JUMP AROUND

SKIPPING is a traditional staple of boxing training, but with good reason. For many trainers the skipping rope is a key tool for instilling balance, coordination and endurance in their boxers.

BUILD THE SKILL

Tony Davis, an international amateur in his day and now a top coach, explains, “Ease them into it, just enhance their coordination skills. Just like jogging on the spot but getting the rope going around. Once they become quite competent at it, start progressively building up so they start actually moving forwards, backwards, to the left, to the right and even enhance their skills more, even double jumping – ensuring the rope goes round twice when they’re hitting the ground once. You can do pike jumps with them, get them moving as they would when they shadow-box [or] criss-cross the ropes, everything.”

IN THE SESSION

“The main aspect is for the timing and the coordination, Davis continues. “It can be used as a weight-management aid, towards the end of a session, 15 minutes on a rope. [As a warm-up], once you’ve done your mobilisation, then you might implement a few rounds just to make it time-specific. You’ve got to tailor-make it for the category of boxer. "

“Get the group in a circle skipping together, get that visual effect by looking at how other people skip."
 

“For senior boxers you could just take a rope session as a fitness session in itself. You’re skipping stationary, implement an exercise on the whistle blast. There are loads of different things you can do."

“If you’re doing four three [-minute rounds], you can be working to the tempo of the whistle blast. On the first whistle blast you go 75 percent effort, building up to 100 percent. You’re trying to mimic the pace during a round, so you go up and down the tempos. You’ve got try to cross-reference it to maybe an exchange in the ring or a sustained attacked. Then maybe drop back to 50 per cent. You’re getting the body used to changing those gears.”

THE BENEFITS

“I do think it [adds] balance, timing and coordination and also it’s good for endurance,” Tony states. “For a top-level boxer, if they’ve done all their session and they’re doing a bit of a skip at the end, it enhances their cardiovascular and respiratory systems. You can even use it as a flush, before you go off into your flexibility. There’s no effort in the skip, you’re just turning the rope and you’re getting the body to flush out the waste products you’ve just built up."

“It’s gives them a little variety and gets them to enhance their individual flair. Because everyone likes to show off with a rope as well.”

YOU CAN TRY

3 X 1-MINUTE ROUNDS OF SKIPPING. BUILD UP TO 4 X 3-MINUTE ROUNDS, VARYING THE TEMPO WITH 10-15-SECOND BURSTS OF MAXIMUM SPEED