Battle ropes set-up

November 18, 2020 10:02 AM

I want to get Mr Corpse a battle rope (those heavy ropes you wave around at the gym) for him to workout with at home. Our garage is slowly turning into a home gym during quarantine, which is a good thing. He used the battle ropes at our Y back when it was a reasonable thing to do, and I know he likes them. This would be surprise present, so unless it's vital I'd rather not ask him what he wants. Advice, please.

1) what length rope should I get? There's one 15-foot stretch that is the most obvious place to run the ropes.
2) What diameter rope should I get? Mr Corpse is fit and enjoys an athletic challenge, so "a bit too heavy" would be better than "too easy."
3) How does one secure the rope? There's a metal storage rack that would be great to fasten the rope to, if there's a good way to do it; or, facing the other way, there's the door to the outside (a person door, not the big garage door). There isn't much exposed wall, as there are shelves on them all.
4) Any other advice?
Budget is flexible -- quality matters more. The garage floor is cement but we have old large doormats in there. I'll be shopping on-line, in the US.

posted by The corpse in the library to Health & Fitness (6 answers total)

Unless that metal storage rack is filled with a lot of heavy stuff, I wouldn't attach the rope to it. Between the weight of the rope and all the flailing, something is going to break. At my gym, ours are fastened to our weight racks, which are screwed into a cement floor. Unless you can very securely attach something to the cement floor, your only option may be screwing a large eye hook into a stud.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:16 AM on November 18, 2020

3: if I need to temporarily hold something down bags of sand work great. The are cheap - costing no more than 4$ a bag. They can be moved individually into place but then can easily supply hundreds of pounds of anchor force, the hardware store will even put them in your trunk. Best of all, they are easy to dispose of after - dump the sand in your yard or just leave it on the berm and the next yard crew will grab it. The only downside is the bags the sand comes in usually leak sand all over - which can be addressed by getting a few sand bags - you can spend money on bags designed to hold down canopies or lighting gear, or just some poly bags.
posted by zenon at 11:54 AM on November 18, 2020

How to anchor a battle rope. SLYT
posted by essexjan at 12:05 PM on November 18, 2020

Does anyone know how heavy the sandbags / kettlebell / etc needs to be to hold the rope in place?
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:08 PM on November 19, 2020

I've been doing outdoor personal training sessions, and my coach attaches the battle rope to the trailer hitch* of his Jeep. In a garage gym, this might be less of a pain than anchoring something to the wall or buying very heavy kettlebells if you don't have them already.

*I think? Sorry, not a car person. It's some sort of gear attached to the back of it. Not specifically for battle ropes!
posted by The Giant Rat of Sumatra at 2:02 PM on November 19, 2020

Update! I got a 30' rope, but could've gone longer because of all the slack. It's attached to a metal shelf, as in my question, and it seems to be fine; it's being slammed into the floor but there isn't any tugging on the shelf.

If this fails in the long run I'll update my answer again.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:41 PM on December 27, 2020