LJ LaVecchia – Rethinking Competitive Jump Rope, Breaking Bones & Becoming A World Champion (#64)

“Trying something new terrifies me. It’s just that some people are better at handling that [fear], and the reason people are better at handling that is because they’ve done it more” —LJ LaVecchia

LJ LaVecchia is a competitive jumper and world champion many times over. He’s incredible and I was super excited to sit down with him and chat about his jump rope journey. We talk about a lot of different subjects, including how to approach the sport differently by adjusting the competition format, how LJ has broken ones by doing simple skills, the mindset it takes to become a world champion, methods for training a single rope freestyle routine, and a lot more.

You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast.

Selected Links

Jump Rope For Heart

Show Notes

01:26 How LJ First Started Jumping

02:44 LJ’s Favorite Accomplishments

06:12 How LJ Trained To Be A World Champion

12:10 Engineers & Jump Rope

16:12 Jump Rope Builds Intelligence

18:30 How LJ Trained His Single Freestyle Routine

20:16 LJ’s Curiosity With All Sports

23:22 Back To LJ’s Single Freestyle Training

36:05 How LJ Tests New Skills

38:39 Are Big Double Dutch Skills Dying Out?

43:46 How LJ Started His Profession As A Stuntman

50:22 LJ’s Epic Fails

58:23 New Competitive Jump Rope Leagues

1:11:07 What Is Jump Rope To You?

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Here’s each step of this combo: 👉 Swing 👉

Here’s each step of this combo:

👉 Swing
👉 Leg Over Swing
👉 Arm Wrap + Release
👉 Unwrap + Regrab
👉 Swing
👉 Basic Cross

Make sure you keep your hands really close, even as you’re doing all of this wrapping. Keep a smooth, even rhythm without speeding up the rope aggressively. Doing this will prevent handle from flying away from your body haha

And definitely don’t power through this combo with your entire arm. You want to use your wrist to rotate the rope and get that nice, smooth motion for this combo!

#jumprope #skippingrope #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

The Split Bound Handstand is where your feet split

The Split Bound Handstand is where your feet split apart (like a front straddle) right before bounding into the handstand position!

Remember: DON’T TRY THIS IF you haven’t already learned how do a Stepping Handstand Pull Through.

If you’re ready to try this, use your front leg to push off the ground to bound into the air.

Once you’re in the air, your back leg swings to rotate you into the handstand position.

This one is intimidating at first, and I would definitely recommend NOT full sending it right away! Take it slowly and only do small bounds into that handstand position at first 👌

#handstands #jumprope #skippingrope #doubleunders #handstand #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

This combo is: 👉 Toad Cross 👉 Toad Swing

This combo is:

👉 Toad Cross

👉 Toad Swing

👉 Elephant Cross

For this to work, you MUST use both hands to turn the rope! That might sound a little bit obvious, but it’s really easy to forget to use the hand that’s underneath the Toad leg.

As you go from the Toad Cross into the Toad Swing, use that Toad hand to rotate the rope as you transition into that Elephant position.

Make sure you go slowly so you don’t jump too early for the Elephant. If you wait until the rope comes all the way down to the ground before jumping, it’ll be way easier to do the Elephant Cross!

#jumprope #skippingrope #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

The Swing, Swing, Open, Open Quad is a classic ski

The Swing, Swing, Open, Open Quad is a classic skill!

You start this with a Swing, and then use the hand that’s farther away from your body to transition over your other hand to the other side.

Then pull the rope back to an open and finish with one final open rotation!

This one’s definitely tough, but the most important important thing to remember is to make sure your hands are really really efficient at doing that swing transition movement!

Your hands must be able to transition from one side to the other with very minimal movement in order to get this done. You could still complete the skill without efficient movement but it’s going to be a lot harder haha so keep all of these tips in mind as you try the SSOO Quad!

#jumprope #skippingrope #doubleunders #tripleunders #quadrupleunders #athomeworkout #ropeskipping #jumpropetricks

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← Prev:Live! A Chat With Bav About All Things Jump Rope & Self Esteem (#63) Luke Boon - World Class Jump Rope Training & The Importance Of Mental Benchmarks (#65) →

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