6 Health Benefits of Jumping Rope
Thinking about jumping rope might bring up memories of your childhood. Did you know it’s one of the most wholesome cardiovascular exercises out there?
Furthermore, it’s a simple easy to learn activity but contributes to maintain a good condition and increase physical endurance. Also, it complements the effects of some sports and exercise routines.
The best part is you don’t need to go to the gym or have machines, dumbbells or other equipment to obtain good results. Would you like to know what are the health benefits of jumping rope? Continue reading, then.
The importance of aerobic exercise
In general, the practice of aerobic exercise has positive health effects. As detailed in research published in the World Journal of Cardiology, doing it regularly helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and metabolic disorders such as obesity.
There’s a wide variety of aerobic exercises you can practice; among them:
- Walking
- Running
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Bicycling
- Zumba
The health benefits of jumping rope
In the next section we’ll share some of the benefits of jumping rope in detail. This exercise is great as a sports activity overall. This is because it’s easy to do, you can do it anywhere, contributes to weight loss and, incidentally, helps improve your balance.
1. It tones the muscles
When you jump rope, you work all of the muscles in your body. This workout uses your upper, core, and lower body muscles. You use your biceps and triceps to keep the rope moving. At the same time, you use your abdominal muscles to jump.
Additionally, this workout also strengthens your legs. The coordinated movement of your legs generates muscle tension. Consequently, this tension tones and builds your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.
As you can see, jumping rope is a great activity to tone your body as you lose fat.
2. It improves cardiovascular health
The movement that we use when we jump rope directly helps our cardiovascular system. In fact, a recent study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that jumping rope decreases the risk of cerebrovascular diseases in young people.
3. Jumping rope increases your lung capacity
When you jump rope, your lungs get a bigger amount of air. This can be helpful for some respiratory problems. At the same time, it increases our physical endurance. As a result, this means we can exercise longer without getting tired.
The American Lung Association recommends jumping rope as one of the options to help your lungs function properly. Therefore, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into your daily exercise routine.
Check out these Four Home Remedies to Strengthen the Lungs
4. It helps burn calories
Jumping rope for 30 minutes burns around 400 calories. Yes, it’s difficult to jump this long during an exercise routine. However, just doing so for eight to ten minutes already yields interesting weight loss benefits.
According to a study published in the Jentashapir Journal of Cellular and Molecular Biology, this exercise also reduces the risk of diseases associated with obesity.
5. It increases bone density
Jumping rope helps you strengthen your bones, especially if you start at an early age. According to a study published in PLoS One, jumping rope can help increase bone density in your lower limbs.
6. It prevents stress and improves mental activity
Even though there hasn’t been significant scientific testing, some say that the coordination you need to jump rope makes new neural connections. In general, as a review in Frontiers in Psychology details, aerobic exercise helps increase endorphin release.
Therefore, jumping rope is a relaxing activity that can help mitigate the effects of stress and anxiety. In fact, its regular practice is associated with improved well-being.
Read about Relaxation Techniques During the Lockdown
What you need to take into account when jumping rope
Even though jumping rope is an easy exercise, you should be careful. It’s a good idea to take precautions to prevent unnecessary joint impact.
- When you start, it’s recommended that you warm-up. Start with some slow, smooth jumps over a short period of time. When you warm-up you can do faster jumps over a long period of time.
- If you aren’t in shape, it’s perfectly normal to feel tired at the beginning. The best thing to do is to slowly increase the amount of time you jump rope. This way, you are sure to keep improving your endurance.
- Another recommendation is to combine jump rope with a low-intensity workout. Some examples are light aerobics and lifting light weights. As a result, your muscles will be stronger and you’ll be able to jump for longer periods of time.
The benefits of jumping rope make it clear that it’s one of the best exercises to incorporate into your current exercise routine. As it has many benefits, it’s become of the preferred exercises of fitness lovers and sports players.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Mersy, D. J. (1991). Health benefits of aerobic exercise. Postgraduate Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1080/00325481.1991.11700983
- Orhan, Serdar. (2013). The effects of rope training on heart rate, anaerobic power and reaction time of the basketball players. Life Science Journal. 10. 266-271.
- Chen, C. C., & Lin, S. Y. (2011). The impact of rope jumping exercise on physical fitness of visually impaired students. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32(1), 25–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2010.08.010
- How to Cite: Zakavi I, Bizhani B, Bani Hashemi M, Ghaisii E. The Effect of an Eight-Week Rope Skipping Exercise Program on Interleukin-10 and C-Reactive Protein in Overweight and Obese Adolescents, Jentashapir J Cell Mol Biol. 2015 ; 6(4):e24720. doi: 10.17795/jjhr-24720.
- Ha AS, Ng JYY. Rope skipping increases bone mineral density at calcanei of pubertal girls in Hong Kong: A quasi-experimental investigation. PLoS One. 2017;12(12):e0189085. Published 2017 Dec 8. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189085
- Heijnen S, Hommel B, Kibele A, Colzato LS. Neuromodulation of Aerobic Exercise-A Review. Front Psychol. 2016;6:1890. Published 2016 Jan 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01890
