There's no denying it, battle ropes are a killer alternative to cardio and High-Intensity Interval Training(HIIT), targeting everything your back to your glutes to your abs - burning fat and building strength and building muscle.
If you're still in doubt, check out our previous blog 'The Benefits Of Battle Rope Exercises' for a rundown of the biggest and best reasons to pick up some high-quality manila rope today.
But today Rope Warehouse are talking about the battle rope errors you're making, examining everything from misconceptions and bad form. Follow these points and battle ropes will always be a safe and challenging form of exercise to enjoy.
Gripping The Rope Way Too Hard
There is a tendency amongst beginners to squeeze the life out of the ends of the battle rope. You need to hold the rope firmly but not overdo it, otherwise, you'll tire out your grip strength before you manage to get through your workout, which will prevent you from targeting the muscle groups you really want to target. Employing a firmer grip can also increase your risk of injury in the long run so it should be avoided.
Not Using The Correct Level Of Tension
Walking the rope backwards to create tension in the rope is the WRONG way of doing things. In fact, loosening the tension will help you make smoother waves, improving training difficulty, overall form and enhancing your range of motion for many different exercise patterns. We suggest that you begin by holding the rope tight and walking forward one large stride to give the rope enough slack.
Believing That Battle Ropes Damage Your Shoulders
There's a common misconception that battle ropes can wreck your shoulders or put them in a vulnerable position for injury. The reality is that it's not battle ropes that result in bad shoulders, it's bad form and if you were to execute any exercise poorly - from squats to bench press or deadlifts - you're going to cause yourself problems, which leads us on to our next point...
Bad Form
The temptation with battle ropes is to position yourself in a tight and low squat position, however, if you're doing something as vigorous as battle ropes, this rigid and low stance can actually cause too much tension on areas that you don't want to stress. Squatting low can cause you curve your back as the exercises get harder so we suggest standing in an athletic standing position with your knees slightly bent and your hips loose and low with your legs shoulder width apart
Not Varying Your Workout Enough
This practice should be applied to exercise across the board - but if you're not varying your battle rope routine enough, your body will get used to the workout and you'll eventually plateau. Keep adding new variations and exercises to your battle rope regime by switching things up, set yourself new challenges, going for longer periods of time, trying new exercises and so on.
