The double under is a powerful jump rope exercise. It's explosive, challenging, and offers a wide array of fat loss and endurance benefits that many other exercises can't compete with.
And it's versatile. You can build a lot of different workouts around this single exercise.
In today's post we want to show you five unique double under jump rope workout ideas that you can mess around with next time you're at the gym.
Let's get right into it.
Best Jump Rope for Double Unders
Your jump rope will ultimately determine the difficulty, speed, and intensity of your jump rope double under workouts.
The best jump rope for double unders really depends on your training objectives.
If you're trying still trying to learn how to do a double under, a wire/cable rope might not be your best choice. It's too fast and offers little "feel" for the rotation. If you've had this experience, the best jump rope would be one that provides more feedback (without causing fatigue too early).
Tip: If you have the Crossrope system, you'd want to use the 1/4 LB Jump Rope or 1/2 LB Jump Rope from our Get Lean Set.
If your goal is to improve double under endurance and power, then training with even heavier ropes is ideal.
Performing double unders with a rope that is 1 pound or heavier (example: 1 LB weighted jump rope) produces excellent results.
Finally, if you're just looking for a speed workout - say you want to crush timed workouts -then the best jump rope for you would be a speed rope.
There are many speed rope choices. You may want to check out our Bolt Set, one of the fastest and most durable options.
Once you've got your rope selected, it's important to get your technique right.
How to Do a Double Under
Before you begin a jump rope double under workout, it's worth the time to learn proper technique. The more skilled you are at double unders, the more effective your double under workouts will be.
Here's what a good double under looks like:
If you're looking for a good double under tutorial, we've got the complete guide to mastering the double under.
Inside this tutorial, you'll learn why you should be doing double unders in the first place, the best place to get started, and you'll get access to a wide variety of drills and programming to speed up your learning curve.
Once you feel comfortable with the exercise, you can jump into the following workout ideas.
5 Double Under Jump Rope Workout Ideas
The following double under jump rope workout ideas are designed to open your mind to the various ways you can incorporate double unders into your workout.
Try them out and report back to let us know which one worked best for you.
Idea 1 - Add double unders to your supersets
If you're unfamiliar with how supersets work, it's simple - take two exercises (A and B) and do them one right after the other (no rest between). For example -
Exercise A - push-ups Exercise B - double unders
Example: Perform 10 push-ups and 20 double unders. Your goal should be to complete 5-10 supersets during your session.
The double under makes an excellent superset exercise because of its challenging and explosive nature. It's great to pair with upper body exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, dips, or any barbell/dumbbell (to create a full-body superset) or to pair with lower body strength exercises like squats, lunges, and deadlifts (to really fatigue the lower body).
No matter how you pair your exercises, adding double unders to your supersets will dramatically spike the intensity of your training sessions.
Idea 2 - Do double unders while you rest
One of the easiest ways of incorporating double unders into your existing workout is to simply add them during your rest periods.
This is a really simple and efficient way of increasing the intensity of your workouts.
Grab your rope - the heavier you go, the more challenging this becomes - and perform a set number of double unders in between your sets.
For example...
Next time you're doing your strength workout, simply add 10 double unders in between your sets (as part of your rest). Depending on the duration of your workout, you'll end up accumulating a high number of repetitions.
Just be careful not to overdo it. Rest between sets is important so just pay attention to how you feel from set to set.
Idea 3 - Double under tabatas as finishers
If you're unfamiliar with the Tabata workout structure, it's simple - you alternate between 20 seconds of high-intensity work and 10 sec of rest for 8 consecutive rounds (4 minutes total).
The double under is a great exercise for your Tabata because of the amount of energy that's required to perform the exercise at a high intensity.
You can build entire workouts around Tabatas, but this workout idea is all about using a double under tabata as a workout finisher.
What's a workout finisher?
A workout finisher is a quick, high-intensity burst of activity that you strategically position after you finish your regular workout. It's supposed to "finish you" - leave you fatigued and ready to go crash on the couch.
The double under is perfect for this.
Next time you finish your regular workout and you still feel like you have some gas in the tank, go ahead and add a double under tabata at the very end. Let me know how it goes :)
Idea 4 - Add double unders to your circuit training
One of my favorite ways of building jump rope double under workouts is to add double unders to my circuit training.
The double under makes a great addition to any circuit, whether it be a bodyweight circuit or strength-endurance circuit.
Here's an example of a double under circuit I like to use:
- 10 squat thrust push-ups- 20 double unders- 30 bodyweight squats- 40 mountain climbers- 50 basic jumps
Perform 3 rounds of this resting 2 minutes between rounds. Here's what that looks like:
Idea 5 - Heavy double unders with your strength training
If you're proficient with your double unders, one really powerful way to build a strong, powerful upper body is to incorporate heavy double unders into your strength training.
I often mix heavy jump rope training in general with my upper body strength training because of the powerful synergistic effects I get from rotating a heavy rope around my body at max intensity.
But when you can move up to heavy double unders, the game changes.
So here's how you use this idea -
Next time you're doing a heavy lifting session - especially with your barbell lifts - incorporate a few sets of heavy rope double unders in between your exercises.
Just pay attention that this can be extremely fatiguing and you should pay attention to any unusual signals your body is sending you.
Where to start?
I hope you enjoyed those jump rope double under workout ideas.
Make sure you've chosen the right jump rope for your training goals - a heavier rope like those in the Plus Set for technique, strength, and endurance OR a speed rope like the Bolt Set for speed training.
Make sure you're constantly perfecting your double under technique - use our double under tutorial to get ideas for drills and technique guidelines.
Then choose one of the workout ideas presented above and make magic happen.
And before you go start crushing your workouts, leave a comment below and let me know which workout idea you liked the most. I'd love to get your feedback!
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