Battle ropes or Rowing

TonyNeedstolooseweight

I'm going to be doing both eventually , im just doing rowing once a day at the moment. But what is the better exercise? In your personal opinion. I love rowing , but i wanted to throw battleropes into the mix to.

claireychn074

It depends on what you mean by better. They’re different exercises with (I’m assuming) different impacts. I know I could only ever do short periods with battle ropes, but they were planned as HIIT. Whereas I can warm up and down and do HIIT or endurance stuff on a rower. I don’t think anyone actually does endurance on the ropes??

Retroguy2000

Battle ropes seems pointless to me. For strength or hypertrophy, you can't progressive overload. For fitness, there are many better ways of burning calories, with gains that transfer to the real world.

cwolfman13

TonyNeedstolooseweight wrote: »

I'm going to be doing both eventually , im just doing rowing once a day at the moment. But what is the better exercise? In your personal opinion. I love rowing , but i wanted to throw battleropes into the mix to.

Better how? They are completely different exercises with completely different purposes. Rowing is typically a longer duration cardiovascular activity designed primarily to build aerobic endurance. Battle ropes have a cardiovascular component but are more of a strength and power exercise...generally done for short durations, often done as part of a circuit. For practical purposes I see battle ropes used for improving overall athletic performance rather than specifically for strength or endurance, similar to plyometric exercises, but with more upper body involved.

AnnPT77

Rowing is better than everything - but preferably rowing boats, not machines. Oops, subjective opinion, sorry.

I agree with others. I've tried battle ropes, but not had any kind of continuing practice with them. It seems fun, possible useful. It doesn't seem very versatile or well-rounded.

I do quibble with people saying rowing is a complete whole body exercise. (I say that because it's unbalanced: all upper body pull and lower body push, and the machines or sculling are all front-to-back with no twisting motions.)

But battle ropes are even more limited, even though they exercise some things rowing doesn't.

Smart people don't just do rowing. Some amount of cross-training is very useful for avoiding imbalances that can lead to limitations or injuries in the long term. (I'm not saying I'm smart. I'm more like saying I have limitations and injuries, after 20+ years of lots of rowing, and too little of upper body push, lower body pull, rotational work, mobility in directions not emphasized in rowing, etc.)

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it's really even a good comparison. Even though unbalanced, rowing is potentially a whole workout. I can't think of battle ropes that way. If I made more of a practice of battle ropes, it would be in context of doing other bodyweight/strength or maybe even cardio things in some form of circuit or interval training. To me, the question is analogous to "Is it better to do a powerlifting program, or bicep curls?"

Also, yes to the basic question: Better for what? Do you have abstract fitness goals you're trying to accomplish? Or are you just wanting to do things you find fun? (The latter is fine, but only your insights would count on that front.)

ninerbuff

claireychn074 wrote: »

It depends on what you mean by better. They’re different exercises with (I’m assuming) different impacts. I know I could only ever do short periods with battle ropes, but they were planned as HIIT. Whereas I can warm up and down and do HIIT or endurance stuff on a rower. I don’t think anyone actually does endurance on the ropes??

It can be done with successive movements in a row. But I don't think you need to go more than 5 minutes at most at a time.


A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

claireychn074

ninerbuff wrote: »

claireychn074 wrote: »

It depends on what you mean by better. They’re different exercises with (I’m assuming) different impacts. I know I could only ever do short periods with battle ropes, but they were planned as HIIT. Whereas I can warm up and down and do HIIT or endurance stuff on a rower. I don’t think anyone actually does endurance on the ropes??

It can be done with successive movements in a row. But I don't think you need to go more than 5 minutes at most at a time.


A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Pretty sure I’d pass out doing battle ropes for five mins at a time! 🤣

cwolfman13

My oldest (8th grade) just started JV soccer at his school and he has normal practice after school, but also a "practice" during the day which is basically his PE. They have a big plyo course set up with mini hurdles for single leg stuff as well as quick double leg and lateral movements and some jump boxes...IDK, kind of hard to explain, but it looks really cool. At the end there are battle ropes...which I can only assume is kind of mimicking getting tangled up with an opposing player or something and helping with their upper body development when that happens. The game is definitely a lot more physical in JV than it was with his middle school team (especially since most of the players are freshmen or sophomores in high school) or his club team. They also do some weight training in that class.

It looks similar to this: