When we were kids, jumping rope was a beloved activity on the playground. However, as adults, we often overlook this simple exercise in favor of other forms of cardio like jogging, swimming, or weight training. But with the growing popularity of home workouts, it’s time to reconsider the classic jump rope.
Not only is it a compact and affordable piece of equipment, with many options priced under $20, but it also offers numerous health benefits. Jumping rope is a highly effective calorie burner that can tone muscles throughout your body, enhance stamina, and improve overall health, as supported by Healthline.
Health Digest asks what exactly happens to your body when you jump rope? And what are the effects of daily jump rope sessions?
You may experience fatigue from jumping rope every day
If you’re thinking of jumping rope every day, know that in addition to the many health benefits you’ll experience, you’ll probably start to feel a little worn out. Regular exercise is hugely beneficial, but exercising each and every day without any recovery time can be problematic.
As Healthline pointed out, rest days are vital for our bodies to recover after exercise; it helps them bounce back stronger. Exercise actually causes microscopic tears in your muscles. “But during rest, cells called fibroblasts repair it,” the publication explained. “This helps the tissue heal and grow, resulting in stronger muscles.” Resting also helps reduce your risk of injury through overtraining, improves your sleep quality, and prevents muscle fatigue.
As jumping rope is a higher-intensity exercise, it’s that much more important to listen to your body when skipping. While it’s perfectly natural to feel a bit achy after exercising, if you’re feeling significantly fatigued or in any significant pain, it’s time to take a break (via WebMD).
Jumping rope will improve your lung capacity
Jumping rope can cause you a fair amount of heavy breathing — and this increase in activity can, over time, lead to some pretty significant increases in your lung capacity. As the Lung Health Institute stated, exercise cannot improve or restore lung function, but it can improve the capacity of the lungs through your body’s use of them during a workout, thereby increasing endurance and reducing breathlessness.
A 2017 study published in the Journal Of Physical Therapy Science shows this improvement concerning jumping rope clearly: Over 12 weeks’ time, one group of female participants took part in “dance music jump rope exercise” regularly (sounds pretty fun to us!), while another group tried stationary cycling. At the end of the study, the participants who jumped rope showed a marked increase in the vital capacity of their lungs, at a higher level than those who were cycling.
If you’re jumping rope daily, your lungs will gradually take in more oxygen — making it easier for you to breathe both during exercise and outside of exercise. Additionally, “lung capacity predicts health and longevity,” the Lung Health Institute revealed.
Jump rope daily and you’ll improve the muscle tone all over your body
Jumping rope, as you might expect, primarily involves the legs for exercise. But the full-body involvement of jumping rope means that you’re engaging muscles throughout your entire body — and jumping rope every day could be an excellent way to improve general muscle tone.
As Muscle & Fitness indicated, jumping rope engages your upper-body muscles — particularly the arms and abs — as well as, of course, your lower body muscles. You may notice some improvements in your forearm strength, due to your forearm muscles being engaged as they grip the rope (via Livestrong).
It’s also worth pointing out that, contrary to the popular belief that strength training is the only way to build muscle, cardio exercise can be effective in supporting muscle growth. As Medical News Today revealed, regular cardio (like jumping rope) helps with muscle growth and function, as well as benefits your cardiovascular and respiratory systems. If you’re a little sick of full-body strength workouts at home, give jumping rope a try and watch for all-over definition.
Jumping rope could strengthen your shins – or cause shin splints
Jumping rope, as well as running and other lower-body cardio workouts, put stress on the legs through repeated impact. Sometimes, this can cause injury — including the common and unpleasant shin splints, according to Livestrong. Shin splints, aka medial tibial stress syndrome, can occur when stress on the shinbones and the tissues that connect the leg muscles to the shins become inflamed (via WebMD). When this occurs, your shins experience a sharp aching sensation either after exercise, or just during day-to-day life.
Shin splints can occur when exercising without warmups or cool-downs, or when a person suddenly ramps up their exercise regime. As your shins take stress in jumping rope through floor impact, it’s important to watch out for pain. Ironically, though, Livestrong revealed that jumping rope can also strengthen the shins over time.
It’s vital to focus on proper form, making sure to land on the balls of your feet (via Well+Good). If you’re jumping rope every day, you should consider incorporating additional lower leg strengthening exercises into your exercise regime.
Your hand and grip strength will improve through jumping rope
When exercising, we can tend to focus on the most visible muscles: rippling abs, toned arms, and sculpted glutes. But it’s important not to forget about the little guys. While you might not give much thought to your palms and fingers, jumping rope every day can lead to stronger hands and a better grip.
When you jump rope, you’re constantly gripping on to the handles and working your hands to guide the rope underneath your feet — and this means that your hand muscles are in a constant state of contraction throughout a workout, according to Livestrong. This results in your grip strength becoming stronger. As demonstrated in a 12-week jump rope study published in Children, right-hand and left-hand grip strength was significantly improved in the participating adolescents.
Gripping the handles when jumping rope also creates tension in the forearms, strengthening them (via Livestrong). These muscles contribute to your grip strength. So if you’ve ever felt the need to develop a stronger handshake, a daily jump rope regime could be the way to do it.
Jumping rope will strengthen your feet and reduce your risk of injuries
With the continual bouncing up and down that jumping rope entails, your feet will see a lot of action. Not only does this strengthen them over time, but it also reduces your likelihood of certain sports injuries.
Jumping rope strengthens the main leg muscles, but it also has excellent benefits to our supporting lower-body muscle groups like the ankles, knees, and feet, per Human Kinetics. In the constant activation and use of the ligaments and tendons in these areas, they become more robust, leading to stronger feet. And the stronger these areas are, the better able they are to withstand common injuries when taking part in other activities that require stabilization.
The lower-impact nature of jumping rope and strengthening qualities of the exercise also mean that it has excellent rehabilitation benefits for athletes who’ve already suffered injuries and are looking for a way to get back into shape without any strong impacts that could hinder recovery. It’s important to remember, though, that sports injuries should always be allowed to heal fully before engaging in physical activity again. When in doubt, always consult with a healthcare professional.
Your bones will get stronger when you jump rope every day
Jumping rope is great for toning your entire body, but it doesn’t just strengthen your muscles. Jumping rope every day could, over time, make even your bones stronger. When you exercise, you cause stress to your bones through impact — and this stress makes the bones react and adapt, changing to increase their density and become stronger (via Livestrong). This means your bones become stronger and less susceptible to fracturing. It even reduces the long-term risk of osteoporosis.
Similarly, a study published in PLOS One found the activity increased bone density among adolescent girls who jumped rope regularly. As you might expect, the increases in bone density were specific to the lower body, with the legs being the area that experienced the majority of impact through skipping. Nonetheless, a daily jump rope routine could mean more robust bones on your lower half, which can only be a good thing — especially as you age.
