I guess everybody has done or at least tried skipping (jump-rope) before. It is a very effective cardio exercise that boosts your heart rate up, so your cardiovascular system improves and can burn an impressive amount of calories in a relatively short period of time so it is very helpful if you want to lose weight.

How people use skipping?

If you know how to jump rope, you are lucky and “let’s get ready to rumble”. If not, no worries it is easy to learn! Just follow these steps:


– Imitate a jump-rope workout for a couple of days:

– Hold the rope in one hand on your side and rotate your wrists in time with your jumps. The jump should be small, on your forefeet (balls of your feet) and keep it light. Basically the rope should hit the floor when the balls of your feet are not on the floor. It may feel silly, but you will learn timing and coordinating your body to use the rope.  30 seconds each side, 6-8 sets.

– When you mastered the timing, start practicing the jump-rope with single skips. If you would like to make it harder, because you realized you are a ‘natural’, feel free to increase the tempo.

– In general some people use it as an assistant exercise of their training e.g. elevate the heart rate after the warm-up before the workout. They use it as a part of their workout e.g. athletes to improve their vertical jump. If you want to use it just for fun, why not or you can choose skipping as a profession just like the national jump-rope teams.

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How many calories does skipping burn?

Well, the question is a tricky one. Why? Because there is no exact answer. Why? Because the amount of burnt calories depend on your body weight and the intensity. Let me make it clear.

If you are a heavy person, you need more energy to jump up than a light person, so you burn more calories at the same intensity BUT you can always burn more energy if the intensity is on a higher level.

According to a research of the American College of Sports Medicine the skipping burns these amount (I would say “estimated amount”) of calories per hour.


How effective is skipping for losing weight?

Believe it or not, jump-rope involves almost every muscle in your body. The more muscle work during an exercise, the more calorie you burn, and you can play with the intensity too.

 A few examples how to make skipping a more effective cardio exercise  for weight loss

 – As I mentioned earlier, you can do singles and play with the intensity (tempo) or the timing (longer sets, shorter rests) or with both.

– You can do single-leg skipping,  high steps (alternate the legs with high knees), skiers’ jumps (feet together, knees bent and jump an inch to the left and an inch to the right)

– When you mastered the singles, you can try double-unders or triple-unders – that means you have to jump a little bit higher and make the rope move faster so the rope passes 2 or 3 times per jump.

– Do high intensity intervals e.g. 30 seconds fast skipping, 10 seconds slow skipping or rest, 6 times. You can try the Tabata protocol, which means 8 rounds of 20 seconds exercising, 10 seconds rest. E.g. 20 sec double-unders, 10 sec slow singles or rest.

–  You can add not only skipping variations but burpees, wallclimbers, push ups, pull ups, etc to your skipping workout.

Have fun with your skipping workout and the weight loss results will roll in real soon!

A comprehensive skipping plan for weight loss is now available in the WatchFit app. This plan provide a daily instruction of how you need to skip to boost your weight loss goals. Stay tuned…

Connect with Expert Richard Csosza.


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