|
|
Home New at FHS What are you training for? About John Wood BLOG |
![]() The World's Best Hand & Grip Strength Training Instruction |
|
Rope Climbing: Simple, basic, brutally effective...
|
|
Dear Friend,
Back in grade school, I used to love gym class. The grade school I attended, Sands Montessori, was in a building that was over a hundred years old. What I really liked about our gym was that they hadn't changed much about it since the turn of the century. It had a beautiful hardwood floor, swiss bars, parallel bars, ladders, adjustable rings, poles, balance beams and climbing ropes. (I never saw any indian clubs or wooden dumbbells but would bet good money that they used to have em' at one point.) It looked a lot like the gym in this picture: ![]() An Old Time Gymnasium Needless to say, everybody had a heck of a good time playing on this vintage equipment. Yes, I do mean playing as it never felt like we were training but looking back, that's exactly what we were doing. I believe that the time in that old gym had a lot to do with laying the foundation for my future athletic success. One thing that was always one of my favorites during gym class was when we did rope climbing. Heck, that was an age when I didn't really know what "strong" was. I could climb that rope like nobody's business and not even think twice. Needless to say, when I did get older, and began researching some of the top grip exercises, rope climbing was always at the top of the list. In fact, Karl Gotch, the "God of Wrestling" in Japan, always said that rope climbing and other "gymnastic" type exercises were the most valuable exercises for combat athletes. I agree. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until it was too late... when I was in high school my grade school moved away from that building to a more "modern" location. There was no way I could go back to the old building to train .
For this contest Rangers are split into two-man teams. Each man has to climb a 90-foot rope to a narrow tower platform with gloved hands. Once they reach the top they must detach from the rope, run across the platform and rappel down the other side. Each team member's time is then added together for a final score. It will take a time of less than two minutes to even raise an eyebrow. "[rope climbing ] is a great training exercise. When we're in the field, if we needed to get up something really fast, these skills would be extremely helpful." - Sgt. Nathaniel Brown, whose personal best in the Prusik climb is 52 seconds
Train hard, ![]() John Wood P.S. If you are looking to add rope climbing to your grip workout, Functional Hand Strength now carries the top quality climbing ropes. Click here to check em' out. Copyright © 2005 by Functional Hand Strength, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |