Basically I’m interested in jumping rope to lose a few pounds, but it is notoriously hard to find credible studies online about jumping rope and its effects on cardiovascular/physiological performance.
Most claims I’ve found online lack any sources at all; a WebMd articles states “You’d have to run an eight-minute mile to work off more calories than you’d burn jumping rope.” What the hell does that mean?
Most studies focusing on jump rope seem to focus on youth fitness… what about adults?
As LegendHasIt suggests, it’s called ‘skipping’ in Britain, so you might find research under that term. I just discovered the British Rope Skipping Association, whose website talks about the health benefits.
Not all jump roping is like that. I got in shape once mainly by jumping rope. I bought a leather jump rope with weighted handles and did it for about 30 - 40 minutes a day. It certainly worked although it is a fairly difficult workout. With leather jump ropes, you can jump extremely quickly. Jumping rope quickly is a favorite exercise of boxers who need both endurance and strength. I don’t know why it is so hard to find anything specific on it but I am not sure if it matters. If you jump rope fast and and long enough you will see and feel the results for yourself pretty quickly.
Not very at all if you jump rope like boxers do. You bounce really quickly and only need to jump an inch or so off the ground to clear a leather rope. You spring from the balls of your feet so there isn’t much impact. It works several muscle groups really and is a good cardio workout as long as you do it fast enough.
Why do you need a study? Isn’t the fact that boxers and similar athletes use it as basic fitness exercise good enough?
IMO, rope skipping/ jumping is generally not recommended for adults because you need to pay attention and start slowly to not tangled and fall, unless you learned it as kid and kept practising. For boxers, the additional dexterity is a plus, but for adults, a fitness exercise with a high risk of falling is not first choice compared to standard fitness like jogging or taking the stairs.
If you aren’t very clumsy, or take care to start slowly, rope skipping is a good exercise to improve general fitness / heart. Try it for 10 min. on high speed and see how much your pulse goes up and how much you’re gasping for breath.
(If you are clumsy, it’s also a good way to learn to be less so - if you start carefully).
If you do have knee issues or have genetical disposition, any jumping or running exercise is not as good as impact-reduces sports like cycling, water aerobics/ swimming, skating etc.
The cardiovascular requirements of jumping rope vary greatly with the skill of the jumper, the style of the jumping done, and the intensity of the effort. For those who have developed some decent basic skill level it is often thought of, and used, as a high intensity interval training technique. Decent technique means being able to jump something like 140 turns a minute and able to do “double-unders” (two times around for one jump). More skillful jumpers can get over 180 turns a minute and do multiple “double-unders” consecutively.
The best way to place it in your exercise universe is to measure your heart rate while jumping. (Well stop to count … ) Most people will be able to quickly get up well into their “anaerobic range” and will not be able to keep it up very long without taking a break … and most have brief breaks without meaning to by virtue of the fact that they miss a jump by a minute or so (or at first often much less) of going at speed. The need to focus and the satisfaction of mastering the skill (skills really as you quickly learn to mix up jumping styles), the immediate gratification from going a few turns longer without missing one, breaking your own personal best, all help many enjoy a work-out a bit more and push themselves just a bit harder without even realizing it.
If one jumps as a high intensity interval training (HIIT) technique then the substantial research on HIIT all applies. (Given a solid aerobic fitness base HIIT can lead to more fat loss even while expending fewer calories than aerobic range exercise alone, and increase a variety of performance measures compared to larger volumes at aerobic levels.)
If you want some online video demos of jump rope as a major fitness technique you could do a lot worse than these on crossfit.com.
I started last week and my first time out was able to jump in sets of 50-75 without problem. Rested at a 2:1 ratio to my jumping. Did around 800 jumps in 20 minutes and was thoroughly soaked in sweat. I’ve never jumped before but have heard that there is much less impact on the knees than running, which is why I’m curious about it. I certainly don’t need a study, but it is an interesting exercise because it is sometimes touted as one of the best fitness exercises to do with limited time.
A study wouldn’t mean anything to an individual person. Boxers don’t screw around with useless exercises. It depends on how fast and how long you want to push it. Get a leather rope and go for as fast as long as you can and you will see results. The results are limited by your speed, duration and the number of times you miss jumps and have to start over. Fast jump roping is really good exercise and a bit of a skill game so it makes it more fun. It won’t train all muscle groups but it does work out some you would expect especially if you use weighted handles.
That’s not really true. I used to work out at a boxing gym that trained all levels of boxers even up to professional world champions. Jumping rope is great exercise but it is hard on the knees, even when done expertly. It’s an impact exercise that is good for cardiovascular, eye-hand coordination, timing and development of leg muscles. But you can’t deny that it can be hard on the knees. Running can be horribly hard on the knees. Jumping rope has less impact than running but the number of impacts is greater due to frequency.
If you don’t have knee problems then jumping rope can produce a lot of positive results in a lot less time than some other exercises. Just don’t get the idea that it isn’t stressing the knees.
It seems unlikely that there is any citable evidence on how hard jump roping is on the knees but I would personally lean towards “not very” - first there is not too much flexion at the knee so the whole patellar irritation is a nonissue. And of the smallish impact force much is absorbed by eccentric muscle activity - i.e. the lower leg muscles work to slow down the impact much like doing negative reps in lifting. It is a very light forefoot strike.
Again, done right jumping rope can be a very good HIIT exercise which, as Shagnasty puts it, also has “a bit of a skill game”. But a complete exercise program it aint. While some programs (e.g. Crossfit and many of the infomercial ones) are heavy HIIT based, and HIIT has that less time carrot, most experts would advise at least getting some aerobic fitness base first, and not being exclusively focused on either high intensity low volume or lower intensity higher volume sessions. HIIT alone is hard for many to keep up with: it is tough to be all-out every time. Even within the HIIT predominant programs a variety of HIIT exercises are usually mixed up. (Doing sessions, for example of burpee intervals, instead some of the time … heck any variety of exercises that uses large muscle groups intensely for short periods followed by brief rests, repeat … will do.) Mixing it up is a good general principle to follow. Jumping rope is without question a great part of that mix underused by many. If you want more on HIIT, especially as a means of getting lots of fitness done in a short work-out, you may want to also read up on Tabata intervals.
The exercise program that will do you the most good? The one that gets your heart rate up that you can stick with!