Can you jump rope with ankle weights?

Jump rope can help you build pretty strong ankles, so it might seem logical to build strength by adding weights to your ankles, right? Unfortunately, this is not only incorrect but it’s also pretty dangerous.

Wearing weighted ankle bracelets could very likely lead to the person using them tripping and rolling their ankle, known as an ankle sprain. With the added weight, the force of the sprain would be heightened thereby increasing the likelihood of a severe injury.

Ankle sprains occur when your ankle is over-rotated, usually internally, with enough force to over-stretch, or partially or fully tear the tendons in your ankle joint. Tendons are what give your muscles their strength. They restrict movement and prevent joints from moving in ways they aren’t designed to. Over-stretching or tearing them can significantly weaken them, often for a very long time. This can lead to chronic issues with balance, performance, mobility and niggling pain. Individuals who’ve suffered a sprain are much more likely to re-sprain that joint in the future, exacerbating the issues.

If you’d like to increase the intensity of your jump rope workouts, there are other methods that can achieve this instead of resorting to dangerous approaches like using ankle weights. Implementing sets of double unders, speed training or learning leg crosses can all increase the intensity of a jump rope workout.