Skipping exercises that will boost your overall athleticism.

Skipping exercises that will boost your overall athleticism.

3 min read
The world’s top athletes that rely on explosive power do skipping exercises regularly. Look at some of the world’s best boxers, MMA fighters or track and field athletes and you will find that skipping is a part of their regular exercise routine. Skipping isn’t an exercise for the faint-hearted. When done well, it is a high-intensity exercise that can burn calories and improve muscle power, allowing you to jump higher, further and to run faster. It’s one of the best exercises to improve your overall athleticism. Here’s a few skipping workouts that you should include in your exercise routine.

What you will need?

You will need to invest in a speed skipping rope. This will allow you to do quicker skips and will also force your body to do more explosive jumping repetitions.

Single skips

This simple movement will trigger explosive development in your muscles. It will also train your body’s mechanics to have a quick reaction time off the ground, forcing your muscles to focus on explosive power. Aim to complete up to 100 repetitions in a single set. Ideally, work towards doing three sets.

Double skips

One of the most effective exercises for developing explosiveness, you will be aiming to complete double-under skips for a series of repetitions. The more that you can do, the better. However, the aim of the exercise is to explode upwards as much as possible so that your body has a quick reaction time off the ground. The lighter you weigh, the easier it will be to conduct the exercise. Successfully completing more than 25 repetitions should improve your ground speed and explosive power.

Single leg skips

You will be skipping on one leg and absorbing all of your body’s weight on the leg. Essentially a hopping exercise, this will improve the strength, power and development of your calf, glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps. The exercise is intense and you should not overwork the muscle with this exercise.

Running skips

This is great if you want to improve your footwork and timing for explosive power. With each skip, alternate the legs in a running movement whilst focusing on exploding down with your toes and exploding upwards with the knee.

Raised-knee skips

This movement will incorporate your core. You will need to jump with the skipping rope whilst bringing your knees as close to your chest as possible. Most people can only do up to 10 repetitions at a time due to the high-intensity of the exercise. The movement also forces the body to jump from a more squatted position, forcing the glutes and the quadriceps to work harder. It’s an excellent movement for improving the power.

Single skips for height.

Similar to the regular single skip movement, you will instead be jumping as high as you can for a series of repetitions. The movement will be much slower, but the point of the exercise is to maximise your explosive power for a series of repetitions. The intensity of these skips will only allow you to do up to 20 or 30 repetitions at a time. The great thing about skipping is that it can be done quickly. You can complete the exercises in about 20 minutes. However, it is important that you warm up the muscles correctly due to the high intensity of the exercise. Expect to burn calories, run faster, jump higher and further with skipping. Don’t underestimate this exercise.