This Bucks County teenager is taking competitive jump rope to new heights

The rope is a blur as Zach Peckman whips it around his body, his feet rhythmically pounding the floor at the Doylestown YMCA, where he trains with the Zero Gravity Jump Rope team.

Peckman, 17, a senior at New Hope-Solebury High School, started focusing on jump rope when he was in fourth grade. At the national championships in Buffalo, New York, in June, Peckman set three United States records and took home the 2026 U.S. Grand National Champion title in three events.

“Honestly, most people don’t really consider jump rope to be a sport,” Peckman told WHYY News. “They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s a fun activity people do at recess, or maybe some boxers do it warming up.’”

But Peckman said jump rope isn’t just a sport; it’s a demanding athletic competition embraced by athletes in 60 countries.

“It’s a really big deal, and I don’t think people understand the amount of time that goes into it,” he said. “I remember when I was in Worlds in Japan. I talked to some athletes who were like, ‘Oh yeah, I train every day. I spend four hours in each training session.’ It’s like, wow, these people take it seriously. It’s crazy that some activity that people wouldn’t even really consider to be a sport is such a big deal around the world.”

Peckman said friends first saw his skills firsthand at a school talent show, and now some of his peers will watch livestreams of his competition.

“A lot of the time, they’re like, ‘What? I didn’t know that was humanly possible,’” he said.

‘They’re going to clap for you’

Peckman said he’s found a supportive community with teammates and competitors.

“When I travel around the world, or just across the country, every single person will cheer each other on, and there are just not a lot of other sports like that,” he said. “Let’s say you get a personal best, a really great score, and you beat someone else. They’re not going to hold it against you. They’re going to clap for you.”

Bree Hall, 16, a junior at Upper Dublin High School and Peckman’s teammate on Zero Gravity, said she also values the camaraderie of the competitive jump rope community.

“It’s a competitive sport, but everybody in the sport is so kind to each other and [is] cheering each other on, even if you’re from different teams or competing against each other,” she said.

That’s in contrast to track and field, Hall said, which she competes in and trains for daily.

“Track is a very competitive sport, and you definitely … know to kind of not root for the other team,” she said. “But then in jump rope, you’re cheering for everybody, and you’re making friends on every team, and you’re cheering for every team.”

Hall said she also appreciates that competitive jump rope includes events focused on speed and technique, as well as creative routines.

“It’s such a dynamic sport,” she said. “There’s so many different elements … You can be creative or you can be very technical and as quick as possible, or [make] routines.”

Hall’s mother, Nicole Hall, coaches the Zero Gravity team. She said that the spirit of teamwork pervades their practices.

“What touches my heart, as a mom and a coach, is that we have these world athletes, but then they also love to help our 8-year-olds and 9-year-olds, and run practice, run workshops to get other kids involved in the sport,” she said.

“It’s just a really great sport,” Hall added. “I can’t wait … for it to just really catch on in the States here and grow.”

Music and jump rope ‘go hand in hand’

At the peak of competition season, Peckman said he trains five to six times a week, jumping as well as cross-training to balance out what is a high-impact activity.

But jump rope isn’t his only time-consuming extracurricular. In addition to sports and schoolwork, Peckman plays music and was recently named principal violist of the 2026 Pennsylvania Music Educators’ Association All-State High School Orchestra.

Music and jump rope “really go hand in hand,” Peckman said. While researching the brain mechanics involved in both activities, Peckman said he “stumbled upon something called ‘rhythmic entrainment,’ which is essentially where brain waves are able to sync up to some kind of external stimulus.”

“If I’m playing music to a metronome, or I’m jumping rope with a song in my ear, and I’m syncing up my movement to some kind of noise, some kind of sound, it physically makes movement more efficient, which I think is fascinating,” Peckman said.

Syncing up to a song is a key part of his jump rope training, and keeping the beat helps with movement efficiency and maintaining consistent pacing, he said. During this year’s competitions, Peckman used a remix he made of Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” to keep time.

“For the three-minute speed event, it’s for three minutes of jumping,” he said. “It’s just near impossible to just, using your own brain, pace yourself like that.”

Peckman is currently training to qualify for the 2027 World Jump Rope Championships, which will be held in Norway. But he also is dreaming beyond that.

“My ultimate goal within the sport would be to make it to the Olympics,” he said. “Jump rope is not currently an Olympic sport, but it is hopefully on track to make it. In 2032, the Olympics will be in Brisbane, Australia, and it’s looking like it could be possible for it to be an Olympic sport.”

The sport “meets the bulk of the requirements,” Peckman said, and has global appeal.

“The thing that’s so great about jump rope is it’s so accessible,” he said. “You don’t need any super expensive equipment or an expensive room, facility, anything like that. All you really need is a rope and sneakers, any shoes. … So, people anywhere can do it, and that’s what makes the sport so amazing.”

Nicole Hall, head coach of Zero Gravity, said anyone interested in learning more about the team for children aged 8 and up can contact her at zerogravity.jumpropeteam@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series that explores the impact of creativity on student learning and success. WHYY and this series are supported by the Marrazzo Family Foundation, a foundation focused on fostering creativity in Philadelphia youth, which is led by Ellie and Jeffrey Marrazzo. WHYY News produces independent, fact-based news content for audiences in Greater Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey.