Unless you play a sport where being slow is an advantage this method of training will help you. For so many sports being quick and light on your feet are attributed much needed, yet so few people train to acquire it. Imagine being able to do this without needing no sizeable expensive set of weight equipment or spending hours of added training. You just need 5 minutes and the drive to get better. All you need is a skipping rope.
Do the Math
Skipping is all about the repetition of the same movement and how fast you can do it. If you can jump 200 times in a minute than you just got in a great workout but when you zoom in closer here is what you got. You got 200 contacts on the ground where you had to work to get back in the air as quickly as you can. You also got three wrist turns per second. That is impressive work right there. If you play any sport where hand quickness is essential, this is also a fantastic way to improve your agility.
Be a Record Setter
There is never an end of the road on the quickness map. After skipping and getting your 200 contacts in a minute try and get 201 contacts and keep going from there. Skipping gives your records that are extremely fun to break. You always want more and more because you are a competitor and if you started doing skipping to get quicker that is how you know you are getting faster. Just think, if you can get 200 contacts on the ground and it only takes you 55 seconds, you have just gotten quicker.
Never Let Your Body Be Comfortable
Being comfortable means, you are not trying to push yourself to new quickness levels. You always want to feel like you are trying to go faster and faster. This is because when game time comes to your body will be more than use to this level of quickness. In some cases, you may not even need to move as fast as your fastest skipping so your body will be more than use to the speeds it needs to move at.
Just High Enough
Whenever you see people with incredible agility and quickness in sports sometimes, it seems as if their feet barely touch the ground, and they hardly come off the ground. This is what is trying to be accomplished when skipping. You only want to come off the ground high enough to get over the rope, that’s all! Any higher is wasted time in the air, and you do not want that. At the same time once on the ground, you want to get off of it as quickly as possible. This is where the quickness all comes from, the number of contacts on the ground.
By the end of a 4-week skipping program
- Improved posture as it keeps your shoulders back
- Stronger forearms and a much-improved grip
- Powerful calves and quads
- Stronger shoulder and back muscles
- Enhanced agility, quickness and ability to be light on feet
The Mental Toughness
The thing about skipping, especially when first beginning is you are going to mess up, MANY TIMES. It will frustrate you, maybe you will just want to stop, or perhaps it will drive you insane to the point where you are obsessed and cannot put the rope down. All that is very similar to sports, every time you compete you want to have the best day ever. That is why you train, and that is what drives many people to give an effort that they have never matched. This training will always push you to be something you have never been before, but it will also force you to learn to deal with failure.
Focus
The focus is only a good thing in life. Skipping is one of the best ways to test your attention, and you try to push your body to new limits. As an athlete, it can be the best thing for you to have a deadly focus. You have to exert maximum effort, but at the same time, you have to do it in a controlled manner. This will translate over well into any sport.
Prepare to Skip
Before jumping into a skipping program as the full training program, you need to be comfortable with the basics needed to skip. Meaning you have to be able to skip slow before you can skip fast and have the proper form. The better shape you are in, the easier it will be to improve in jumping. Though it will get you in the shape eventually you will have to work harder to see increases in your quickness.
Speed skipping requires using the alternate foot step. This is where only one foot is on the ground at a time, and you should be able to do this and get 200 skips in a minute before you focus your mind on beginning a skipping program. Once you have mastered the 200 touches, you know that you are comfortable with your rope and that it is time to move on.
Note: Never jump straight into a sprint workout with a skipping rope. Do a slow warm up and afterward make sure to cool down. Like any activity, it will only help with injuries
Rev Your Engine
The best thing about these workouts is the maximum time it should possibly take is 15 minutes. At the same time, it will be an intense 10 minutes, in which significant gains in athletic ability can be made. It is still long enough of a work out to trigger the anabolic stress that you want. This means your body needs 24 hours of rest to recover from the workout. So please do not make plans to skin seven days a week, it will not do you justice.
To start off the program always begin with having equal rest time as work time. If you skip for 40 seconds then 40 seconds of rest needs to be taken, or more depending on fitness levels. As conditioning levels increase than the rest times can be cut in half off of the work time.
The Base Workouts
These workouts are designed to get in skipping shape and to get the body ready for the intensity it is going to train at in the following weeks. These workouts are a bit longer and tougher as they were a bit more anaerobic capacity. Only move on to workout number 2 once you feel workout 1 is no longer challenging.
Note: When counting reps count only one foot. Both feet hitting the ground is one rep.
Base Training Skip #1
Work Out
- 60 Reps of Alternate Foot Reps followed by 40 seconds of rest
- Four times
- 100 reps of alternate foot reps followed by 60 seconds rest
- Two reps
- 80% intensity
Base Training Skip #2
- 120 Reps of Alternate Foot Reps followed by 70 seconds of rest
- Three times
- 100 reps of alternate foot reps followed by 60 seconds rest
- Two reps
- 90% intensity
Quickness Workouts
These workouts are designed to increase the speed and lightness on the feet. Reps in the duration should always be counted to keep track of progress. Workouts should be done three times a week with 24 hours rest between each workout. Advance to the next workout once the previous workout becomes easy.
Quickness workout #1
- 30 Seconds of alternate footstep followed by 30 seconds rest
- Five times
- 90% build to 100% intensity as reps go on
Quickness workout #2
- 60 Seconds of alternate footstep followed by 60 seconds rest
- Five times
- 90% build to 100% intensity as reps go on
Quickness workout #3
- 90 Seconds of alternate footstep followed by 60 seconds rest
- Five times
- 85-95% intensity levels
KHO Health was acquired by was acquire by 9INE POINT in the summer of 2019 and is now referred to as 9INE POINT Health.
