The Unspoken Benefits Of Jumping Rope
Jumping rope might be something you associate with childhood, but it’s good for so much more than just that. Jumping rope isn’t just for kids – it’s a great way to torch calories, improve stamina, and even tighten your core. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves; jumping rope is one of the most underrated forms of exercise. In fact, it might even be more effective than other forms of cardio. One study done in 2013 published an article saying that college men who spent just 10 minutes jumping rope every day improved their cardiovascular fitness levels as much as college men who spent 30 minutes jogging for the same time frame.
Jumping Rope Torches Calories
As we’ve mentioned, jumping rope burns a serious amount of calories. In just 15 minutes, you can burn 200-300 calories. That could be more than other cardio exercises like running or bike riding. The reason for this is that most of your major muscle groups are working while you jump rope. So, this creates a lot of heat in the body, leading it to burn more fuel to produce this energy and burn many calories.
Jumping Rope Improves Coordination
In order to jump rope, you’ll need a lot of coordination, especially when you advance to more skilled moves. This exercise requires several body parts to communicate in order to complete just one movement. Your feet need to jump in time with your wrists rotating to create the continuous jumping motion. A 2017 study found that jumping rope helped improve motor coordination among autistic children, who often struggle with balance and coordination.
Jumping Rope Decreases Risk Of Injury
Those who are active in other sports would greatly benefit from jumping rope. Athletes typically suffer from a lot of foot and ankle injuries since playing requires quick movements on their feet like suddenly turning and running. Jumping rope improves your foot coordination and increases your strength in the muscles surrounding the ankle joint and in the foot. This leads to a decreased risk of injury to those areas.
Jumping Rope Improves Bone Health
Since jumping rope is a weight-bearing exercise and requires you to put weight on your skeleton, it helps improve your bone health. While it can help maintain bone density in adults, skipping has an even better effect on young people since it aids in bone development as well.
Jumping Rope Allows Easy Progression
All the benefits of jumping rope can be enhanced easily by replacing a regular rope with a weighted one. Since you’ll be swinging something heavier, you’ll get stronger in the upper body as well while burning more calories too.
Jumping Rope Is Accessible And Cheap
You don’t need a fancy gym membership or expensive equipment for this. You just need a good-old jump rope to get started. It’s inexpensive and can be done almost anywhere. The jump rope won’t take up much space and is super light, making it portable, too. You don’t need too much space to jump, either, making this a good option for those who live in smaller apartments.