The Fastest Way to Jump Rope

Course

2.671: Measurement & Instrumentation

Date

Fall 2020

Skills

Experiment design | MATLAB | Instrumentation

Overview:

The course features a self-directed project where students have the opportunity to measure and analyze data to draw meaningful conclusions on something of personal interest to them. As a jump roper, I chose to  investigate which of the most common jump-rope techniques would yield the fastest skipping performance.

Abstract:

Athletes modify the intensities of jump rope workouts by using weighted ropes and performing different jump styles, or tricks. To evaluate the effect of the rope’s weight and jump style performed on the maximum skipping speed, speed was measured under various test conditions. 3 common jump styles—regular jump, alternating foot, and boxer skip—were tested using 0.25 lb, 0.5 lb, 1 lb, and 2 lb ropes. It was found that jump and alternating foot are the fastest styles while boxer skip is the slowest across all weights. At 0.25 lb, the mean speed of boxer skip is slower than those of regular jump and alternating foot by 2.4 and 1.8 skips/10s, respectively. With linear increases in rope weight, the speeds of all styles decrease quadratically.

You can view my final paper here.