This video is from our cardio video workout series. It covers the jump rope exercise and provides tips on how to perform the exercise correctly. Jumping rope is one of the best whole body cardio exercises you can do if your goal is to burn tons of calories in a short amount of time and melt off body fat quickly! This is one exercise you definitely want to keep in your cardio workout program to see results fast.
Jumping rope is one of the best overall cardio exercises you can do. It works your overall body and targets your legs, core muscles, calves, abdominals, back, shoulders, chest and arms. It really works your calves and forearms extremely well which is great for toning and shaping these muscle groups.
Let’s start off with a great tip. One of the best things you can do is buy a quality jump rope and avoid the super cheap ones. You want to look for a speed rope that has ball bearings and is made out of either leather or vinyl material. Go to your local sporting goods store or shop for one online. It will only cost you around $10-15 to find a good one. Make sure to get a good quality rope since it will last you a long time and it’s worth its weight in gold.
So let’s go ahead and begin. The first thing you want to do when you begin is to keep your arms in with your elbows softly tucked into your sides when you are performing this exercise. As you can see in the video above, my elbows are positioned naturally down by my sides and they are not flared way out. I’m using just my wrists to turn the jump rope. You want to avoid swinging the rope with your shoulders and arms. Try to keep it all in your wrists.
If you are a beginner, just try to go super slow and get the movement down. You want to start with a basic two foot jump when you first begin. Keep your feet together, arms in and just get a nice rhythm going. Once you start to get the hang of it, you can move into a one foot style jump where you hop on one foot for two revolutions of the rope and then switch to the other foot for another two reps. This is a little more advanced so make sure you have the jump rope technique down before attempting it. You can also do threes, where you basically hop on one foot three times and then switch to the other foot. If you want to go super fast and burn some serious calories, alternate between hopping on one foot each time you swing the rope around you and go as fast as you can go for 60 seconds. You will be burning tons of calories and sweating big time!
There are tons of benefits of adding the jump rope exercise into your cardio workouts. Along with cardiac health there are the benefits of weight loss and fat burning, better coordination and agility, muscle toning and lower body muscle endurance. This cardio movement is one of the best weight loss exercises to use since it can easily burn up to 300-500 calories in just a 30-45 minute cardio session. Another major benefit to jumping rope is better overall coordination and agility.
Another amazing benefit of using this exercise is its portability which means you can practically get a killer cardio workout anywhere! It requires nothing special and most of all, it is not affected by the weather, like running or cycling. You are not limited to the gym or anywhere else for that matter and its also super inexpensive. You can get a great workout in for only a $10-15 investment which is a serious bang for your buck. This jump rope workout, if done consistently each week (3-5 times per week) for 30-45 minutes per workout, will give you awesome results and it’s one of the best workouts to use if you have a super busy schedule and want to burn the most amount of fat and calories in the shortest amount of time!
