How to use…

The Rope Climb Station (#2)

Rope climbing is a challenging, full body activity, engaging the muscles of the upper body, mid section and legs as you propel your entire body weight vertically up the rope. There many ways to use the rope climb station, some harder than others. Try climbing using just your arms, for instance. You can see from the animation snippet the upper body, mid-body and lower body in use.

How-to Animations:

The how-to animations below provide snippets of exercises demonstrating proper form, posture and positioning. 

1. Upper and lower body version

Notes:

This is a tough station to work out on because of the simple physics of working directly against gravity. You have to lift all or most of your body weight on exercises performed here. This is the simplest version of climbing the rope.

Muscles used:

Shoulders – anterior deltoids, medial deltoids, posterior deltoids
Back – latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, spinal stabilizers
Arms – biceps, forearm group
Anterior mid section – abdominals, external obliques
Posterior mid section – erector spinae
Lower body – gluteals, quadriceps, adductors

Difficulty:

2. Upper body only version

Notes:

This version clearly ups the ante by placing all of the load on the muscles of the upper body and, in this instance, on the hip flexor muscles and core stabilizers. 

Muscles used:

Shoulders – anterior deltoids, medial deltoids, posterior deltoids
Back – latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, spinal stabilizers
Arms – biceps, forearm group
Anterior mid section – abdominals, external obliques
Posterior mid section – erector spinae
Lower body – hip flexors and core stabilizers

Difficulty:

3. Isolating hip flexion

Notes:

As you can see from the animation, there are a lot of upper body muscles involved when hanging on to the rope as an anchor for isolating hip flexion 

Muscles used:

Shoulders – anterior deltoids, medial deltoids, posterior deltoids
Back – latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, spinal stabilizers
Arms – biceps, forearm group
Anterior mid section – abdominals, external obliques
Lower body – hip flexors

Difficulty:

4. Isolating hip flexion

Notes:

This is an advanced version of isolating hip flexion with the torque load of the legs amplified by keeping the knees extended.

Muscles used:

Shoulders – anterior deltoids, medial deltoids, posterior deltoids
Back – latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, spinal stabilizers
Arms – biceps, forearm group
Anterior mid section – abdominals, external obliques
Lower body – hip flexors

Difficulty:

Additional resources: