How To Avoid Injuries When Jumping Rope

We can say jump rope is the perfect workout for a boxer. 

It works as a great cardiovascular exercise, and it works great as a warm-up or cool-down before intense exercises like sparring, heavy bag workouts, or hitting the pads. 

It’s also one of those things you can do virtually anywhere, so you don’t get to use not being able to go to the gym as an excuse for missing workouts. However, many people with knee problems and back conditions shy away from jumping rope. This is for good reason. 

In our previous article, we walked you through a step-by-step guide on how boxers rest and recover. Although we did not cover how to avoid injuries when performing the exercise of jumping rope.

Jumping up and down on two feet hundreds and thousands of times in a row is tough on joints and soft tissues. The force on the knee and back joints can be stressed at unhealthy levels.

We have had many people ask us about how to properly incorporate jumping rope into your program while avoiding injuries. So to help the boxing community, we wrote this complete guide on how to avoid injuries when jumping rope.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY + ALWAYS WARM UP.

As an athlete, you always want to push yourself.

Although it is extremely important to be aware of your body and to know your own limits. 

Ignoring the early warning signs of bad pain can lead to more severe muscle, tendon, ligament, joint injuries, and even irreversible damage requiring surgery in some cases. Being able to spot + label pain ahead of time is crucial to preventing injuries.

Signs that you need to listen to your body are:

• Visible swelling on your knees or ankles
• Sharp shooting pain that limits your mobility
• Tenderness that doesn’t recover or go away
• Chronic muscle fatigue

How often you jump rope will have a huge impact on injuries.

Your body needs time to get used to the stress that comes with jumping rope. 

Always be aware of how much you're jumping and make sure to adjust your volume depending on the signals your body is sending you. Some days you might need to scale it back, other days you can jump rope for extended periods of time. We highly encourage you to always listen to your body.

THE PROPER JUMP ROPE TECHNIQUE.

Injuries are never fun to deal with. 

You’re putting in the hard work, making progress, noticing improvements, and then out of nowhere, 

an injury strikes and sets you back weeks, sometimes even months behind in your training.

You might even miss that fight you’ve been training months for…

To combat and prevent injuries you must always jump rope with the proper technique.

Jumping on two feet is the proper technique, however, when your skill level gets to a point where you can do 50 jumps in a row without a miss, then you should ramp up your skill level to the Boxer Step.

There are a couple of reasons you need to quickly move on to the Boxer Step. 

The first and most important reason is the vertical force that is put on your joints. 

Jumping on two feet is really a hopping motion. 

Humans were designed to do many motions continuously, but hopping is not one of them. If you have ever jumped rope before, you will know that the motion of jumping on two feet over and over again for 5-10 minutes at a time can be hard on your legs and back. 

However, when incorporating the Boxers Step  (alternating feet every turn of the rope) you will notice that jumping rope becomes a more natural motion. Humans are designed to move predominately through walking. This is a motion that shifts weight back and forth from one leg to the other just like the Boxer Step does. This is why many pro boxers primarily do the Boxers Step. 

The Boxers Step is shifting weight to one foot, back to two feet, and then back to the other foot. 

Even though all of the weight is landing on one foot, there is very low impact on the body since the jump only needs to be 1-2 inches off the ground.

SUMMARY

If you want to learn how to float like a butterfly, so you can sting like a bee, then jumping rope is a must-have in your training program. It has proven benefits that people have been leveraging to build impressive cardio fitness for a long, long time. But, after you learn the basic 2-foot jump, move to the Boxers Step to get the full benefit and pain-free joy of jumping rope.

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