Skipping and why Rocky had it right............

Skipping as a cardio vascular exercise has many many hidden benefits.

For the low cost of £5, you won’t find a cheaper or more effective piece of boxing training equipment (except maybe gravity). It’s one of the most effective and fun ways to improve your boxing performance! If you’re not jumping rope, you’re missing out on one of the best exercises for fighters.

The duration and frequency at which one should incorporate skipping depends on the factors like total amount of other physical activities done per week, strength and conditioning, among others.

If skipping is the only exercise you choose to perform, one-hour session three times a week is ideal, begin slowly and gradually work your way up to hourly sessions.
But, if you have problem with your knees or certain back problems, you should refrain from skipping. Heavily overweight individuals should not skip, as their joints are already continually stressed with extra body weight, this will only increase risk of injury.

The benefits of skipping:

Better endurance
Better footwork
Increased punching power
Increased stamina for throwing combinations
Improved breathing efficiency

Skipping is one of the best training discoveries I’ve made in any sport. I used to come into the gym, hit the mitts, hit the bags, and then go straight to sparing, I never bothered with the jump rope.

It took up space, wasn’t fun (initially), and I didn’t think it would be so beneficial. It’s truly a shocker that more sports do not skip as a standard exercise. I can only guess that it’s probably because skipping is initially hard to learn and embarrasses even seasoned athletes.

It wasn’t until I wanted to copy the pros that I began to skip. They were doing it to warm up and cool down and so I figured I could at least do a few rounds every day. The results after a month were pretty amazing. I felt like such an idiot for not having done it sooner.

To summarise my advice to everyone keen on improving their cardio vascular endurance, foot work, balance, stamina, co-ordination and general levels of fitness is to embrace this age old exercise and do what many of the greats did on a daily basis and "jump rope"!

Credits to Marc Barrett Fitness