Selecting exercises that are effective and interesting to personal training clients can be problematic. In the personal training industry their are numerous certifications and courses offering qualifications in TRX training, Kettle bells, BOSU, boxing to name a few. Then there are even combinations of these courses; for example I have just this last month witnessed a Piloxing class which is a combination of Pilates and boxing.
I think it’s great that people are trying to develop new ways of getting more individuals into a healthy lifestyle, but at some point we’ve got to sit down and think… is what we are doing effective for what the client wants to achieve, or are we just trying to entertain them? I won’t comment on the effectiveness of any of the training modalities mentioned above because I cant find a significant amount of peer reviewed literature on them.
A commonly utilised tool in the modern personal training facility is the battle rope – its main supposed benefit is the ability to assist in metabolic conditioning. The battle rope is usually used to creates waves 9-15m long, 3-5 centimetres in diameter for periods of 10-30 seconds. There are thousands of variations of this exercise including, but not limited to, manipulations of rope weight, length, orientation of the body, wave length and utilisation of the upper and lower body. There is now a growing body of research examining the metabolic cost of rope training, something very valuable to personal trainers looking to provide effective, time-consuming training solutions to their clients.
Recently Fountaine and Schmidt., (2015) looked at the metabolic cost of rope training. The exact approach is as follows. “The 10-minute rope protocol consisted of 15 seconds of vertical double arm waves followed by 45 seconds of rest for 10 total repetitions. Subjects began in an athletic position, feet shoulder width apart, with the trunk flexed forward to approximately 30–45° angle. Subjects held the ends of the rope with a neutral grip, with the arms straight and relaxed at their side.”
Fountaine and Schmidt., (2015) established the following findings:
- Rope training led to the participants reaching 86% of their maximum heart rate
- Energy expenditure per unit of time was 41 kj.min-1, classifying the exercise as vigorous
Interestingly, significant differences where also noted between males and females, however on average males where 30kg heavier. When standardised for weight, neither males or females had any difference in peak lactate, EPOC, average heart rate or peak heart rate, suggesting that battle ropes provide an effective conditioning tool for both males and females. However research is still limited and more is required find effective programs and variations.