By: Aaron Guyett, MA, BS, CSCS
Living.Fit Education Director
When most people think of muscle building they picture HUGE buckets of whey protein, tiny tank tops, and a ton of gym equipment. So how can I paint a new vision for you with a single battle rope?
If someone is looking to build muscle they generally need two things: force and fuel. Enough force going through the body’s tissue to make the musculo-skeletal system adapt by laying down more muscle tissue and stronger muscle tissue, and enough fuel from proteins, carbohydrates, and fats to allow for the hypertrophy process to take place metabolically.
Can battle ropes provide enough force for strength and muscle-building?
What are the ways that we know barbells, dumbbells, and other gym equipment is going to get those muscles stronger? Fatigue, failure, and pump (generally speaking).
Have you ever used battle ropes, and felt any of the above general physiological responses?
Battle ropes can and do build muscle, but you can’t just move them arbitrarily, you must use proper progressive overload, in the same way you would build strength with barbells, dumbbells, and kettlebells.
Battle Rope Muscle-Building Principles and Concepts
First, you must understand the principles and concepts to build strength with battle ropes.
Battle Ropes uses wave physics, much like a barbell uses mechanical physics. If I want to add weight to a barbell, but I have a rope, I would step forward toward the anchor. This forces me to provide more output because I have to move more mass of the rope in each wave (rep).
If I want to increase power output, I can also speed up my movement (much like bar speed in the power lifts or Olympic lifts).
Another way I can increase my power output is through move the ropes over a greater distance (making bigger waves), just like performing a barbell snatch is going to have more output than a barbell deadlift.
I want to avoid moving into ranges that I do not have control over. Just like squatting by bringing your knees in is generally a bad idea, performing a powerful wave, by bringing the rope overhead, when you don’t have the mobility or strength to handle the output in that range of motion is a bad idea.
Just like barbell muscle-building, battle rope muscle building will need quality repetitions, performed with enough volume and intensity to provide fatigue, failure, and that muscle-pump feeling. Perform it enough times with good progressive overload, and you only need proper fueling to allow for the strength and muscle-building adaptation.
9 Muscle-building Battle Rope Exercises
Before we begin…Any movement comes with risk, yet there is a significant amount of safety that the battle ropes bring with them:
- The rope movements coach themselves to a degree (if the rope wave looks ugly, chances are you are not doing the movement well. As the rope wave looks better, synchronous, rhythmic, and smooth, you are probably moving the ropes well)
- We will always produce better waves, if we engage our abs, have a tall and wide spine, with a proud chest, with shoulders down and back, and have our lower body in an athletic stance (than if we curl over, round our shoulders, and squat too low, or lockout our legs).
- Ropes are low impact unless you start jumping around or jogging in place.
- Ropes only create resistance based on the amount of power that you can generate through them…so you can never overload a rope-like you can overload a barbell (no spotters necessary).
3 Full Body Movements to pack on the strength and muscle
- Double Vertical Waves provide triple extension power output that incorporates incredible strength and stability throughout the torso and arms. This movement will build strength in the posterior chain and the anterior chain, and the closer you move toward the anchor the more force you put through the entire body. It is good to incorporate full-body, complex, closed chain movements to build strength, specifically when using resistance training.
- Double Lateral Waves are another complex multi-joint closed-chain exercise, that moves the body through the frontal plane and transverse plane. Considering rotation is one of the most overlooked and undertrained movement patterns the human body creates and uses to optimize performance in life and activities, it should probably be trained. Not to mention the back, chest, glute, quad, abdominal, oblique, shoulder, and arms strength that is developed because of this movement.
- Double Arcs (Rainbow or Smiles) are incredible movements that incorporate the whole body and all three planes of motion. The more tissue we can generate force through, the more tissues we can push toward strength-gaining adaptations.
The 3 Lower Body Movements for Stronger Legs
- Reverse Lunge Rope Slams are great booty builders. This hip-dominant lower body exercise creates single-leg stability while improving the strength of your vertical core, quads, lats, glutes, and hamstrings.
- Alternating Waves with Lateral Lunges is both a coordination enhancer, counter-balance, and quad, glute, and hamstring enhancer. These tricky movements are fun to master and bring even the most trash-talking body-builder to his or her knees with its fail-induction and lower-body pump.
- Triple Extension with Outside Circles, think about generating 90% of your power through your triple extension. You will be working your calves, quads, glutes, hamstrings, abs, back, and even chest and arms.
The 3 upper body movements for a massive chest and back (and bigger arms too):
- Seated In-and-out Waves, are incredibly challenging. The in-and-out waves will absolutely replace your pec-deck flies, and then you sit down, taking the pump and fatigue to a whole other level.
- Seated Outside Circles, will take the scrawniest of shoulders and upper backs, and turn them into monsters in no time. Because you are seated it will be incredibly difficult to get the waves to reach the anchor, yet over the weeks, it will
create an incredibly powerful upper body. - Seated Alternating Waves, this battle rope classic just became brutal by adding the seated position. This makes an exercise that was already good at building abdominal strength, obliques, chest, back, lats, shoulders, and arms, into a highly respected pump-dealer.
How to program these exercises for the best Muscle-building results
This program can be performed very simply, three days per week, (or six days per week if you are a BEAST, performing full body on Monday and Thursday, lower body on Tuesday and Friday, and upper body on Wednesday and Saturday).
If you are looking for more programs that break down battle ropes for athletes, strength gains, fat loss, or mental toughness sign up for Battle Ropes Continuing Education Level 3: there is a growing library of programs that you can select from. https://www.living.fit/offers/N8BnYAFe
Each workout, make sure you are doing a proper warm-up and movement preparation before jumping into your rope movements, and then follow your workout with a proper cool-down and mobility.
Monday – Full Body
- Double Vertical Waves – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Double Lateral Waves – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Double Arcs: Rainbows – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Double Arcs: Smiles – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
Wednesday – Lower Body
- Reverse Lunge Slams – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Alternating Waves with Lateral Lunges – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Triple Extension with Outside Circles – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
Friday – Upper Body
- Seated In-and-out Waves – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Seated Outside Circles – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
- Seated Alternating Waves – Perform 5 Sets of 30 seconds of work with 60 seconds of rest
*Make sure you are performing these with the highest quality, and the highest power output you can generate. Move closer to the anchor and speed it up, if it is too easy, and move away from the anchor, and slow down if you cannot perform the first few sets for 30 seconds. Each exercise, you should be experiencing fatigue, failure by the 4th or 5th set, and massive pump.
**If it is still too hard, only do 3 sets. If you can complete all 5 sets of each exercise, at the highest intensity for the entire 30 seconds, either buy a thicker rope (2inch 50 foot, or 3 inch 50 foot), or add another set to each exercise.
Now that you have a basic understanding of building muscle with the battle ropes, do so with caution, you may have too much fun and never go back to traditional weights.
Lastly, if you are interested in learning the complete basics for battle ropes or getting workouts, you can get them from Living.fit here. You can also peek at their Instagram account below.