The Ten Best Rope Climb Alternatives

When I was a young Royal Marine Commando, much of our physical training revolved around rope climbing. In fact, one of the fitness tests Commandos have to pass is a 30-foot rope climb while carrying 30-pounds of kit.

Needless to say, this was far from easy, and it built some impressive levels of arm and grip strength. The idea was we’d need this strength for climbing up the sides of ships, sliding down ropes suspended under helicopters, and scaling cliffs.

Rope climbing is not just a military exercise; it also features in many CrossFit workouts.

Unfortunately, not everyone has access to a climbing rope. And even if you do, you may not be strong enough to scale it.

The good news is that there are several similarly effective exercises you can do instead. In this article, we reveal the ten best rope climb alternatives.

Rope Climbs: Muscles Worked

To be considered a viable alternative to rope climbs, whatever exercises you perform must work the same muscles. So, to make sure you’re on the right track, these are the muscles developed during rope climbs.

Climbing a rope is a compound exercise that involves multiple muscles and joints working together. However, at its heart, a rope climb is a vertical pulling exercise that works the following muscle groups:

Latissimus dorsi

Located on the side of your upper back, the latissimus dorsi, or lats for short, are your primary pulling muscles. They have three functions: shoulder adduction, extension, and medial rotation. Well-develop lats look like muscular wings, and rope climbs are a very lat-centric exercise.

Trapezius and rhomboids

The trapezius and rhomboids cover much of your upper back and are located across and between your shoulder blades. The trapezius or traps are a diamond-shaped muscle with three sections: upper, middle, and lower.

All three sections are involved in rope climbs, but the middle and lower traps are the most active and are responsible for pulling your shoulders back and down.

The rhomboids lie below your middle traps and between your shoulder blades. They work with your mid traps to pull your back and shoulders together.   

Deltoids

The deltoids are your shoulder muscles. There are three deltoid heads: anterior (front), medial (middle), and posterior (rear). All three deltoid heads are involved in rope climbs, but the posterior head is the most active.

Biceps brachii

Located on the front of your upper arms, the biceps brachii, or just biceps for short, is your main elbow flexor. The biceps get a great workout during rope climbs. In fact, you’ll probably feel your biceps working harder than any of your other muscles.

Forearm flexors

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and, for many people, the weak link during rope climbs is the grip. The forearm flexors work to close your hands around the rope so you can use your back and biceps to pull yourself upward. Rope climbs are a very intense grip exercise.

Core

Core is the collective term for the muscles of your midsection, including the rectus abdominis, obliques, transverse abdominis, and erector spinae. These muscles contract inward to produce intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) to stabilize your spine. Like all hanging exercises, your abs are pretty active during rope climbs, especially if you use your legs as well as your arms to ascend.

Quadriceps, hamstrings, adductors, and gluteus maximus

If you do rope climbs without using your legs, your arms and core will do all the work. But if you grip the rope with your legs and use them to push you up as you pull with your arms, your lower body will get a good workout, too.

Leg-assisted rope climbs use all your lower body muscles. However, because of their position and movement, their involvement is relatively small, so they don’t really get much of a workout.

Because of this, our list of rope climb alternatives is aimed at your upper body. So, if you want to train your legs, just crank out a few sets of lunges, squats, or leg presses.

The Ten Best Rope Climb Alternatives

There is no denying that rope climbs are a great exercise, but they’re not always practical. After all, you’ll need a rope, a place to hang it, and a high enough ceiling to make your climb worthwhile.

The good news is that there are several great exercises that can be just as effective and are far more accessible.

These are the 10 best rope climb alternatives!

1. Towel Climbs

Towel climbs feel and even look a lot like climbing a rope with a hand-over-hand action. You can do this exercise from almost any smooth pull-up bar, and it works all of the same muscles as rope climbing. All you need for this exercise is a gym towel and a place to hang it.

Steps:

1. Grab your gym towel and hang it over a smooth pull-up bar.
2. Hold the ends and hang with your feet off the floor. Brace your abs, and pull your shoulders down and back.
3. Pull down with one arm and lift your opposite knee.
4. Next, pull down with your other arm and lift your opposite leg.
5. Keep pulling with an alternating arm action for the desired number of reps.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• A gym-friendly alternative for rope climbs.
• A good alternative to pull-ups and chin-ups.
• An excellent exercise for building a stronger grip.

