It turns out you don’t have to buy that one.  There are lots of jump ropes out that count jumps for under $20.  Most of those ropes also have a timer to count the minutes of jump rope.

This is the $14 jump rope I use and my current top score.  

You might be wondering, why do I want to count jumps?

Reasons you should own a jump rope with a counter

Boredom breaker – Jumping rope like any workout routine that you do regularly can get boring.  I’ve found a few ways to make sure my jump rope workout has variation to keep it exciting.  One of the newest ways I do this is to see how many jumps I can get in a row without missing.  The other way is to learn new tricks regularly.  

It’s Hart to Count – Have you ever tried counting your jumps?  It’s fine up to 50.  After that, I don’t want to count or I can’t count very well.  The jump rope counter makes it so easy to track the number of jumps, so you only have to focus on jumping.  The rope I bought also counts the number of calories (although probably not very accurately).  I like having a goal that I’m trying to get to, first 1000 without missing, now 2000.

Builds Endurance – Do you find yourself taking lots of breaks as you jump rope?  I frequently use a timer to build in breaks, but a rope with a counter helps me build endurance.  It’s a great way to ramp up your endurance.  When I’ve got the timer on I don’t focus on a fast pace, I focus on a consistent pace without missing.  I ONLY do the basic jump with no tricks.  

Builds Your Fitness Level – I always wear a heart rate monitor when I jump rope so I can see what kind of workout I’m getting.  Exercising at a high intensity level is a great way to build fitness.  That means you try to keep your heart rate in the red zone for a certain amount of time.  I talk about heart rate (ADD LINK) in this post. Trying to build up using a counter is an easy way to get there.    

Best Jump Ropes That Count Jumps

I originally tried Crossrope for their heavy jump ropes, which I talk about here.  But their lighter ropes are great addition to your regular everyday ropes.  

They DO make a set of handles that will calculate jumps and pace and time your sets, but the only thing I don’t like is you have to subscribe.  I am tempted, but I hate to buy into subscriptions because I always find that they are a waste of money.  If money were no object, I would buy this rope with a subscription.  Their ropes are HIGH Quality.

I settled for this rope which measures jumps, has a timer and supposedly measures calories.  The advantage of this rope is that the length is adjustable.  That’s one disadvantage of Crossrope, you have to know the size when you purchase it.  

How to Begin Using the Counter

Don’t Use It Every Day – I don’t like to use the rope that counts consecutive jumps in every workout.  I find that if I bring it out once a week it adds almost a competitive twist to my skipping.  It’s a fun way to see if you can beat your own personal best.  

Use a timer with Music – I set some music on my timer that changes songs every minute so I can get an idea of how long I’ve been able to go without seeing the count.  This helps because I just think, one more minute…  I like to use the Seconds fitness app (which is an interval timer that you can customize).  It’s a great app because you can set it to change songs every xx seconds.  

Start Fresh – I only use the counter at the beginning of a workout so that I’m fresh.  I only use it for a short period of time because we all get more tired toward the end of a workout. Keep the duration of your workout short.  

Avoid tricks – I don’t do anything like high knees or double unders when I’m using the counter.  I do a basic single jump or a boxer step at a moderate pace, nothing too fast.  I don’t use a heavy rope, I use a fast rope.  

If you haven’t tried using a rope that counts your jumps, you should give it a try. It’s a great practice to add to your exercise routine.

I use affiliate links so I can afford to keep doing this. Hope it saves you time. See my disclosure policy.

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The heel tap is really the combination of two steps: 1.) Kick out and tap heel and 2.) switch feet.

Once you get comfortable doing the heel tap, you can start to jazz it up a little by rotating slightly from side to side.

Facts About Heel Tap

• Difficulty – This skill ranks a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5. It requires switching feet, but there are no rope skills required.
• Best Rope – This skill can be done with a PVC rope easily, but you can really do it with a weighted rope too. Since the rope is just doing a standard swing, it’s based on your preference.
• Prerequisites – To be able to do this step you need the basic bounce and to be able to alternate your feet.

Tips and Drills To Learn the Basic Bounce

Tip: The easiest way to get this step is to learn it without the rope. Have some fun and get the steps down before you add in your jump rope. Watch this video for a slow-motion tutorial with and without the rope.

Drill: Try kicking your foot out four times and then tapping your heel four times.

Tip: Keep your elbows pulled in to make the rope less likely to get caught.

Tip: Stay off your heels, keep your weight slightly forward.

Masters of This Skill

If you want to watch jumpers who have mastered this skill check out @pollyjumps.

If you want to see more beginner skills, here’s a list of 21 jump rope skills to learn.

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The perfect jump rope length for you will change over time. As you get better it gets shorter. You can read how to tell the right length for YOUR jump rope.

