♪ Cinderella, dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss her fella. ♪ Made a mistake and kissed a snake. How many doctors did it take?♪ That’s a jump rope ditty from my childhood, and I’ve heard that they still sing it today. Do you remember jumping rope as a kid?
Jumping rope is an excellent exercise for all ages, and it has many benefits including price, convenience, health, and wellness. Jumping rope can easily be done at home, is fun to do, and it’s also one of the best cardiovascular exercises that you can perform.
Most of us jumped rope when we were children, but we stopped when we reached middle school, or even before that. But if you pay attention now to some of the best athletes, you’ll see that they use rope jumping exercises in their training regimen, and for good reason. Jumping rope challenges your bones, muscles, heart, lungs, and stamina, making your body stronger and healthier.
Here are 9 benefits of jump rope exercise, and some of these may surprise you.
Improves Cardiovascular Health
Jump roping is a great cardiovascular exercise. The steady jumping up and down gets your heart pumping, and will strengthen it while you have fun jumping rope. You can use a heart rate monitor to make sure that you’re in an optimal heart rate range that’s safe and effective.
Improves Stamina and Breathing Efficiency
Jump rope exercise will help improve your stamina and breathing efficiency. Simply put, it will help your lungs work more efficiently to get your body the oxygen it needs to sustain activity, including exercise, for a longer period of time.
Burns Lots of Calories
While jumping rope, you’re steadily jumping up and down. This action is taxing on your body, and it will help you become stronger, more fit, and it will help you burn tons of calories. The faster and longer you jump rope, the more calories you will burn. Because of how many calories jumping rope will help you burn, it is a great choice of exercise for anyone wanting to lose weight.
Agility and Quickness
Jumping rope will help you improve your agility and quickness. Jumping rope requires you to be both agile and quick, if you’re going to be coordinated enough to keep jumping. You can do some variations of jumping rope if you want, and you can try moving around while jumping rope to improve your agility. But don’t worry if you don’t start off jumping like a pro. Just like when we were kids, it may take a bit of try-and-try-again to get the hang of jumping rope again.
Strength and Power
Because jumping rope is a jumping movement, you will improve the strength and power in your legs if you jump rope regularly. The harder your legs work, the stronger they’ll be. If you want to add resistance, try jumping rope while wearing ankle weights.
Increases Bone Density
A reduction in bone density is a serious problem that can lead to broken bones as you age. It’s normal to lose bone density as you age, however, there is something you can do about it. Weightlifting increases bone density, and so does jump roping. When you put stress on your legs with weights or jumping movements, your body will respond by building up your bones so that they can withstand the stress of the jumping or added weight.
Decreases the Chance of Foot and Ankle Injury
Jumping rope strengthens the muscles that support the ligaments and tendons in and around the foot. It’s best to jump slightly off of the floor, using your toes as a springboard, in order to give these muscles a great workout. Jumping rope regularly will protect you from foot injuries during other sports and activities
Affordable
Jump ropes are affordable for just about anyone. That, and a supportive pair of tennis shoes, is all the equipment you need to jump rope.
Convenient
You can jump rope anywhere. If you’re jumping at home, just be sure you have enough room to jump without the rope knocking into anything, like that expensive vase on the tabletop. For on the go, it’s easy to keep a jump rope in a gym bag, your car, your backpack, and even a purse for when you have a few minutes to sneak in some exercise or during your lunch break.
As you can see there are many benefits of jump rope exercise. It can help you improve your overall health, help protect you from injuries during sports, and will help you lose weight by burning calories. Jumping rope is affordable, convenient, and fun. It’s easy to get started, so what’s stopping you?
