The jump rope game is a popular game, which has acquired different names throughout history, as we can see, in Cuba it is called the Swiss game, and in other countries it is known as the rope jump.. This activity can be practiced as a children’s pastime, that is, for children, or as a form of training in many sports. In physical activity, jumping rope is usually used as a preliminary warm-up before training in the sport we practice. What we get with this exercise are skills related to vigor, coordination of our limbs and rhythm maintenance, being able to vary it to suit the user.
Jumping rope allows, among many other things, the hardening and renewal of the muscular texture that our body presents, therefore it is very beneficial in organs such as the heart, as well as the lungs. In the world of rhythmic gymnastics, contact sports, just any type of aerobic sport.
While the objective of jumping rope as a child is simply to have a good time with your friends, it not only helps children in that but also favors their physical abilities by increasing them significantly. Jumping rope basically consists of a person or group of people starting to jump by dodging the rope, which makes turns from top to bottom. When the person performs this exercise individually, he is the one who spins the rope, while dodging it, by jumping with his feet, this variant of the jump rope is the one used as a warm-up prior to an overwhelming physical activity.
In turn, if the exercise aims to distract children, we can accompany it with songs. Another modality of the jump rope consists mainly of taking two people who hold the rope and make it turn, while two other individuals jump it and get out. A very peculiar form of the jump rope game consists of placing an elastic band around the feet, which makes it more difficult to jump and thus the game becomes more exciting. Already in ancient Greece the game of rope was known, Hippocrates, a Greek doctor recommended jumping rope to be healthy.
As for its benefits, it should be noted that it provides good physical condition as the main point, but from a more particular point of view, we can observe how the arms and the different parts of the legs, such as calves, thighs and buttocks, develop and they strengthen, losing that flaccidity linked to the presence of subcutaneous fat, which apparently is being eliminated, so our appearance improves considerably. But not all the improvement is transferred to the legs, but rather the neck, shoulders and chest widen and become firm. If you jump in the opposite direction to the body, it is possible to considerably improve the bust and our body posture in general.
Once we have explained the main characteristics of the jump rope as well as its passage through history and different cultures, we can go on to explain how we can correctly perform good jumps, either as a hobby to have a good time, or because we are training a sport, in which the jump rope helps significantly to improve it. Follow the next steps and you will learn to jump rope correctly:
How to jump rope correctly
- Before performing the jump ropes, it would be convenient to briefly warm up the different muscles that are going to be actively involved in the jumping process. As the muscles that are part of the process are legs and arms, we try to warm them up briefly with aerobic forward and backward turning movements. As for the legs, we turn our ankles in both directions and move our knees up and down to prepare these joints for our physical activity.
- To jump individually, the first thing we have to get is a rope with certain measurements. Which are given by the size of your body, that is, the rope must be twice as long as the distance from your feet to the waist, extend your hands so that the arms form an angle of 45 degrees with the body. Once you are ready to start jumping, place the rope behind you, so that the arc formed by the rope touches your feet, you can begin to rotate the rope so that your arms remain immobile and all movement is granted. For the dolls. In this way, when the arc of the rope approaches your feet from the front, make small jumps to avoid it and in this way you will be doing the exercise correctly.
- While you are doing the jumping movements, you have to keep in mind that you are still a novice and therefore you have to adapt to your abilities, so you must make slow turns, that way you will get enough time to perform the jump without needing to hurt you with the rope.
- As you progress through the exercises, you might want to try tricks to improve your coordination. We can start by reversing the twist of the rope, which is achieved by pulling the rope behind your head, while you are doing forward turns. When you have changed the direction of the rope you must jump when your feet touch the rope from behind. Another quite fun trick is the closed rope trick. This trick mainly consists of crossing your arms in front of you every time you jump, but we have to keep in mind that it is quite complicated, so start slowly and be very patient. There are many tricks that you can apply, so when you know several and control them well separately, try to combine them all and that way you can considerably improve the habit of jumping rope.
- Another way to jump rope can be to jump with the help of more people, that is, two people spin the rope and you jump it. To carry out this exercise correctly, the first thing we must take into account is that both those who turn the rope and those who jump it must understand the rhythm that each one of them has, which will be marked mainly by the ability they have. the jumper As the jumper acquires the necessary skill to overcome each of the tests that are offered, we can progressively complicate it, putting a second rope which will be followed by the first, or putting more people limiting the space between them, that way by having less space your jumps will be better and more precise, increasing your body coordination in a fun way.
Tips for jumping rope
As a piece of advice, I would like to point out that at the beginning it is quite likely that it will cost you, and more so when you have never done this practice, but do not despair and keep trying because with a little effort it will not take long to achieve the results you hope to achieve in the short term and long term.