Indirectly, it also teaches the body to balance with the mind. Chapan also explains that jump roping is a great skill for anyone to learn.
We’ve long been told the benefits of jump roping. Mark McGuire used jump roping to improve his speed and skills in baseball while Emmitt Smith applied jump roping to practice blocking and defending in football. Bruce Lee used jump roping as a martial arts warm-up and as a training strategy to develop speed. Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali are famous boxers that used jump roping to improve their power, agility and grace.
Roping involves variety of muscles and stabilization skills. It increases balances and multidirectional movement. Jump roping increase explosiveness of movement. Chapan further explains jump rope basics and the muscles used and different types of ropes below.
Muscles Used
Jumping Rope uses leg muscles including the gastroneimus and soleus as well as the biceps femoris. The quadriceps are exerted including the rectus femoris, vastus laterals, vastus intermediacy, and vastus medialis. Gluteus maximus, leg adductors, legadductors, leg extensors, leg and foot flexors are also recruited in this activity. The digits of the feet learn to move and work better together. Roping teaches improvement in vertical and horizontal leap, lateral shifting, and sprinting speed.
The muscles of the chest are worked such as the pectorals major and serratus anterior. The back also has quite a workout in this activity.
The upper back of the trapeizus and lattissimus dorsi are worked and jump rope improves arm movements including the wrist extensors, forearms, triceps brachii, and biceps. The core is also positively affected. Jump roping requires all lower and upper body muscles to work together simultaneously.
Roping conserves energy and expends a large amount of caloric burn in a short time. Jumping rope is also effective for performing aerobic exercise if done for ten minutes or more. You spend 10.2 calories per minute jumping rope compared with the 4.2 per minute expended while walking. Jump roping is recommended on a gym floor, wooden floor, artificial turf, sports, baseball field, or grass.