Battle Ropes: Even Better that Burpees for Fat Loss?

This title sounds like blasphemy!

How dare I even insinuate that anything is better than Burpees?

Burpees - The Ultimate Fat Burning Exercise that incorporates everything. The mere mention of “everyone’s favourite exercise, including mine” is enough to spike the heart rate for what’s ahead.

Further research has come out in the past week that Interval training may be better for fat loss than steady state exercises like jogging. So exercises like burpees are back in the forefront. A Burpee Tabata (20 Seconds on - 10 Seconds off for 4 minutes/8 Rounds) is sure to get the Heart Rate and metabolism going.

A lot of people struggle with full burpees. Which is why I made this video HERE to show easier versions of the burpee before progressing to the next level.

But what if Burpees are not the be all and end all. What if there was another exercise that could be better than burpees for fat loss, increasing your metabolism for longer after a session and possibly even better for helping you perform other exercises such as push ups and sit ups.

Enter Battle Ropes.

Sure they tire you out. And they seem like a bit of a gimmick (Although doing THIS EXERCISE nearly a full year before seeing it in the movie Creed 2, made me very happy!).

But are they really a great tool for burning fat? The research says yes!

Take from a study from the University of Windsor:

In an acute BR study, Ratamess et al. (2015a) compared VO2 responses of BR HIIT training to a series of standard resistance exercises and body weight exercises. The BR HIIT training used a 50 foot, 1.5 inch diameter rope weighing 25 lb with subjects training at a 1:4 work to rest ratio (10 sec of alternating whip, 10 sec of double whip, and 10 sec of rope slams, with 2 mins of rest) and this was compared to resistance exercises (squat, bench press, bent-over barbell row, deadlift) for 3 sets, 10 repetitions at 75% 1RM, and to body weight exercises (burpees, planks, push-ups) for 3 sets, 10-20 repetitions per exercise, with 2 min rest intervals between all exercise modalities. They reported that the BR HIIT routine elicited the highest mean VO2 response (24.6 ± 2.6 ml kg-1 min-1 ) compared to both burpees (22.9 ± 2.1 ml kg-1 min1 ) and squats (19.8 ± 1.8 ml kg-1 min-1 ), and also produced the greatest heart rate response (153.5 ± 13.9 b min-1 ) compared to all other exercises (Ratamess, et al., 2015a).

If you skipped the above paragraph, I can’t blame you. In conclusion, the exercise outperformed burpees in heart rate response and VO2. You’re more than likely to burn more calories doing burpees, according to this study.

The study, which can be found HERE if you have a lot of time on your hands, also shows both male and females increased their number of push ups and sit ups from their baseline in 3 weeks by doing battle ropes 3 times a week.

This is just one study and there are other studies to indicate that Battle Ropes is a great tool for fat loss (such as The Journal for Strength and Conditioning Research) But that doesn’t mean they should be the only tool! Just like every session shouldn’t be a HIIT session, every HIIT session shouldn’t be a battle ropes session.

But if you are using battle ropes, here are 3 ways you can use them:

10 Secs Alt Waves/10 Secs Double Waves/10 Secs Slams - Rest for 2 mins

10 Secs Alt Waves/10 Secs Double Waves - Rest for 1 minute

Or my personal favourite for the end of a session:

15 Slams, 5 Sets - Resting for roughly a minute but more so when you feel capable in completing another 15 Slams to the best of your ability.

And if you are looking for a fun workout involving Battle Ropes, then here are my 20 different Battle Ropes Variation Exercises

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