The way to shorten a jump rope depends on the type of rope you have. There are three basic types: PVC rope, beaded rope and weighted rope. I’ll show you how to shorten each type.

How to Shorten A Beaded Jump Rope

Beaded ropes are the EASY to shorten. There are five steps.

1. Pull the rope out from the end of the handle and untie the knot
2. Remove a few beads, you can always go back and pull more
3. Retie the knot
4. Cut the excess rope
5. Burn the end to prevent it from unraveling

I recommend waiting to cut the rope just in case you went too short. I also like to leave extra rope in the handle because sometimes I lengthen the rope if I’m learning something new.

How to Shorten A Weighted Rope

The only weighted rope I use is the Crossrope. I’ve tried others, you can read about why I prefer these here.

These ropes can not be cut. Their website does an accurate job of estimating which size rope is best for you based on your height. I’ve used an XXS, an XS and a S-sized rope. It’s like Goldilocks and the three bears, one size will be just right. Unfortunately figuring that out can be expensive so use their height suggestion.

If you get a rope that is too long, tie a tight knot close to the handle. This can really hurt when it hits you. If you find the knot is hitting you a lot, try moving it up or down a few inches.

How to Shorten a PVC or Speed Rope

These ropes are easy to shorten. Most brands have a plastic clip that sits down inside the handle. You simply release the clip, move it to the desired spot and put the clip back in place.

I recommend NOT cutting the excess rope right away. I have found that I sometimes go back and lengthen my ropes again if I’m learning a new trick.

I hope this helped to show you how to cut a jump rope to size. If you have a rope that I didn’t cover, please ask in the comments. There are so many jump ropes out there.

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This skill is the combination of two other skills, the high knee and the forward straddle. If you’re following these steps in order then you know both of these. It’s just a matter of putting them together and being able to alternate feet.

Facts About The Forward Shuffle

• Difficulty: This skill ranks a 3 out of 5 in terms of difficulty.
• Best Rope: The best rope to start with is a beaded rope OR a light weighted rope. These ropes swing a little slower. Once you can get the steps down, it’s fun to do the shuffle faster with a PVC rope.
• Prerequisites: The prerequisites for this skill are high knees and the forward straddle. You have to be able to jump on the same foot twice before switching to the other side.

Tips and Drills To Learn the Shuffle

Learn With No Rope – Learn the footwork without the rope. Don’t just do it in slow motion, really get the footwork down before you add in the jump rope.

Keep Weight Centered – Just like with the forward straddle, try not to shift your weight forward and back. Keep it in the middle over your legs.

Keep Elbows In – You are more likely to get tripped up by the rope if you let your arms and elbows drift away from your sides. There are lots of steps to think about, but make sure you’re thinking about your arms too.

Drills – Try putting a basic bounce between each side. Straddle-knee-bounce and then the other side.

You can see the video tutorial here.

What’s the Difference Between Running Man and Shuffle?

To answer this question I had to seek out the experts, break dance instructors. This video explains the difference.

Basically, they are the same sequence of steps. The difference is which of the two moves you do first. For the running man, you do the straddle first. If you are doing a count of four jumps start with the straddle on count one. For the shuffle you raise your knee on the count of one and then move to the straddle. This is really splitting hairs, but I was curious.

If you have any questions about how to get starting with the shuffle running man, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help you.

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If you follow @kathyjumps on instagram, I think the forward straddle is her most used footwork. If you don’t follow her you really should. She is the embodiment of someone who really enjoys jumping rope and will absolutely make you want to try.

This skill can be mixed with all kinds of fun arm variations, which we will be getting to next.

What is the forward straddle ?

The forward straddle is a jump where you bring one foot back and the other one forward. It’s kind of like a mini/short lunge. As soon as the rope passes under your feet, you switch legs.

You can see a video demonstrating it here.

You can put a basic bounce in between each leg when you are just getting started.

Difficulty: This skill is a 2 out of 5.

Best Rope: Similar to the side straddle, the ideal rope for this trick is often the longest rope because there is more room for error. It is easy to learn with a PVC rope or a beaded rope. Using a weighted rope can help to slow the rope down, which makes trips easier to get.

Prerequisites: To be able to do the forward straddle you need to be able to do the basic bounce and the side straddle. The straddle and the high knees together make up the shuffle. Once you get both of these, you can start practicing your shuffle forwards and back.

Tips and Drills To Learn the Basic Bounce

Tip: Keep weight centered. There can be a tendency to move forward with your foot, but keep your weight in between the two feet.

Tip: Practice without rope first. To get the feel of this movement it’s much easier to start without a jump rope. When that feels easy, add in your jump rope.

Drill: Now that you’ve got a handful of different jumps you can do, try mixing them up. Do a 4 count or an 8 count of each one and then repeat.

• 4 basic bounce
• 4 boxer steps
• 4 high knees
• 4 side straddle
• 4 forward straddle

Once you have the straddle down you are ready for the shuffle.

