3 Dynamite Tips to Improve Your Double-Unders for the CrossFit Open

We have seen the double-unders in every single CrossFit Open workout. It is in your best interest to perfect it, then. Here are 3 dynamite tips to improve your double-unders for the CrossFit Open.

The CrossFit Open is a three-week online fitness competition that united the worldwide CrossFit community. It marks the beginning of the official CrossFit season and puts athletes from around the world competing against each other to find out who is fitter.

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Since 2011, the double-unders have been featured in a workout at the Open. With that in mind, it is only beneficial to your to master this exercise and climb up the worldwide leaderboard.

These 3 dynamite tips to improve your double-unders for the CrossFit Open have been shared by Ben Dziwulski. He is an online fitness coach, head of WODprep who occasionally writes for BOXROX.

Check it out below.

3 Dynamite Tips to Improve Your Double-Unders for the CrossFit Open

In a video he shared, Dziwulski shows in slow-motion how to perfect the technique, from jumping to wrist positioning and correct skipping rope selection.

Here are Ben’s 3 dynamite tips to improve your double-unders for the CrossFit Open.

1. Don’t Jump Like a Dummy

Ben says that people can jump normally, but when put a jump rope on their hands, the jump mechanics derail such as the pike jumping or donkey kicking instead of simply jumping up and down.

Ben says that you should jump like you normally would.

“Your torso stays upright vertical, your eyes stay straight, your knees bend maybe a little bit, and your toes stay pointed to the ground.”

Another tip is to keep your knees soft, ever so slightly bent, because that helps you set up better for the next jump and the next rep and so on.

2. Use Wrists and Forearms

Once you get the jumping correctly, you need to understand how to make the rope pass under your body. And the second in this list of 3 dynamite tips to improve your double-unders for the CrossFit Open is to use your wrists and forearms to spin the rope, not the shoulders.

It is common that people tense up, widen up their hands and try to spin the rope by flailing their entire arms around. “This is exhausting,” Dziwulski says.

“The spin is just a relaxed up and down [movement of the wrist]. Maybe a little bit of forward and backwards, but normally I’m just thinking about shaking my wrist up and down.”

For the cadence, instead of just thinking up and down in the same tempo, it is a 1, 2 with a bigger pause before restarting to 1 again.

Your hands should always be slightly in front of your body. At no point it should go behind your hip bones.

3. Check Your Rope

When preparing for your double-unders, the most important thing about the rope you are using is its length. And how long should it be? Ben Dziwulski says it depends.

“Does the rope click the ground, but also is it not too long?” Regardless of how tall and how long your arms are, based on how you spin the rope, does it click the ground ever so slightly?

If it doesn’t, or you have a hard time maintaining contact with the ground, then the rope is too short. If the rope hits the ground hard and it bounces back up, then it is too long.

To see Dziwulski’s full explanation of his 3 dynamite tips to improve your double-unders for the CrossFit Open, click on the video below.