making jump rope a part of your fitness routine. Doing so will help you jump better and for longer.
Choosing the Right Jump Rope
For a jump rope workout, you’ll need to start with a rope! This can be made of any material you prefer, such as braided cotton, nylon, or polyurethane. Look for handles that fit your hands with an easy grip, and take into account your height. (Ropes come in shorter and longer sizes to accommodate shorter and taller people.) If possible, select your jump rope at an in-person store where you can try it out before purchasing.
To take the intensity up a notch, consider a weighted jump rope. Using a weighted rope can increase calorie burn as well as sculpting and muscle toning. Weighted ropes range from about ½ pound to 10 pounds. Select a rope weight based on how difficult you’d like to make your workout. If you are a beginner, consider starting with a lighter weighted rope and slowly increasing the weight of the rope.
Speed ropes are particularly ideal for advanced jump rope maneuvers like double unders, in which the rope passes under the feet twice for every single jump.
As you advance, you may find that a shorter rope is more to your liking because it will aid you in increasing your skipping rate.
Jump Rope Safety
It’s important that you gradually increase intensity and duration of jumping rope. Before jumping rope for the first time, try forward and backward line hops for a few minutes beforehand. If you’re jumping rope excessively - every day or for extended periods of time - it can cause potential foot and ankle problems, and even some knee problems. It’s best to wear sneakers while jumping rope.
It's also important to stretch properly and warm up your calf muscles to prevent injuries such as stress fractures, shin splints or joint pain.
See if your calves can handle 20-30 calf raises consecutively on each leg.
She also suggests getting your body used to the motion of jumping up and down before involving the coordination required of using a rope.
People who have joint conditions like arthritis or certain orthopaedic issues may want to avoid jumping rope. And if you have a heart condition, it’s best to talk to your healthcare provider first.
Nutrition for Jump Rope Workouts
Fueling your jump rope routine with the right foods and drinks will help you feel your best. Here’s how to approach food choices before, during, and after jumping rope.
Before You Jump Rope
If you’re eating close to grabbing your rope, Jackson-Blatner recommends having something healthy and small. If it’s 30 to 60 minutes before a jump, have a fitness snack. A fitness snack is smart at this point because you need fuel to jump, but you don’t want a super full stomach too close to a jump session. What’s a good snack for fitness? Something small and light that will fuel your workout. Carbohydrates are recommended 30 to 60 minutes prior to a jump rope workout. This includes fruit or a slice or two of bread.
If you’re eating two to three hours before a jump session, Jackson-Blatner recommends a meal featuring carbs and lean protein.
During Your Jump Rope Workout
You likely won’t need to eat during a jump rope workout, but don’t forget to drink! Hydration during jump rope is key to have more energy, reduce soreness, and prevent injury. A good rule of thumb is to have 8 ounces of fluid (water or water with electrolytes) every 20 minutes. If you’re exercising for over an hour, add a drink with carbohydrates such as Gatorade that will fuel your workout.
After Your Jump Rope Workout
According to Jackson-Blatner, it’s important to replenish with a balanced meal within 30 to 60 minutes of a jump rope workout. For a meal with a healthy balance of all three macronutrients (carbs, fat, and protein) try a turkey sandwich, an egg scramble with veggies and toast, or a smashed chickpea wrap in a whole wheat tortilla. The carbs restore muscle energy, and the protein starts repairing tired muscles.
Jump Rope vs. Other Forms of Exercise
While jumping rope can provide a significant calorie burn, your joints must be able to withstand the force of an intense workout.
It is important to note that weight training can also improve bone health and density, improve heart health, and make your strength training movements faster and more explosive.
Weightlifting for 30 minutes can burn between 90 and 252 calories, depending on a person’s weight, activity, and workout intensity levels. But here’s the thing: cardio alone won’t build muscle. To do that, you’ll need to incorporate weight training. Combine the two, and you’re left with a super-powered calorie-torching routine packed with total body benefits you’ll see and feel.