The Best Form Of Cardio Just Keeps Getting Better
It turns out that one of your favorite schoolyard games doubles as one of the best cardio workouts, says huffingtonpost.com.
A jump rope weighs next to nothing and can fit in your pocket, and when you start using it, you can burn approximately the same number of calories you would when running an 8-minute mile. It is considered one of the most effective workouts due to this calorie burn, as well as its higher intensity, its additional resistance component and its use of the entire body.
“Jumping rope for just 10 minutes is a huge dose of aerobic exercise,” Neil Johannsen, an assistant professor in the Louisiana State University School of Kinesiology, told The Huffington Post. “It’s a vigorous exercise that works all the muscles in the body as opposed to something like walking. You can walk up to a vigorous intensity, but you’re only working a few muscle groups. Jumping rope makes you use your arms, your core stabilizer muscles, all the leg muscles, and it gets your heart rate up in that vigorous exercise range.”
Jumping rope is also considered by some fitness professionals to be an effective way to reduce cellulite. For example, Edward Jackowski, the CEO and founder of Exude Fitness who has who has observed such changes in his clientele over the course of 30 years, calls jumping rope an “intensive cardiovascular workout” that could reduce cellulite by burning fat stores.
“Cellulite occurs when fat cells push against the surrounding subcutaneous connective tissue in your skin,” Jackowski told The Huffington Post. “If your lymph circulation becomes sluggish, toxins accumulate in these fat cells. Interval training with the jump rope improves your lymph circulation… Jumping rope can cause thousands of muscle contractions that pump your lymphatic fluid out of problem areas, reducing fluid congestion in your tissues.”
Johannsen agrees that cellulite reduction is plausible, but the fact still remains that there are no completed laboratory tests confirming such an effect. “Scientifically speaking, cellulite isn’t just a matter of fat buildup — it also includes the connective tissue in that area to make it dimple, so it’s more complex than making the cell bigger or smaller,” he said. “But to reduce the mass of it, you have to burn fat.”
Jumping rope is both aerobic and includes resistance, making it an exercise that promotes fat loss and minimizes muscle loss simultaneously (most forms of cardio lead to the loss of both fat and lean mass). “When you push off the ground to jump into the air, you’re lifting your body weight off the ground,” explained Johannsen. “And when you land, in order to dampen that force of you landing, you’re engaging those muscle groups similar to if you were doing some sort of light resistance training.”