Battling those ropes

Fit & Training door thijs

To all my Fit Girls, I’m back with another killer workout to try. Want to work your core and attack your arms at the same time?  In this article I’m featuring the side plank rope. As the name implies, these supersized ropes are heavy, which adds resistance to work your muscles like you’ve probably never done before. Let’s start battling those ropes!

Get ready for the battle

What you need to know for executing this move is the following. Keep these key notes in sight.

  1. Bring your body in a side plank position, by laying on the ground.
  2. Lean on your underarm and keep your hips from the floor at all times. This will be your starting position!
  3. Take an end of the rope in the hand that is free, keep the other hand on the ground. Tighten your core!
  4. Initiate the movement by rapidly raising one arm to shoulder level as quickly as you can.  As you let that arm drop to the starting position, raise it up again - the rope will make a wave.
  5. Continue alternating your left and right arm (after 30 seconds), whipping the ropes up and down as fast as you can.

The three benefits battling those ropes will bring you:

  1. You strengthen your abs, arms, and shoulders. If you engage your legs, you’ll get a killer conditioning workout all in one go.
  2. Waving, slamming, and whipping these heavy ropes doesn’t strain your body the way high-impact activities do —but you still reap serious fitness benefits.
  3. Research suggests using battle ropes for just 10 minutes can be considered a vigorous workout. There are a zillion exercises you can do with ropes. If you look back at it, ropes might have been a part of your live since you can remember; think about them skipping ropes, climbing ropes or even rope pulling. So for now I’ll leave you all to try this one out and I'll come back with another rope workout in no time.

Tell me about your favorite rope workout, or the one(s) you like to learn more about. Hit me up on Instagram and maybe we can do a “Fifty shades of ropes” challenge ourselves the upcoming month. ;)