Battle Ropes: Take Your Conditioning to the Next Level

A tool implemented by MMA Fighters throughout the last decade, Battle Ropes are ideal for training core and total body endurance, as well as explosive power and developing grip strength.

The genius behind the use of Battle Ropes is much like that of the Airdyne - The more energy and force you exert into the ropes, the harder it gets. Unlike the Airdyne however, or other general conditioning equipment, Battle Ropes are fairly cheap and easily portable.

For the garage gymer with limited space, Battle Ropes are key for quickly and easily incorporating brutal and effective conditioning pieces into everyday WODs. For bigger gyms, the ease of use and almost non-existent risk of injury of battle rope exercises can be used to adapt new clients to general conditioning, and give experienced athletes a new and exhausting stimulus.

There are two general types of movements you can do with battle ropes.

Lateral Wave (The Chop)

With the battle rope looped around a rig, beam, or something sturdy, pick up an end of the rope in each hand. Move your arms up and down in a chopping motion simultaneously or opposite to each other. As you increase the amount of energy you put into each chopping motion the battle rope will move up and down off the ground more tightly, and the cardiovascular and strength demands will increase.

Horizontal Wave (The Snake)

Set up is the same way you would have for the lateral wave, the only difference  between this movement is that you move your arms horizontally which creates a “snaking” effect of the rope on the ground. Again the more energy you put into it, the more workout you get out.

When programming a Battle Rope workout think about working in time domains or sets where you can keep the intensity high.

For example: Max effort of 20 seconds on 40 seconds off for 10 minutes.

Once you become comfortable with moving the rope start to incorporate it in between lifting sets (taking rest of course between lifting and battle roping), add it into a chipper, or go ahead and make a brutal battle rope only workout!