Jump rope is a great way to have some fun and get in shape. It can also improve your coordination, agility, and reflexes! The forward straddle jump is the basis for many other tricks with this simple skill. If you are having trouble getting started or want help mastering it, let me know in the comments.

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How wide you can jump your feet out without catching the rope depends on two things. It depends on your form and how long your jump rope is. Read more about how to improve your form for a side straddle below.

Watch a video of the side straddle here.

Facts About Side Straddle

Difficulty: The side straddle jump ranks a 2 out of 5.

Best Rope: The best rope for this skill when you first learn it is the one that is the longest. It is easy to learn with a PVC rope or a beaded rope. If you use a weighted rope to learn it, it helps your rope to go around a little slower, which can make it easier.

Prerequisites: The only skill you need to know to learn the side straddle is the basic bounce.

Tips and Drills To Learn the Side Straddle

Tip: Tighten Your Form – The tighter your form is, the wider you can jump your feet. You can see in the image of me that my elbows are NOT really close to my body. If I want to improve my form (which I do) I will work on pulling those elbows in AND I can jump my feet out farther.

Tip: Don’t look at your feet. Jump your feet together between each open jump

Tip: Practice without the rope. Almost all jump rope skills are easier to learn with your feet first before you add the rope into the mix.

Drill: With all new skills I like to alternate them with the basic bounce. I use either 4 or 10 basic bounces followed by 4 or 10 of the new skill. Counting them out helps me to keep my focus.

Learning jump rope skills can be a great way to get in shape without spending a ton of time, and it’s fun. The side straddle jump is one of the easier jump rope tricks for beginners to learn, but don’t be discouraged if you feel like you’re not doing it right at first!

Check out the tutorial video above for some tips on how to master this form. Once you’ve got your basics down, check out these other jump roping skills: forward straddle, high knees and heel-toe. You’ll find that each has its own set of benefits and challenges. I’m happy to help with any questions or we could do a joint jump.

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Before you can do high knees with a jump rope, you have to be able to do it without the rope. If you have knee or hip problems, this one is higher impact than boxer step or any other skill where you alternate your feet. It uses more core strength because your abs help you to pull your knees up.

If you want to learn the shuffle, this is one of the footwork pieces that goes into the shuffle combination. It’s a fun one and a challenge.

Facts About High Knees Jump Rope

Prerequisites: Before you can do high knees you should master the basic bounce and the alternating foot skills.

Difficulty: This skill is a 3 out of 5 in terms of difficulty. High knees isn’t complicated once you can alternate feet, but because you are raising your knee up to your waist, it’s harder.

Best rope: The best rope to learn this on is the beaded rope. Beaded ropes are not usually as fast as PVC ropes. A slower rope gives you more time to get your knee up high. If you have a Crossrope (1/4 lb or 1/2lb) these ropes spin more slowly because they are heavier, which can make it easier to master new skills.

Tips And Drills For High Knees Jump Rope

Tip: Practice this skill with no rope. Get to a point where you can do 10 alternating knees without the rope before you add a rope in.

Tip: Do one single bounce between each high knee.

Tip: You may get tired of hearing this, but keep your elbows in close to your sides.

Tip: Be sure you are warmed up before you work on this skill. Don’t try it cold.

Drill: Start with 4 basic bounces, then 4 boxer steps and finish with 4 high knees. Then repeat. This one will really get your heart rate pumping.

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This skill is harder than the boxer step because your feet are moving more. I kept putting the foot in the air behind me, like when you run in place. The trick to learning this skill is NOT to push your foot behind you. Instead, pull your knee forward and bring your foot up along your leg.

Once you figure it out, you are going to ask yourself, why was that so hard? It’s a skill where suddenly you get the feeling and then you can always do it like riding a bike. I don’t know what it is but if you struggle with this one you will just get it all of the sudden.

Facts About Alternating Food Jump Rope

Difficulty – The alternating foot skill (or running in place) ranks a 2 out of 5. It’s trickier than the boxer step.

Best Rope – The best jump rope to learn this skill is a beaded rope. A beaded rope gives you a little more feedback so you can feel where it is in the air. This makes it easier to go a little slower than with a PVC rope.

Prerequisites – Basic bounce and boxer step. The boxer step is ALMOST the same, but this is a tiny bit harder.

Tips And Drills For Alternate Foot Jump Rope

Tips: Start with no rope. Get the rhythm and weight transfer down before you try with a rope.

Tip: Pull Your Foot Forward. When you start learning this you will be tempted to push your foot behind you. Focus on pulling your foot up in the front instead of the back. Once you can do it this way you will be able to start to kick your foot back.

Tip: Weight Forward. Keep the weight on the front half of your foot.