Tips:

• The thicker your towel is, the harder it will be to grip, so choose a towel that matches your current grip strength.
• Do 15 reps per 15-foot rope climb.
• Shift your weight from side to side as you pull with your arms and pump your legs to mimic a legs-free rope climb more closely.

2. Towel Grip Pull-ups

The towel grip pull-up works all the same muscles as rope climbs, but you can do it in almost any gym. It’s also an excellent forearm-building and grip-strengthening exercise. So, do towel pull-ups anytime you cannot climb a rope or to strengthen your arms for better, faster rope climbs.

Steps:

1. Take two gym towels and loop them over your pull-up bar, so they’re about shoulder-width apart.
2. Grip one towel in each and hold on tight.
3. Lift your feet off the floor and hang with your arms straight, shoulders down and back, and core braced.
4. Bend your arms and pull your chin up toward the bar. Drive your elbows down and back to maximize back engagement.
5. Lower yourself back down under control and repeat.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• You can do this exercise anywhere you can hang a couple of towels.
• Use this exercise to build stronger, bigger arms, forearms, and lats.
• An excellent training exercise for improving your legs-free rope climbs.

Tips:

• Do this exercise while wearing a weighted vest to make it more challenging.
• The thicker your towel, the more grip-centric this exercise becomes.
• Rotate your hands as you pull yourself up to hit your back and arms from various angles.

3. Towel Grip Cable Rows

If you aren’t quite strong enough to do towel grip pull-ups just yet, this could be the exercise for you. It works many of the same muscles, but it’s much easier to adjust the weight. This exercise is also good for muscle-building drop sets.

Steps:

1. Thread a gym towel through the handle of a cable row machine. Sit on the bench with your knees slightly bent and your torso upright. Grip the ends of the towel and hold them tight. Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
2. Without leaning backwards, bend your elbows and pull your hands back to the sides of your abdomen. Keep your upper arms close to your body.
3. Extend your arms and repeat.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, biceps, trapezius, rhomboids.
• Secondary: Deltoids, erector spinae, forearms.

Benefits:

• A more scalable exercise than towel pull-ups and towel pull-climbs.
• A great exercise for rope-climb beginners.
• An effective exercise for better posture.

Tips:

• You can also use this towel grip method for regular bent-over rows.
• Do this exercise with a one-handed grip to address any left-to-right strength imbalances you might have.
• Use a thicker towel to make this exercise more grip-centric.

4. Fat Bar Neutral Grip Pull-ups

Fat or thick bar training is a great way to build bigger forearms and a stronger grip. As the hands are often a weak link for rope climbing, it makes sense to train your grip if you want to improve your rope-climbing performance. Use a thick pull-up bar for this exercise or clip-on “fat grips” if your pull-up bar is not thick enough.

Steps:

1. Hold the parallel or neutral grips on your pull-up bar. Hang with your arms straight, shoulders down and back, and core braced. Squeeze the bars as hard as possible.
2. Bend your elbows and pull your chest up toward the bar. Keep your shoulders back and down throughout.
3. Extend your arms and smoothly return to the starting position.
4. Continue for the desired number of reps.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• Neutral grip pull-ups are often more elbow-friendly than overhand pull-ups or underhand chin-ups.
• An excellent grip, lat, and biceps exercise.
• An accessible exercise as most gyms have neutral grip pull-up bars.

Tips:

• Make this exercise harder by wearing a weighted vest or using a chin/dip belt.
• No fat grips? No problem! Wrap the bar with microfiber cleaning clothes or sponges to make it thicker and harder to grip.
• Pull your chest up to the bar rather than your chin to increase lat, rhomboid, and trapezius engagement.

5. Rope Lat Pulldowns

Not strong enough to do towel grip pull-ups? Not a problem! You can achieve a similar training effect by doing lat pulldowns with a rope handle. Most gyms have both lat pulldowns and rope handles, so this is a very accessible exercise.

Steps:

1. Attach a triceps rope handle to your lat pulldown machine. Take one end of the rope in each hand. Hold part-way up the rope and do not use the end stoppers, so your grip has to do more work.
2. Sit on the machine with your thighs under the leg restraints. Lean back slightly, retract your shoulders and lift your chest.
3. Without leaning further back, bend your elbows and pull your hands down to your shoulders. Keep your upper arms close to your sides.
4. Extend your arms, get a good stretch in your lats, and repeat.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• A very scalable exercise that’s ideal for all fitness levels.
• Good for intensity-boosting drop sets.
• A handy lat pulldown variation for more interesting back workouts.

