Jumping rope is a very complete exercise that we can do practically anywhere and that, in addition, gives us many benefits that we can apply to our usual sports practice. It can be a great complement for contact sports (improves coordination and agility), for strength training (introduces a cardiovascular component that you do not count on if you only train in the room) or even for other aerobic sports (it can serve as heating to gradually increase the pulsations).

Jumping rope is easy, suitable for all levels and a quick way to get a complete workout . Do you want to improve in your jumps? We give you five tips to jump rope correctly.

• Start with a mobilization of your joints: make special emphasis on ankles, knees and wrists, as they are the joints with a greater involvement when jumping rope. Preparing our joints for the effort will save us from possible injuries when we are training: here are ten mobility exercises that can help you.
• Choose the right rope: it is important to choose the material as well as the length of the rope. Lighter strings, such as those made of steel wire covered with plastic or PVC, are usually the lightest and fastest (eye, because it hurts enough if we hit them when we are jumping at high speed.) Another possibility is to jump with a rope plastic (they are the most common ones -and the cheapest ones-) or with a rope of fabric (heavy and slow, not very recommendable).As for the length, the normal thing is that, pressing the rope in its center and keeping it stretched, the handles reach approximately at the height of the hip or a little higher. That’s the ideal length to jump comfortably.
• Move only the dolls: the movement of the rope comes from the wrists. We do not move the arms from the shoulders, but we maintain ourselves with the elbows flexed at approximately 90 degrees and close to the trunk and are the wrists, with small movements, which give the movement to the rope. This forces us to have a good stability in the shoulder girdle (in the area of ​​the shoulders, the clavicles and the sternum).
• Keep your core activated during all the time: the musculature of the central area (deep and superficial muscles of the abdomen, back muscles and spinal erectors, among others) remain activated during the entire time we are jumping. This helps us both to maintain a correct posture (back straight, without stooping forward) and to protect the entire area of ​​the spine. The ideal to activate the core musculature is to perform an axial elongation : think that a thread pulls your head towards the ceiling while you push the ground with your feet.
• It always lands on the tip of the feet: every time we put our feet on the ground while we are jumping, an impact is generated that ascends through our body to our spine. The best we can do to avoid damage is to land on the tips of the feet softly, never on the full foot or on the heels. The joints of the ankles and knees act as a protection against that impact to protect the spine.

A good idea to practice skipping rope is to organize a session at intervals : perhaps ten minutes at first sight may seem very little, but ten minutes jumping rope without stopping can be eternal. Jumping for a minute and resting 30 seconds, repeating this series six or seven times, or organizing a Tabata training at intervals , will help us achieve a more enjoyable and equally effective workout.