Jump rope exercises

What separates the three rhythms?

The basic jump is one bounce per pass of the rope: feet together, land on the midfoot, straight into the next turn. It is the version you are working toward, and also the one that puts your heart rate up fastest.

The double bounce adds one extra, smaller hop between passes of the rope. The rope turns slower and there is time to fix the rhythm. The name misleads: this is the easiest of the three, not the hardest.

The alternating foot jump lifts your feet one after the other, a bit like running in place. The load drops onto one leg at a time, and the rhythm can be easier to hold for a longer stretch than jumping off both feet.

Why are rows and face pulls on this list?

Because a jump rope is first of all a length of strong cord, and a cord run around a post or another solid structure at hip height behaves like the simplest possible cable machine. You lean back, load it with your own bodyweight, and pull the handles to your torso or to your face.

You set the resistance with the angle you lean at: the further back you go, the more of you hangs on the rope. This is a fallback for a trip or a hotel room, not a replacement for dumbbell rows, but mechanically it works and that is why it is in the catalog.

One condition here is not negotiable: whatever you run the rope around has to hold the tension and not let the rope slide off. The catalog says so on both exercises, and it is not a courtesy note.