Rope Climbing (Corde Lisse)

– Climbing Rope is one of the best Upper Body Bent Arm Strength Pulling exercises one can
pursue.
– Climbing rope without leg assistance is one of the first practices one should pursue after being
able to perform multiple reps in the pull ups. (5 reps is the goal here to be achieved first with
beginners.)
– If you look at a rope climb, the movement is organic, round, and continuous. RC is basically a
form of vertical locomotion
– Taking a wide bird eye view on movement development, you will notice that
animals/humans don't have even one linear straight line in our bodies. This makes interaction
with linear grid structures an interesting place: something has to yield. That something in
most cases will be you – moving toward a path of least resistance or making it a harder
choice on purpose. Working with linear structures becomes a movement challenge for us. It is
a Kinetic Riddle the neuromuscular system has to solve.
– Working with those rigid structures has it's cons as well – injuries are more common and a
holistic development of your musculature and skeleton can be compromised. When working
with “organic” movement patterns, the CNS has a lot more choices to choose from – that's
what it comes down to:
1. Only squatting (even using perfect technique) can expose or create imbalances in the
lower body. It's an excellent practice but sometimes requires the integration of corrective
exercises like single leg work, ham exercises, glute activation drills, specific mobility, and
more and more.
2. This is why swimming is considered so healthy – not only the “decreased gravity effect,”
it's the round, organic movements. The problem here again is – specific ability
development is not optomized. Swimming will not develop great pullup strength for
example, but it doens't make it a bad movement choice.

Rope Climbing offers us resisted, intense “organic” movement with very obvious (for the serious
practitioner) benefits:
1. Superior demands on scapula stabilization (compared to a pullup for example)
2. Holistic development of upper body pulling musculature – the unique movement of climbing
will activate the whole back from rhomboids to lats to traps and more. Arm muscles will also
be recruited in a superior fashion – biceps, brachialis, brachrioradialis, elbow stabilizers,
forearm and grip: felxor digitorum, flexor radialis, and flexor pollicis longus to name a few.
3. Rope climb due to risk involved, instability and other factors will result in much higher motor
recruitment than again the various bar pullups.

Due to the first 2 reasons Rope Climbs are prescribed to gymnasts (both male and female) from an
early age as corrective exercise to maintain healthy joints and soft tissue. Excessive use of linear
strength exercises is understood by the better gymnastics coaches as problematic and the necessity of
more organic movement patterns and “Joint Prep” is obvious.

A lot of coaches like to show various assisting techniques for climbing – using leg locks and other
“step” methods. We will not do the same, but concentrate on developing Bent Arm Strength using
legless RC.
Before attacking the full Rope Climb, I like to take people through some of these basic progressions:
(moving from easiest to hardest)
A. The Rope Pull Up - assuming a hand below hand grip with a distance that varies between one fist
directly below the other up to a distance where the lower fist is placed at the height of the opposite
arm's elbow when it is straight. From this position I will have the person perform multiple reps of pull
ups - each time starting from fully locked higher arm position to the chin clearing the top fist. Once
completing the reps, switch the grips and repeat.

B. The Rope One Arm Assisted Pull Up - very similar to variation A, only this time the lower fist will
be placed at the opposite shoulder height or even lower (sternum height)- and though will only
enable partial assistance from the lower arm.

C. The 'Regretting' Step Rope Pull Up - from a starting position that will vary between A and B,
hang by your arms strength and perform a pull up. While reaching with your chin high enough, let
go of the lower hand and perform a large stroke with it over the opposite hand upwards the rope.
Grip it/touch it at the new position and come back down to the starting position under control.

Once you have mastered one of these variations, you can also start to integrate the full Continuous
Rope Climb.
What can you do once you got a full legless continuous rope climb of 5-8 meters?

You have a couple of options here:

1. Endurance - go for doubles, triples, etc.
2 X 7 Meter Climb
1 X 20 Meter Climb

2. Strength
Weighted Climbs
One arm Negatives on the way down
One Arm Rope Climb

3. Technical work
* Emphasizing minimal amount of strokes per certain distance and maximal reach per stroke
* Emphasizing maximum amount of strokes per certain distance with minimal stroke length
* Emphasizing various tempos - slow climbs-slow descend, fast climb-slow descend, etc.
* Reverse Chameleon Climb
* Reverse Grip Climb
* Front Lever Climb
* Behind the Back Climb