8 Health Benefits of Skipping

8 Health Benefits of Skipping

People often think, shedding fat or building muscle needs to be extravagant to start but have you ever wondered if there is any way to do it in an affordable way? Guess what! There are many ways to do it and one of the best ways is SKIPPING.

It is one of the best forms of cardio which is fun doing, comparatively easy to do, you do not have to go anywhere to do it and extremely beneficial to your body, so what else do you need?

So without wasting much time, let’s take a glance at some astounding BENEFITS OF SKIPPING which will increase your enthusiasm to make it a part of your daily day-to-day routine.

1. Benefits Of Skipping for Heart Health 

Skipping utilizes one of the greatest muscles of your body that is your legs and as well as other muscles up to a moderate extent which increases the blood circulation in your body which results in heart rate increment. Studies have also shown that skipping reduces the chances of heart strokes and heart attacks significantly.

A research published in International Journal of Exercise and Science in August 2020, analyzed 27 participants who went through 2 trials of 5 minutes of jumping rope at a speed of 120 jumps per minute, and it reported that steady state of VO2 (Amount of oxygen that a person can utilise during an intense exercise) was reached at 3rd minute. VO2 is best indicator of cardiovascular fitness. 

2. Enhances Performance

Have you ever wondered why athletes like boxers, footballers, etc. always have skipping in one of their priorities as a cardio because one of the reasons is that it makes you more aware of your own body movement as it comparatively needs more mind-muscle connection as compared to other form of cardio to make every rep count which as a result increases your sense of coordination and balance.

A publication in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine indicated that inclusion of jump rope training improved balance and motor skills in preadolescent soccer players. 

One more study published in March 2023 in the journal, Scientific Reports proved that 12 weeks of rope jump training enormously increased the dynamin balance ability and hitting stability among adolescent tennis players.

3. Benefits of Skipping for Lung Health

Skipping increases your stamina and lung health and when you will strive for prolonged minutes, it will eventually boost your lung capacity. If you want to increase your lung health specifically, then check out this blog How to improve Lung Health?

A study published in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science proved that the experimental group who performed 3 sessions of music-jump roping for 4 weeks, 30 minutes per session, reported an increment in vital capacity, cardiopulmonary function and BMI as well. 

4. Increases Agility

One more reason why athletes give a lot of importance to skipping is because it helps to increase force production, speed and mobility of your body which is extremely important as a player and to stay in the game for the long term.

A research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health showed that 8 weeks of rope skipping enhanced standing long jump performance. 

5. Increases Muscular Strength

As skipping mainly includes the muscles of your lower body- the quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves and involves a little bit of functioning of your biceps, abdominal and other supporting muscles which may help in muscle building.

An analysis in Children journal showed that 12 weeks of skipping training increased the grip strength and overall body’s force production. 

6. Improves Flexibility

Most of the people seeking and endeavoring to be fit ignores one of the most important aspects of fitness, i.e., flexibility and skipping helps in increasing flexibility of your body.

Skipping stresses and stretches your muscles, mainly calves, hamstrings, glutes and other muscles to a certain degree. As a result, it helps you to become more flexible. A study showed an increment in lower body flexibility in a toe-touch test due to skipping intervention. 

7. Benefits of Skipping for Weight Loss

Skipping is a highly effective and easily incorporative form of cardio. A moderate to high intensity session of 15-20 minutes of skipping burns approximately from 100-300 calories.

Some studies have indicated that skipping reduces waist circumference and improves BMI. But BMI is not a reliable health factor and calorie restriction should also be taken care of, if aiming for fat loss. 

8. Highly Customizable

Skipping is an incredibly fun way of achieving a lot of your fitness goals. It has numerous variations like, cross-step skipping, single-leg skipping, etc., which keeps it enthralling and also it can be performed as a warm-up phase, cool-down phase or a nice light session workout as well to get you moving.

SUMMARY

In a nutshell, skipping is an enthralling way of not only burning a significant amount of calories but it also comes with numerous benefits and lays emphasis on holistic improvement of your body as it focuses on often neglected aspects of fitness which are mental health, cardiovascular health, lung health and so on. Easy to incorporate, fun-doing, healthy and exceptionally advantageous. So what are you waiting for, get started today.

Frequently asked questions(FAQs)

Q1. How to incorporate skipping in my training/workout?

Ans. If your aim is to build muscle, then you should keep it at the end of your workout because if you keep it in the start then it will drain a lot of your energy which will be required to keep you going throughout your training session and hence affecting your ability to train optimally.

If you still want to do it before your workout as a warmup then do not overdo it, doing it around 2-3 minutes will be sufficient or depending upon your ability to do it effortlessly without exhausting yourself.

Q2. How to work on my coordination of skipping?

Ans. A great tip which works every time is to start slow, which means skip the rope with a moderate pace so that you can do it for a longer period of time and then according to your goal, either add extra time or increase the speed of your skipping within the time limit you perform it for.

Q3. What is the efficient way to skip?

Ans. An efficient and effective way to start skipping is to do it in an alternating way. Let me give you an example, let’s say you can skip about 1 minute at a moderate pace, so doing it in an alternating way will mean skip for 1 minute or 50 seconds, take a break for an equivalent amount of time (1 minute) and then start again doing it for 1 minute and then take a break.

Repeat this process 3-5 times initially and then start building it up for a longer period of time. Through this way you can build a lot of time instead of starting doing it at a stretch. And you will definitely be amazed to see the results.