7 Battle Rope Exercises to Transform Your Body
The sight of Battle Ropes lying on the gym floor or in your friends garage gym is enough to send people running for the hills. Funnily enough running to the hills is also a great form of exercise. However, when it comes to Battle Ropes, there's no need to be put off from having a crack at using them. There’s endless variations of battle rope exercises and below is 7 of our favourites.
Did you know?
A study from the University of Minnesota showed ten minutes of Battle Rope work significantly raises metabolic burn after exercise. What a great way to introduce conditioning into your workout during the week and have some fun as well. From bicep waves, lateral whips, crossovers and jumping slams there are endless ways to use the Xpeed Battle Ropes.
1). Small waves
Coaching tip: Sit into a semi squat position, leaning forward slightly as you hinge from the hips. Hold the rope handles as if you're shaking someone's hand. Make alternating waves with the rope, attempt to make your ripples go all the way to the anchor point.
Keep the elbows locked into the side to really work the bicep and forearm muscles.
How many: 2 rounds of 30 seconds with a minute rest between.
2). Double Waves
Coaching tip: Sit into a semi squat position, leaning forward slightly as you hinge from the hips. Hold the rope handles as if you're shaking someone's hand. Make big waves with the rope, attempt to make your ripples go all the way to the anchor point.
Avoid hitching the shoulders.
How many: 2 rounds of 20 waves with a minute rest between.
3). Large Alternating Waves
Coaching tip: Sit into a semi squat position, leaning forward slightly as you hinge from the hips. Hold the rope handles as if you're shaking someone's hand. Make big alternating waves with the rope, attempt to make your ripples go all the way to the anchor point.
Avoid hitching the shoulders.
How many: 2 rounds of 20 seconds with a minute rest between.
4). Alternating Crossovers *advanced exercise*
Coaching tip: Sit into a semi squat position, leaning forward slightly as you hinge from the hips. Start with your hands wide, crossing the ropes over as you take the hands up and over each other towards the middle of your body. Reverse this movement as you take the hands up and out from the middle of your body to the sides. With each repetition alternate which is the 'lead' or top hand.
How many: 2 rounds of 20 crossovers with a minute rest between.
5). Double Crossovers
Coaching tip: Sit into a semi squat position, leaning forward slightly as you hinge from the hips. Start with your hands on the left side of your body, drive the handles up and across the body in a semi circle, then bring the handles back across the body to the start position.
How many: 2 rounds of 20 crossovers with a minute rest between.
6). Reverse Lunges with Small Waves
Start in a standing position and hold a rope in each hand as if you're shaking someone's hand. Step back into a reverse lunge while you complete alternating waves with the battle ropes. Come back to standing, but don’t moving the rope in waves, step back into a reverse lunge on the opposite leg. Keep alternating.
How many: 2 rounds of 20 seconds with 1 minute rest between
7). Slams
Coaching tip: Start in squat position with either a handshake or overhand grip. With this exercise you'll need to generate power from the ground up. Drive weight through your heels as you use your whole body to fully extend your arms overhead. From here, quickly and forcefully slam the ropes to the floor coming back into a squat.
Be aggressive with this one and make the waves as big as possible.
Ultimately Battle Ropes are a great addition for circuit training or for extra conditioning at the end of a workout. They'll help you tone muscle and for those of you who don't like running on a treadmill, they'll help creep some cardio into your workouts.
Written by Fitness Warehouse Personal Trainer, Simon Mitchell. Simon has a Bachelor of Human Movement, is a certified FMS trainer and has worked in the fitness industry since 2003. Simon started his fitness journey as a trainer with iNform Health and Fitness before moving into commercial radio and then back into fitness with Bodyism in the United Kingdom and Australia. A career highlight was being one of Daisy Ridley's personal trainers on Star Wars IX - The Rise Of Skywalker.
