Why is jump rope such good cardio?

It is often advertised that jumping rope as an activity is an excellent form of cardiovascular training compared to other forms of aerobic exercise. But is this true? Let’s take a look.

The short answer is yes! Put simply,  jump rope is a different movement pattern to most other forms of cardio, and thus creates a lot more stress and work for the body to deal with. In the end, more work = more calories burned = better workout (if maximising effort/calories is the goal). On top of that, since jump rope is mostly a lower-body exercise, all that extra work is felt by the heart which has to work hard to pump blood around the body to keep the legs fuelled with oxygen for the intense aerobic exercise.

The primary action in jumping rope is a ballistic movement called 'bounding' where a person explosively kicks off the floor by pushing through the balls of their feet and then rebounding with their heels ever touching the ground.

Because of this elastic movement, a lot of stress is put on the lower body muscles including the gastrocnemius and soleus, the quadriceps and, to a lesser extent the hamstrings, glutes and shins.

Running, jogging, sprinting, and any type of team sport like soccer/football and most other forms of cardio involves shifting your weight, rather than bounding. Moreover, for most of the general population, jumping/bounding is something their bodies simply never have to experience in day-to-day life.

Because the muscles are put under much more stress than other forms of cardio, this spikes the heart rate and perceived exertion. Even more so on surfaces like concrete where there is no spring or softness to absorb any of the impacts.

Because of all this, it’s unsurprising to learn that jump rope burns more calories per hour than other forms of cardiovascular exercise.

Even with something like a beaded rope, at lower speeds and with good form, the effort required from your upper body is little to none. However, when you're training arms (be it with dumbbells or a heavy workout rope), this causes your blood pressure to increase a little due to their proximity to the heart. For de-conditioned folk (or those who only jump rope and don't resistance train) this can increase the perceived effect of a pump simply by using a heavy rope. For a lot of people, this sensation helps them get a strong perception of a good workout.

Heavy ropes in general also tend to exaggerate and exacerbate bad form in many jumpers, and when you think about it, all forms of exercise with added resistance illicit more calories by forcing the person to do more work. Think about how swimming burns more calories simply because you have to wade through water which creates enormous drag/resistance compared to swinging their arms through just air.

This all means that, compared to other forms of aerobic exercise, jumping rope as an activity is an excellent form of aerobic cardiovascular training.

There is one caveat here that’s worth mentioning. Jump rope will not build muscle effectively like weight lifting. The mechanical tension and intensity of the movement are insufficient to create the same stimulus as resistance training if your goal is to build/tone muscle (also known as hypertrophy). You can certainly feel a pump from it, and you can certainly gain more power from training the very specific movement patterns you use with a jump rope - so much you will eventually see some muscle gain over time. But if your goal is hypertrophy, it's an extremely inefficient way to go about it.