After you unscrew the cap on the handle, push the rope through the end of the handle.There is an adjustment piece at the end of the rope that holds the end of the rope inside the handle. This thing consists of two parts that you have to put considerable effort into pulling apart. You will have to pull them apart completely (there is a diagram in the pictures at the top of the page- you won’t find it in the pictures below in the item description and so on). At first it will come apart a fraction of a centimeter and then you will think it is broken or that you have to twist it off. It will come apart completely. Don’t try to twist or unscrew them apart. Just pull. Hard. Still didn’t get them apart? Try harder. I said harder! No, really put some effort into it!Anyway, after you manage to get that thing to come apart, as annoying as that is, you will then need wire cutters to cut the excess rope if it won’t fit inside the handle. Scissors WILL NOT work. If you don’t have wire cutters, you will need to buy or borrow them, or else return this to Amazon.And then- oh yes there’s more!- and then, in order to close the adjustment piece, you will need to crimp the rope there (you will see the rope is crimped at the end where the adjustment piece is originally). Otherwise, you will not be able to close the adjustment piece completely unless you are Hercules or something. I don’t know how I’m going to do the rope crimping yet- I think my brother might have a tool to do that. If not, I’m probably going to take the jump rope into Home Depot and give a wire crimping tool a “test run” before purchasing (wink wink nudge nudge).So… yeah… this is kind of a pain in the ass, but it seems to be an extremely durable and reliable product otherwise.