Most people know that jumping rope can be good for their health. However, how many jump ropes do you actually need to do for certain fitness goals?
First of all, some people should not do any jump ropes at all. This activity can be somewhat challenging for the body. Especially with a few extra pounds to lose.
That aside, a 155-pound (70 kg) person would have to do to around 328 jump ropes at a moderate pace to burn 100 calories.
To burn the number of calories equivalent to 1 pound (0.45 kg) of body fat, this person would have to do around 22951 jump ropes (about 287 minutes).
If you are interested in hitting the health cardiovascular guidelines for adults from the ODPHP, you would do at least 12,000 jump ropes a week at a moderate pace or at least 9,000 jump ropes at a fast speed every week.
All these amounts are interesting but not yet achievable for many people.
If you are an exercise beginner, even just a workout of 400 jump ropes (5 minutes of actual jumping) or less a day can be good to get in the habit of working out.
Fitter individuals can consider a HIIT workout where they do 360 jump ropes (3 minutes) at a fast pace followed by 2 minutes of rest. In one workout, they can do 3 to 5 sets of this and do 1 to 4 workouts like this a week.
- Related: 7 Best Jump Ropes With Counters
How many jump ropes should you do to lose weight?
One of the most popular goals people have with implementing more jump rope sessions is losing weight.
To lose weight and more specifically belly and body fat, you have to make it so your body requires more energy than is coming in from food. At this point, it starts using energy stores like body fat.
The intense movements involved in jumping rope can help with this by making it so your body requires more energy (measured in calories) than usual.
A 155-pound (70 kg) person will burn around 366 calories when jumping rope at an average pace of about 80 skips per minute for 30 minutes (without hitting the rope) (or about 2400 skips).
That would mean this same person has to do around 22,939 jump ropes (about 287 minutes) to burn the number of calories equivalent to 1 pound of body fat.
To burn the number of calories in 1 kg (around 8000), this person would have to do about 52,432 jump ropes (around 655 minutes).
Something important to keep in mind is that these amounts of calorie burning do not necessarily mean you will also see weight loss results. Your habits in other lifestyle areas like nutrition still need to be good enough too.
How many jump ropes to burn 100 calories
Another way to look at how many jump ropes you need to lose weight is to see what number of skips you have to do to burn 100 calories.
The table below shows you these amounts for slow (40 skips per minute), moderate pace (80 skips per minute), and fast pace (120 skips per minute) rope jumping for different body weights.
Keep in mind that these are very rough estimations. In reality, the numbers can look different for you due to your exact intensity, body weight, body composition, hormone levels, etc.
| Jumping Rope Speed Weight Person | Slow Pace | Moderate Pace | Fast Pace |
|---|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 508 jump ropes | 813 jump ropes | 1,016 jump ropes |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 410 jump ropes | 655 jump ropes | 819 jump ropes |
| 185 Pounds (83 kg) | 343 jump ropes | 549 jump ropes | 686 jump ropes |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 295 jump ropes | 472 jump ropes | 591 jump ropes |
How many jump ropes should you do for better cardio health?
The number of jump ropes you should do for optimal cardiovascular health is a lot harder to put into precise estimations. This is mostly due to the lack of human knowledge in this area.
At the same time, there are still some general exercise guidelines that can give you a rough idea (that is inevitably not perfect).
For example, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends the following amounts of cardiovascular exercise for adults (1):
- Moving more and sitting less throughout the day
- At least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity a week. Preferably spread throughout the week.
- You can gain additional health benefits by engaging in physical activity beyond the equivalent of 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week.
Additionally, they recommend doing at least two days of strength training a week.
To hit the cardiovascular exercise guidelines above, you would have to do at least 12,000 jump ropes a week at a moderate pace or at least 9,000 jump ropes at a fast speed.
If you are more of an exercise beginner, you likely don’t want to go straight to these jump rope stats. Starting smaller and building up from there is often better for your body and consistency.
Besides these things, for a cardiovascular health goal like improving VO2 max (lung capacity), it can be helpful to do HIIT jump rope workouts.
How many jump ropes is a good workout?
What counts as a good workout depends a lot on your fitness level and your goals. Additionally, the research on how much aerobic exercise you actually need is not that precise.
For beginners, even just 400 jump ropes (5 minutes of actual jumping) or less a day can count as a good workout to make exercise a habit.
As these people get fitter and more used to exercising, something like 1000 skips a day (12.5 minutes) at an average pace can be a nice workout session.
Ultimately something like 1600 to 2400 jump rope skips (20 to 30 minutes) at a moderate pace can count as a good workout.
You can also do HIIT (high-intensity interval training). This could like something like 360 jump ropes (3 minutes) at a fast pace followed by 2 minutes of rest. You then repeat this cycle 3 to 5 times.
A HIIT jumping rope workout like this can be especially helpful for improving VO2 max. Do make sure your body can deal with something more intense like this.
Is it OK to jump rope every day?
Jumping rope is a type of high-impact exercise which basically means your body experiences little shocks from the jumps.
This can lead to more strengthening of your bones and joints. However, only as long as you are not overdoing it either. These jumps can also lead to injuries, especially for people who have a few extra pounds to lose.
Unfortunately, it is hard to make any general statements about whether it will be OK to jump rope every day for every individual. Some people can do it. Others get injuries like shin splints.
This is due to differences in age, fitness level, body strength, weight, workout intensity, workout duration, etc.
The main way to find out whether doing a certain jump rope routine every day is ok for you personally is actually implementing it, watching out for signs of overtraining, and reducing the intensity or stopping entirely if needed.
For example, you can start with one 5-minute jump rope session. If that goes well, you can work up to 3 sessions like this a week.
You can keep increasing duration, intensity, and frequency as long as everything goes well and as long as it aligns with your training goals, preferences, and life.
How many jump ropes equal a mile of running
Many people are also interested in how two popular workouts like jumping rope and running compare.
While it is not the perfect way to figure out what amounts are equal, there are things called MET values which are measurements and estimations about how intense certain activities are.
For example, an MET estimation for jumping rope at a moderate pace is 10 (2). The same source gives running at 6 mph (9.7 km/h) the same MET value.
With these, you can calculate that about 800 jump rope skips (10 minutes) at a moderate pace is equal to a mile of running at 6 mph (9.7 km/h).
However, how intensely you do each exercise matters a lot. For example, when jumping rope at a high intensity, about 1000 skips (only 8.3 minutes) are equal to a mile of running at 6 mph (9.7 km/h).
Lastly, an example for people who measure distance with meters. About 198 jump ropes at a moderate pace equal to running 400 meters at 6 mph (9.7 km/h).