Tips:

• Replace the rope handle with a towel if necessary.
• You can do this exercise using one hand for variety and to ensure that you develop both arms equally.
• Add an isometric pause at the bottom of each rep to increase back engagement.

6. Sit-to-Stand Rope Climbs

You don’t need a high ceiling to do rope climbs. In fact, you can replicate the demands of rope climbs with a pull-up bar and a 10-foot climbing rope. This is an excellent exercise for anyone who wants to do rope climbs but doesn’t have enough space for a 15-30 foot rope.

Steps:

1. Attach your climbing rope to your pull-up bar.
2. Lie on the floor beneath your rope. Your legs should be straight. Grab the rope with your arms extended.
3. Bend your arms and pull yourself hand-over-hand into a standing position.
4. Next, lower yourself back to the floor using the same hand-over-hand action.
5. Repeat for the required number of reps.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• An accessible way to do rope climbs at home.
• A good way to develop the strength needed for full rope climbs.
• An excellent back, biceps, and forearm workout.

Tips:

• If you aren’t strong enough to pull yourself up from the floor, start in the standing position and lower yourself down. You are stronger eccentrically than you are concentrically, meaning you can lower more weight than you can lift.
• Bend your knees to make this exercise a little easier.
• Make this exercise more demanding by wearing a weighted vest.

7. Monkey Bar Traverse

While not quite as challenging as rope climbs, you can train many of the same muscles at your local playground, functional gym, or calisthenics park with monkey bar traverses. This is not just an effective exercise; it’s also a lot of fun!

Steps:

1. Hang from the first rung of your monkey bars. Use an overhand grip with or without your thumbs wrapped around the bar.
2. Release one hand and swing forward to grab the next rung.
3. Next, swing forward with your other arm and grab the next rung.
4. Continue across the bars until you reach the end.
5. Stop and rest or turn around and go back across the bars.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• A great rope-climbing alternative for anyone who doesn’t like heights.
• A good grip, upper back, and core exercise.
• A very functional back and biceps exercise.

Tips:

• Take big swings and miss every other rung to make this exercise a little more athletic and challenging.
• Go sideways or even backward for more variation.
• Try two-handed jumps from rung to rung to build muscle power, like this:

8. Ring Rows

Gymnastic rings are incredibly versatile, and you can use them to train virtually every muscle in your body. Gymnastic ring rows are an excellent back, biceps, and forearm exercise and an ideal alternative for rope climbs.

Steps:

1. Adjust your rings to about waist height. Sit on the floor below the rings. Extend your legs out in front of you so your heels are resting on the floor.
2. Lean back so your arms are straight. Pull your shoulders down and back, and lift your hips off the floor. Contract your glutes and brace your core.
3. Bend your arms and pull yourself up until your shoulders touch the rings. Keep your upper arms close to your sides.
4. Descend slowly while keeping your body straight.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• An excellent rope-climb alternative for home exercisers.
• Very scalable and suitable for all levels of fitness.
• Gymnastic rings are very cheap, readily available, and versatile.

Tips:

• Raise your feet by placing them on a chair or bench to make this exercise harder.
• Make ring rows easier by shortening the straps, so your body is more upright.
• Rotate your hands toward you as you pull to increase biceps and upper back engagement.

9. Hand-Over-Hand Sled Pulls  

With hand-over-hand sled pulls, you use a rope to pull a weight toward you instead of pulling your body weight up a rope. This works all the same muscles as rope climbing but without the need to scale a vertical rope.

Steps:

1. Attach a rope to your sled and lay it out on the floor. Grab the free end and stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, core braced, and shoulders down and back.
2. Using a hand-over-hand action, pull the sled toward you, feeding the tail of the rope behind you to avoid getting tangled.
3. Turn your sled around, pay out the rope again, and repeat.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps.
• Secondary: Core, forearms.

Benefits:

• A valuable alternative to rope climbs that works all of the same muscles.
• A great exercise for anyone who doesn’t like heights.
• A very scalable exercise, as you can easily adjust the weight of the sled.

Tips:

• Do this exercise seated with your legs extended to take your lower body out of the movement.
• Turn your upper body with each pull to increase oblique engagement.
• Adjust the incline of your upper body to work your back muscles from different angles.

