Battle Ropes are Awesome
Battle ropes should be a part of any garage gym or home gym. They can be used anywhere and when done take up very little space.
Cardio
The ropes can be used on their own as a cardio option. Simply doing a 20 minute session of 30 seconds of battle ropes, with 30 seconds of rest will tear you up! Battle ropes get the heart pumping and are a fantastic option for wheelers as there is nothing in our way to wheel up to them and start pumping our arms.
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Warm Up or Finisher
My primary use of battle ropes is to use them as my warm up and finisher on any day I lift. I will do the ropes for about 5-8 minutes as a warmup and then at the end of the workout for another 5 minutes or so. As a warmup I will do 3 sets of the ropes where each wave should get to at least shoulder high. I will do the first set for around 100 waves per arm, which takes about a minute and 20 seconds. The next two sets are at 60 waves per arm for around 45 seconds each. This gets the blood pumping and I can go right into my toughest lift, which is typically my first lift. Whether that is incline benching, pull ups, dips, etc. I am more than ready after this warmup.
For a finisher, I will typically do about 2 sets of 50 waves per arm. This takes about 40 seconds. I don’t really need any more than that!
Grip Strength
A side benefit of battle ropes is the improvement to your grip strength. As you build up endurance on the ropes your grip will greatly improve. And in turn your forearms and grip will benefit greatly. I have tried a ton of things for grip, including Captains of Crush grippers (which work great by the way), and I am not sure anything tops the battle ropes.
Arm Size
I could write up an entire article or program on more effective ways to build arms than what most folks actually implement, which is typcially a ton of curls that lead to nowhere. The arms develop with tons of frequency and time under tension. You get both with Battle Ropes if you use them multiple times per week. If you start using battle ropes for 2-3 times per week, for at least 8 minutes each time you will instantly begin to see improvement in your arms.
