Double-Unders: Why Do We Double-Under?
Written by Lindsey Johnson
Why do we Double-Under?
What’s the reason for these gosh darned things other than driving most of us crazy?! Consider it your crazy attempt to improve general physical fitness and overall well-being. Double-unders assist with improving agility, balance, accuracy and coordination AND the double-under provides a great neurological stimulus for athletes. The brain is like computer, it’s programmed to record stimuli. The brain can not only sort and react to stimuli but also adapt and change. Because of the high neurological demand, practice is the only way to improve at this movement, when the practice becomes permanent the change is called learning.
Should everyone do Double-Unders?
No, not all of us should be attempting to master these. Here’s a good example of someone who should not – my Mom. (sorry Mom but now if I call you out publicly maybe you’ll stop trying to double-under and making your foot worse!) Mom suffers from plantar fasciitis and it doesn’t seem to get better no matter how often she uses the lacrosse ball on her feet or waits it out with rest.
Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common causes of heel pain. It involves pain and inflammation of a thick band of tissue, called the plantar fascia, that runs across the bottom of your foot and connects your heel bone to your toes. During double-unders, the pounding and pulling on the muscles on the bottom of her foot is too much, she shouldn’t be practicing them at all. There are lots of modifications or substitutions we can make for Double-Unders however and it is recommended that she choose one of those instead.
One of our coaches suffers from knee and hip injuries so high impact movements are a no-go. A high impact movement is when both feet leave the ground at the same time like a box jump or a double-under. Again the pounding and repetitive hitting the ground is too much. (NO high impact movements for either of these two athletes.)
So all you healthy athletes start practicing and working on learning those double-unders and for those of you who may have to stick to low-impact movements, ask your amazing Invictus coaches for some ideas. We love to get creative!
