Struggle with double unders? Join the club.
Few people come into CrossFit being able to bust out double unders. Everyone is different, some people catch on pretty quickly and for others it takes months, maybe even years to dial in on this double under shit, and even then they are probably still working on being better at them.
Double unders can be one of the most frustrating movements. I see more people get pissed off and lose their shit during double unders than I do almost anything else (handstand push-ups might be an exception). I don’t know why this is, maybe it is the pain of the cable whipping your ass and your calves when you miss or the ridiculously annoying throbbing in your toe when the rope hits the top of your shoe, or maybe it just looks easier than it is and that is frustrating in itself. I am sure it is a combination of all this.
However, you know what is more frustrating than learning double unders? When people say, “I hate double unders, I can’t do them,” and then proceed to do singles in the workout. To top it off, watching these same people hang the jump rope up, never to be touched until the next time double unders are programmed. I didn’t think anything could be more frustrating than trying to learn double unders, but I was wrong.
If you are one of these people you can do one of two things.
1. You can decide you do not want to ever do double unders (that is totally fine), and in the process stop complaining about not being able to do double unders. Just make a decision that when you see them come up you will do singles. End of story, no big deal.
2. If you do not want to give up that easily, fantastic! The other option is you can stop complaining and you can practice, EVERY DAY!
- Practice two minutes a day. You can come to class 2 whole minutes early and practice. No more than two minutes, double unders are too frustrating for that.
- Another way you could practice is pick a number, any number, something doable. For this purpose we will say 10. Do 10 double unders every day. It doesn’t have to be unbroken, just get 10, or 10 attempts if that is where you are. When you start getting comfortable with 10, do 15 every day.
If you practice double unders ONE of these two ways, every day for a month and you do not improve at all, I mean NO improvement, then we will talk. If you do improve, then progress from where you are and practice every day for another month.
Do not tell me (or yourself) you can’t do something if you do not practice it. Nobody said this shit was easy. I say all this with love, and if you are doing singles because you are injured, you are a different story.