Okay, here’s the deal. I’m a football player and suck at jump roping. I want to improve my footwork this offseason, but not being very nimble kinda puts a damper on it. Does anybody know how I could progress on jump rope so that about 6-8 months from now, I’m good at it?
I’m 5’7" and 185 lbs, if that helps at all.
CS
How often do you do it and how long have you been doing it? I never used to hit the rope, but semi-recently I added it in as part of my pre-lift warmup and it got way easier with 2-3 times of doing it, and my rhythm with the rope increased just as fast. I could knock out a fast 500 revs without hitting my feet or taking breaks after maybe a week. Just stick with it bud.
yeap just keep doing it. and theres a lot of really embarrassing stupid videos people make that actually do help you with shit like criss crosses, doubleunders and step overs too. and some videos that aren’t embarrassing and stupid.
like these fucks
Just keep doing it, over and over and over. Start with 50 reps in a row without catching. It always helped me to be able to count each of them - puts you in a bit of a cadence.
Then go for 100 in a row. Then shoot for one minute as fast as you can. You’ll get there. It’s just repetition.
At this point now I do it for three minute rounds and do all kinds of shit whilst jumping, but it’s taken me about 10 months to get to that point doing it three or four times a week as a warmup for boxing.
It was ABSOLUTELY improve your footwork. Looking back, our football coach should have made us do this… it really is so fucking good for coordination its unbelievable.
Have you looked into doing ladder drills, in addition to jumping rope, to help progress your foot work?
Practice. Thats honestly the easiest way to learn. Its not like its a hard thing on your body so no reason why you couldn’t set aside 2-3 5 min sessions per day and just try to jump rope during them. You’ll get better.
I find that jumping both feet at the same time gets me winded terribly in about 90 seconds.
I switched to hopping left/right and can go longer, but i don’t do anything fancier than that.
Maybe to get yourself conditioned for jumping rope it would be a good idea to do lots of jumping jacks.
Practice, as others have stated, was the main thing that helped me. I first started jumping rope around age 25 and couldn’t do more than 5 jumps without snagging the rope. I also jumped over the rope like a school girl with my knees bent to where my shins were parallel to the ground when I was over the rope and swinging the rope with my arms instead of my wrists. Over the course of a week or so, I adapted my jumping to where it was more efficient and about two weeks in, I was jumping rope without snagging for minutes at a time and was on to learning double unders etc.
Bottom line, everyone sucks at jumping rope at first.
A note concering learning double unders: A tip someone gave me when I was learning double unders is it practice the jumping, but without a rope. Every time you jump, clap twice between the time you leave the ground and when you land again. Keep doing that in succession and that’ll give you the rhythm that you’ll use the sweep the rope under you twice for every jump.
Is jump-roping really hard for some people to learn?
It took me like, maybe a week, tops, to become pretty proficient.
I include jump-rope into every days warm-ups though, so I do get quite a bit of practice.
Maybe I’m being too critical, I’m sorry if I offended any of you jump-roping impaired…
Haha.
Anyway, I currently do 300 double leg jumps, 200 single leg jumps (200 on right and left), and then I do the whole, jogging in place, alternate foot jumping thing until I feel good and warm.
It’s really not hard to get good at, just do it a lot.
I’m a huge believer in the skip rope.
When teaching someone these are the things I’ve noticed that are the most common problems:
Going too high - you want to barely skip over it but beginners always seem to think they have to really jump a good 5 inches off the ground. You don’t and it’ll make the timing a lot more difficult.
Wrist mobility and speed of rotation - Starting out you don’t want to go too fast but you should go at a pace that causes the rope to stay mostly tight and clear your head. Keep that pace of rotation for now - your wrists determine your rhythm not your feet.
Stay on your toes the entire time.
Relax and have some fun with it - Especially starting out people get nervous and tense up. You need to stay relaxed to be any good at skipping.
As for some training that can help:
Get into either a boxer pose or a martial arts stance and hop in place for a good 3 minutes. Stay loose on your toes and just bounce in place. Call yourself 1’s - being switch once. 2’s - switch twice. 3’s - switch thrice.
I find skipping to be far more enjoyable with no shoes or shoes like those used in wrestling, boxing, martial arts and deadlifting. If I’m wearing cross trainers they soles will sometimes catch.
Just jumped some rope a day ago for thr first time in a long time. DOMs central in my calves! Also noted that my some hypertrophy!
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I’m fucking horrible at jump rope. I’ve done it for both revolutions and for time(work up to 3 minute rounds for example). One way to learn quick is(at least in my case) was to do it shirtless, cause I’d always whip myself, and well, negative reinforcement works wonders. So make sure you beat your kids so that they’ll be good at jumping rope.
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
One way to learn quick is(at least in my case) was to do it shirtless, cause I’d always whip myself, and well, negative reinforcement works wonders. So make sure you beat your kids so that they’ll be good at jumping rope.[/quote]
I unwittingly took that approach when practicing double unders. I had a sleeveless shirt on and every time I missed, the rope would come around and whip me in the triceps.
Just do it, start slow, do two hops on your toes everytime you skip. Try to set a record until you reach 100 jumps. I never jumped rope until about 4 months ago. Set a timer and jump rope for 20 minutes.
Stop as necessary, stop the clock, rest 30 seconds and start up again. Your calves won’t be very happy the first few times, but they’ll get used to it. Stay on the balls of your feet and as stated previously don’t jump too high.
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
I’m fucking horrible at jump rope. I’ve done it for both revolutions and for time(work up to 3 minute rounds for example). One way to learn quick is(at least in my case) was to do it shirtless, cause I’d always whip myself, and well, negative reinforcement works wonders. So make sure you beat your kids so that they’ll be good at jumping rope.[/quote]
Haha I did something similar. I purchased these wooden handle with a metal hook where the rope attaches to the handle pair of jump ropes from Modells. Every time you mess up, rope stops dead in its track on both of your thumbs. The pain from this was incredibly annoying. My hands were numb by the end of the 4, 3 minute rounds I did for the first couple of weeks. Definitely was in a pool of sweat by the end of the routine and my calf muscles got a bit more defined as well.
Skipping rope just get’s easier with time, but it’s something you really have to keep at like a speed-bag. switching feet like boxers do can help (it makes it easier to skip for longer focusing more on hand eye coordination) opposed to jumping off both feet each time. you want to focus on your wrist movements, keep your knees straight and you don’t need to be jumping high. keep it all in the wrists and the speed of the rope. If you are hitting yourself with the rope, hitting your ankles, missing skips, the only real solution is skipping more.
try to build up to 12 rounds of 3 minute intervals, building up to that, you just naturally get better. It’s an issue of hand eye coordination and muscular endurance. Working the abs/calves will allow you to skip for longer if you find it’s an issue of muscular endurance.
If you get to the point where you ever find skipping easy, you can skip with a weighted vest or weighted skipping rope. Though skipping by itself is so good, it may never be needed. practice, practice, practice.
Just do it, practice makes perfect.
Also, set up a jump rope 50 yards from plyo boxes also 50 yards from a set of bleachers.
Jump rope for a minute, sprint to the boxes and jump for a minute sprint to and up the bleachers, jog back and repeat.
I love to jump rope. Here is a very inspiring video. I echo everyone else- just practice.
Isn’t there some guy called Buddy Lee that sells all sorts of videos about skipping and has his own line of ropes?