A doubleunder is jumping rope where with each single jump the rope passes under your feet twice. Doubleunders are one of the most frustrating skills to learn. This frustration is the largest obstacle to learning them. Many people will quit in disgust and therefore not spend enough time working on them to see positive results. 

Here's an example of Monkey doing a couple of doubleunders from a couple of years ago.

Notice how high she jumps. Jumping for doubleunders should be just like jumping for singles just higher. Also notice how high her arms are moving. Arm movement should be minimal with the lower arm and wrist doing most of the work "snapping" the wrist.

Here's a recent video of Monkey. Notice the improvement.

Her current personal record is 66 doubleunders in a row, and Stoner can do over 100 without missing!

Slow motion really helps us see what is going on. Notice how in this video Monkey is not closing her hip as much and yet is still jumping higher. This makes it easier for her to continue with the next doubleunder. 

CFTally: Doubleunder Progression

At CFTally, everyone starts out working toward fast singles.  We define fast singles as being able to complete 500 singles in 5 minutes. Once an athlete has completed this they start working on doubleunders. Also at this point none of our athletes can scale a workout with doubleunders by doing singles.

Here are few things to think about.

1. Always leave yourself in a good position to do the next doubleunder. Your goal is to do multiple doubleunders, so jumping wildly to get a single doubleunder is a blind alley.
2. First get to where you can do a doubleunder "on demand," that is at any point in a series of singles you can do a doubleunder and immediately continue with singles. Always use your entire foot, never "stay on your toes." Your jumping will be better and you'll be less inclined to close your hip too much. Plus your calves will thank you!
   • This is single-single-double-single . . .
3. Next get to where you can alternate singles with doubles. 
   • Like this single-double-single-double-single . . .
4. Now your ready to go for multiple doubles.
   •  Now single-single-double-double-single-single . . .
5. Concentrate on creating runs of doubles. Once you can get up to 50 doubles in a row without missing there aren't many workouts where doubleunders will slow you down!
6. Remember the hardest thing about learning doubleunders is working long enough at any one time to create improvement, but you can do that, right?

CFTally Athletes in Action: Doubleunders

The videos below are of our athletes in training and aren't intended to be perfect examples to follow although you will find some very accomplished athletes. The videos are examples and are primarily used to help our athletes get better. Once you have watched a few you will see the variety of CFTally athletes.  

Everyone can do CrossFit!

Here's kind of a funny one. Suzanne is working hard here but notice how she moves around. And no Suzanne I won't ever let it rest :-)

This is not a CFTally member but we'd love it if he was!  He's doing a sextuplet!

Last updated on September 24, 2011 by Greg Keeter