Train Like a Champion: Q & A with Speed Jumper Junwoo Ha

Oct 22, 2021Erisson Lima

By Matt Hopkins - Elite SRS Founder

I sat down with Junwoo Ha (and his father), a jump rope phenom, to learn how he trains, his tips and tricks to success and the philosophical approach he takes to the sport of jump rope. Enjoy! Hint: he uses our ropes.

Table of Contents

Q & A
Workout Routine and Schedule

Junwoo is very young, (just turned 9 yrs old) so he has little experience in international competitions, but has gained international notoriety through his initial achievements and social media presence. He is coached by his father Wansoo Ha who owns a small jump rope academy in Korea.

What are some of your accomplishments in jump rope?

He has won more than 50 medals in various domestic competitions.

What is your philosophy about training for jump rope?

Speed training takes a longer period of time to accomplish compared to the technical skills need in freestyle jumping.

The most important factor to achieving success in speed jumping is consistency. That is because training and building a body that can do speed jumping well takes a lot of time and effort. Jun-woo has been practicing speed for five years since he was young. As his physical strength increases, we increase his training time.

What is your philosophy about training for jump rope?

Steady is the most important thing.

Rhythm is very important in jump rope, and I practice playing to music beats to adapt to the rhythm I want. Wansoo creates the music for Junwoo to jump to. This is not only a way for Korea but also for many athletes to train already. At first, they trained to slow beats, but now they train intensively to very fast beats.

Recovery time

Junwoo decides his own rest time between speed sessions. He is not able to rest as much as we want between sessions because he has to finish all the training within an hour. However, if he wants to rest a little longer between the sets, it is okay, too.

What is unusual about how you train for speed jumping compared to others?

Junwoo’s training is very consistent. He always trains in the same way day after day. But it's a little different during the competition season. Junwoo recently competed in the Korea Open. We made some changes in the training method to increase speed.

Do you have any secrets you can share about how to get better speed scores?

There’s no special secret. Jump to the beat of the music. Hold your posture and run “jump”. Your PR’s goes up in correspondence with how much you train. Speed records do not lie. A person who has practiced a lot has faster scores.

I will say, the length of the rope depends on the jumping form. What is certain is that the shorter the length of the rope, the easier it is to create a faster rotational force. But to do that, you must build a very low posture, and it takes a lot of energy consumption. If you can't keep that low position to the end, you shouldn't shorten the length of the rope short. In other words, you can't speed up. Therefore, physical factors are more important than technical factors.

What does your daily workout program look like?

Junwoo trains the following approximately 5x per week:

Set 1 - 156 times per minute
Set 2 - 160 times per minute
Set 3 - 163 times per minute
Set 4 - 166 times per minute
Set 5 - 170 times per minute
Set 6 - 173 times per minute
Set 7 - 176 times per minute
Set 8 - 180 times per minute
Set 9 - 183 times per minute
Set 10 - 186 times per minute
Set 11 - 190 times per minute
Set 12 - 193 times per minute
Finally, 10 second speed record measurement 5 sets

The 30-second record measurement is done only once a month. It's uncommon for people to be able to do this much training every day. Junwoo couldn’t do it from the beginning, but it was a result of a steady build-up.