How to Lose Weight by Skipping Rope

Jumping rope can be an excellent way to perform short, intense exercises that will help you burn fat. However, you will need to work your way up to more complex movements, especially if you're very overweight. If you jump rope 10 minutes each day, fat will start to burn off as your strength, flexibility and general fitness increase. The key is to divide your rope jumping into high intensity intervals. This makes your heart work harder and stimulates your metabolism to be more efficient long after the workout is over.

Instructions

1

Warm up by jumping with two feet over the jump rope at a slow pace.

2

Increase the intensity after a few minutes by jumping with one foot, then the other. Continue to jump at a medium to slow pace.

3

Increase the pace to as fast as you can. Start with a 10 second interval.

4

Slow down until your heart rate lowers to a pace closer to your pre-interval level. It's not an exact science -- you can't check your heart rate while jumping rope, so just wait until you feel less winded.

5

Repeat another interval.

6

Change your workout once you've gained some confidence with this basic move by adding strategies such as double jumps -- which is jumping twice per rotation -- and other combinations like knee jumps where you bring your knees up to your chest when you jump. And crossover jumps where you bring the jump rope over one shoulder then back with your arms crossed, then over the other shoulder and back with your arms crossed the other way.