A CrossFit jump rope is an efficient and multi-purpose piece of equipment both in professional sports and day-to-day training sessions. It helps people develop complex skills and improve across multiple fitness domains. Athletes use jump rope training to enhance coordination, speed, endurance, focus, and agility.
You can add skipping to warm-ups, cool downs, standalone high-intensity or endurance workouts. Working with a jump rope elevates your heart rate quickly and can replace large expensive cardio machines. It is a huge advantage for fitness enthusiasts.
Jump ropes are light and compact and do not require much space for working out, so they are perfect for home training and traveling. These days it’s an undeniable benefit – stay inside, go to your driveway, backyard, or garage gym and start skipping!
Read about protecting your feet and legs when doing CrossFit
Benefits Of CrossFit Jump Rope
Training with a jump rope on a regular basis can significantly improve your health and body composition by burning around 300-450 calories per 30 minutes of working out. It’s a fun and effective way to lose extra fat, stay toned or just add more activity into everyday life.
Skipping is a full-body exercise, engaging legs, arms, and shoulders. It’s a real challenge for hamstrings, calves, glutes, forearms, triceps, back muscles, and core. Athletes performing high-repetition workouts know that upper body is the first to get fatigued.
Another health benefit of rope jumping is preventing foot and ankle injuries along with increasing bone density. Skipping develops coordination and strengthens the muscles surrounding the ankles and feet. As you skip, your feet repeatedly hit the floor and your bones adapt to this with an increased density, which also prevents possible fractures.
As an aerobic exercise, jumping a rope trains your cardiovascular system, making your heart healthier. It also improves your breathing efficiency, so you’ll be less likely to be out of breath when walking fast or running, swimming, or playing with the kids.
Jump Rope Tricks
Jumping a rope doesn’t have to be a monotonous skipping for 30+ minutes up until the moment you lose count. We suggest trying to master the tricks below after you’ve mastered basic skipping:
- Double unders – A must-have movement in Crossfit. This challenging but efficient exercise requires great coordination, rhythm, and agility. To perform a double under, you must spin the rope twice during a single jump. CrossFitters may spend weeks or months mastering double unders and even triple unders. You can perform a double under with a CrossFit jump rope or a double jump rope. There is a famous double unders workout called “Flight Simulator,” we recommend giving it a try!
- The Boxer Skip – To perform this trick you will need to switch between left and right foot. When the weight shifts back and forth, do a little skip and here you go!
- Double Side Swipe – To do this you should focus on keeping your hands together all the time. The jump rope should stay tight, you should feel control over it at any moment. Start with the hands straight in front of you and do swings from side to side.
- The Twist – This is a cool trick and a decent training for your core muscles. Start jumping as usual but twist the hips and legs from side to side when landing. Your upper body and eyes should always be facing forward.
- The Criss-Cross – This one is well-known and truly impressive. Here you will need to focus on crossing your hands. Start from the regular jump, once the rope spins unders your feet – cross the arms and continue jumping. You may alternate between regular and crossed hands position or accept the challenge and switch the hand on the top every time, doing crisscrossed jumps. Good luck!
Choosing The Right Jump Rope
We hope we got you interested in jumping a rope! If you want to give it a try, you will need to choose a jump rope that is right for you. There are hundreds of rope types for multiple purposes. We gathered the most important features to look at when choosing your perfect jump rope for home and gym workouts, or a CrossFit jump rope for metcons.
Find out about this other important piece of equipment
Weight
Basically, there are weighted ropes and lighter speed ropes. Weighted ropes are great for full-body training, strength and endurance development. Heavy jump rope benefits are that they are more challenging on the muscles so you will put more effort into spinning it. These should also be considered great CrossFit jump ropes for beginners and the best jump rope for learning double unders, as a heavy jump rope cable provides more benefits in feedback and helps teach the right rhythm.
Light and ultralight ones are perfect for CrossFit metcons and cardio training. Such ropes allow spinning faster with your shoulders and wrists without excessive fatigue so you can go unbroken in endurance workouts like Triple Three or Annie. Advanced athletes and competitors would choose a lighter CrossFit jump rope, known as speed rope.
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Cable thickness
The rope cable thickness may vary from 1mm to 5 mm. Similar to the jump rope weight, the thickness defines the rope’s purpose. For better feedback the best jump rope for double unders or other tricks, choose CrossFit jump ropes for beginners with thicker cables – 3-5mm. For performance and speed work, opt for ultrathin speed ropes 1-2mm. Double jump ropes usually have a thinner cable of 2 mm.
Materials
Jump ropes can be made with light plastic or heavier steel handles. Jump rope cables are made of leather, fabric, PVC, or steel and they can also be coated with PVC, nylon, or uncoated. A CrossFit jump rope for beginners will often have a PVC coating, while an advanced speed rope will have an uncoated steel cable.
Handles connections
Swivel, ball bearing, or direct connection really makes a difference. Ropes with the cable connected directly to handles are slower than the ones with swivels and ball bearings. The last is a must for advanced athletes and CrossFitters, as such a type of connection provides smooth and efficient movement.
Some Suggestions
If you decide to purchase a simple rope or a CrossFit jump rope, you have high chances of finding the one perfect for your specific needs. RPM, Rogue, and WOD Nation make really great jump ropes. The prices can vary from $5.99 to $99+ and usually, good-quality jump ropes, can be purchased for $20-60. A CrossFit jump rope for beginners will cost around $25.
For example, WOD Nation or RPM Session4 ropes will be good enough for beginners just learning to skip and starting to learn double unders, as these ropes have a decent weight. RPM jump rope is also great for intermediate-level athletes, it ensures both good feedback and decent speed. Advanced athletes and CrossFit competitors may choose Sprint and Comp RPM jump rope, as well as Rogue SR series speed rope.
Hopefully, we reached our goal and you are more interested in a new kind of activity. It is essential for you to keep moving and to stay healthy and fit these days. A CrossFit jump rope will spice up and diversify your home or gym workouts and allow doing cardio sessions at any place and time.
Today is a perfect day to find what you look forward to doing. If you were into something before, and now you cannot make yourself do it – let it go and find a fresh passion to stay active.
Good luck!
