Double Unders in Crossfit

Next we like to see the elbows relaxed down by the athlete’s side with shoulders as disengaged as possible. Again external rotation flexibility may dictate whether the elbows need to pull backwards a little in order to keep the hands from shifting to far forward. Allowing the hands to shift forward off the frontal plain would move the jumper’s body too far behind the center of the rope’s arc and cause the rope to recoil off the ground and into the jumper’s toes.

Once we have the anchor point isolated at the mid line axis we then look for the jump rope to have an even turnover with approximately 12 inches of clearance overhead and a bottom out point 12 inches in front of the toes. If we’ve met all of those standards then we’ve placed the athlete in the best possible position to have balance and symmetry between their body and their rope. It will now only depend on the athlete’s efficiency of mechanics to dictate their effective rope length.double-unders-2

The athlete can do so many things once the rope is in their hands to either shorten or lengthen that rope once they send it into motion. The most common fault is placing a death grip on the handles and “freezing” the wrist joint so that the handles stay flat and parallel to the ground. This not only moves the rope’s connection points far apart from each other drawing the rope towards the jumper’s toes but also promotes a shoulder pump motion that leads to undue fatigue. A more efficient method is to lightly grip the handles with the fingers (not in the palm). This will allow the wrist to disengage and act as a swivel. As the hands now move along with the rope allowing the handles to turn down, the athlete can gain several inches of “effective” rope length as the rope passes under foot.

Another common fault is a misplaced anchor point. Hands placed too low near the jumper’s thighs will cause additional slack and increased friction at the rope’s bottom out point as well as bring the rope close to the athlete’s head. Hands placed too high will obviously draw the rope up and in towards the toes increasing margin for error. And hands pressed to far away from the core will also shorten the rope drawing it closer to the athlete’s toes. The ideal scenario is to isolate the anchor point from which the athlete’s body can maintain a consistent and centered relationship within the rope’s arc at all times. Once accomplished it’s a simple matter of syncing up the timing between the feet and rope so that the athlete’s toes leave the ground a split second before the rope passes under. This principle applies whether performing single unders, double unders or triple unders for that matter.

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