Tip: Keep Elbows In. If your arms start to drift out away from your body you are more likely to get tripped up. You might find as you learn that one arm is better at staying tucked in than the other. I notice this every day. My right arm is always farther out.

Drill: Do five 4 basic bounce jumps before you try alternating your feet. If you trip up, go back to 4 more basic bounces again.

Drill: Work up to more by counting the number that you can do consecutively. This helps you to maintain your concentration.

Once you have these three jumps down, 1.) the basic bounce, 2.) the boxer step and 3.) the alternating foot, play around with them. Get to where you can go between them without even thinking. Many of the other skills require you to think about using your arms in a different way. It’s easier once you have a solid foundation with these/

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Jump rope is a great skill because it requires coordination, balance and endurance. All things that are even more important as we get older. It’s also good for bone density.

I have a good friend that started jumping rope after she saw how much I liked it. Her Doctor told her that “women our age” should not be jumping rope. What! It might be something you need to build up to, and I’m not a doctor, but that is terrible advice. First, not all women are the same. Second, it’s just bad advice to assume that all high impace exercise is bad once you’re over 50.

Facts About Basic Bounce

Difficulty – The basic bounce ranks a 1 out of 5. It’s the easiest and MOST necessary skill to develop.

Best Rope – The easiest rope to use is whichever one YOU can jump over. I started with a PVC rope and used that exclusively for more than a year. If you are having trouble with the timing, try using a beaded rope, which will give you more feedback. You can feel it going around you. Beaded ropes are thicker so you have to jump a few millimeters higher to clear them.

Prerequisites – None!

Tips and Drills To Learn the Basic Bounce

At the start, you might be used to doing a double jump in between. That’s OK. Just keep jumping.

Tip: Stay on the Balls of Your Feet. You shouldn’t be landing on your entire foot. Landing on the balls of your feet puts less impact on your knees. It can take a while to build up your calf muscles.

Tip: Count. Some people, including me, find it useful to count the jumps. When I first started I would see how many I could do without missing. It’s a good way to maintain focus when you are just learning. I still do this every time I want to master a new skill.

Tip: Stay low. As you get more used to jumping you will find you don’t need to jump very high to clear the rope. You get more efficient with time.

Tip: Keep Your Feet Close Together. If you keep your feet close together you are less likely to get them caught on the rope.

Tip: Keep Elbows Close To Body. You feel at first like you need to swing your arms, but most of the swing action happens through your wrists and not your arms.

You can see a slow motion demo of the basic bounce here and the regular tempo here.

Drill: Do intervals of 20 seconds on 20 seconds off. Intervals are a really great way to build your skill and stamina. If 20 seconds is too short for you, lengthen the time. As your intervals get too easy, increase the length of time you spend in the high portion.

Drill: Counting sets. Build up the number of consecutive jumps you can do by counting. Give yourself a set number of tries each day and watch the number increase.

Drill: Use music to set time and pace. Music is the best part of jumping rope. Find a song that you LOVE and get to the point where you can jump consistently through the entire song. Then build a play list of songs. Eventually, you will find yourself listening to music and thinking “this would be a good jump rope song”. That’s when you know your hooked.

Once you master the basic bounce, I recommend using intervals to build your endurance. Then you can start to mix it up by adding new footwork a little at a time. I hope this helped you to learn the basic bound

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Why You Should Learn the Boxer Step

The boxer step is a fundamental skill that everyone who learns to skip rope should learn and here are the reasons why.

• Transition skill – The boxer step is a great skill to do in between other skills. And to give your legs a rest.
• Recovery – If you are out of breath, but you don’t want to stop, use the boxer step to cool down.
• Warm Up – The boxer step is a great one to use when you first pick up your jump rope. You can warm up at an easy pace.
• Low Impact – The boxer step is the lightest skill in terms of impact on your knees and ankles.

Facts About The Boxer Step

Skill level: This skill rates a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5. It’s the first thing to learn after the basic bounce.

Best Rope: This skill can be done with any rope, but the easiest one to learn with is a PVC rope. Getting it down is a lot more about the timing and less about endurance or the rope.

Prerequisite – Basic Bounce

Drills For Learning The Boxer Step

Before you try it with a jump rope, try to get comfortable with the motion without the rope. The step is a very subtle shift in your weight from one foot to the other. You can get this with just a slight bend in one knee and then the other each time you jump.

You can see the slow motion view here.

Jump from one foot to the other and tap the opposite foot. It’s a very slight switch from one foot to the other.

Be sure to stay on the balls of your feet. Don’t lift the alternating foot very far off the ground. Keep your arms tucked in at your side.

When you are first learning, do 4 double bounce jumps (assuming that is your best skill) and then move to four boxer steps.

If you have questions about mastering the boxer step please leave a comment below and I’m happy to answer it. Once you master this one you are ready for the next skill on the trick list.

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