10. Towel Grip Farmer’s Walk

While we’ll be the first to admit that towel grip farmer’s walks look nothing like rope climbs, doing this exercise could make you a better rope climber. Towel grip farmer’s walks will help develop your hand and forearm strength. A weak grip will severally undermine your rope climbing performance!

Steps:

1. Thread a towel through the handle of a kettlebell, around a dumbbell, or through the middle of a weight plate. Make two of these farmers carry implements.
2. Crush the ends of the towels together and pick up your weights, so they’re outside your legs.
3. With your arms straight, core braced, and shoulders engaged, walk around your training area until you feel your grip is beginning to fail.
4. Put the weights on the floor, rest briefly, and repeat.

Muscles targeted:

• Primary: Forearms, trapezius, rhomboids, core.
• Secondary: Lower body.

Benefits:

• A fun and effective way to build a stronger grip.
• A good conditioning exercise.
• Infinitely scalable by adding or subtracting weight and suitable for all fitness levels.

Tips:

• Use just one weight to increase the load on your obliques. Switch hands set by set to work both sides of your body.
• The thicker the towel, the more demanding this exercise becomes.
• Do this exercise for time or distance as preferred.

Rope Climb Alternative FAQs

Do you have a question about rope climbs or rope climb alternatives? No worries – we’ve got the answers!

1. So, what’s so great about rope climbing, anyway?

Rope climbing works all your major pulling muscles, including your back and biceps. Your abs and forearms also get a great workout. Not only is this a good strength move, but it teaches you to use these muscles in a coordinated way, making it a very functional exercise.

For this reason, rope climbs are a common feature in military training, and are also part of many CrossFit workouts.

If you are bored of pull-ups and pulldowns, give rope climbing a try. If you can’t find anywhere to climb a rope, you can do these alternatives instead.

2. How often should I do these rope climb alternatives?

Rope climbing and our rope climb alternatives are intense exercises. As such, you’ll probably need a few days to recover from your workout. They’re also hard on your elbows and forearms, and doing them too often could lead to overuse injuries and overtraining.

With this in mind, you should probably limit rope climb training to 2-3 times per week, preferably with a day or two of rest between workouts.

3. How many reps and sets should I do of these exercises?

Until recently, the fitness industry believed that to build muscle, you needed to train in the 6-12 rep range and that doing more reps only builds muscular endurance. More recent research suggests the so-called hypertrophy rep range is much wider than was once thought, and doing anywhere from 6 to 35 reps to failure will result in muscle growth (1).

So, in most cases, you should just do as many reps as you can and stop your set when your form starts to fail. It doesn’t matter if you do eight reps or 28; you’ll still trigger hypertrophy.

That said, to build strength, you need to lift heavy weights, which will probably limit you to fewer reps per set, i.e., 1-5.

Regarding the number of sets, 2-4 should be sufficient for most people. If you can do more than four, you are either not training close enough to failure, or you are resting too long between sets.

4. Will rope climbing and the alternatives give me jacked arms?

While direct biceps exercises like barbell and dumbbell curls are the accepted way to build muscular arms, rope climbing should produce similar results providing you train with plenty of intensity and consistency.

Your body is amazing, but despite its brilliance, it cannot tell the difference between barbell curls and rope climbing. It just knows it’s being asked to perform a strenuous task and will respond by getting stronger and building muscle.

However, remember that rope climbs do NOT involve a lot of triceps engagement, and the triceps are actually the biggest muscle in your upper arms. So, to build jacked arms, you need to include pushing exercises like dips, diamond push-ups, and triceps pushdowns in your workouts.

5. What is the best rope climb alternative for beginners?

Because bodyweight training can be too much for some beginners, it’s generally best to focus on freeweight and machine exercises if you are just starting to train for rope climbs. So, good options include rope lat pulldowns and towel cable rows. Seated rope climbs are also useful because you can use your legs for assistance.

However, to get stronger, you must practice progressive overload. That means your workouts must gradually become more challenging, either by doing more reps or adding weight.

With consistency and determination, you’ll gradually develop the strength necessary to progress to full rope climbs.

Wrapping Up

Rope climbing is an excellent exercise for your upper body and core. However, there is no denying that it’s also very challenging and not especially practical. While some gyms have ropes to climb, most do not, and not many people have anywhere high enough to hang a 15-feet rope at home.

The good news is you can get your rope climbing fix by doing any of the ten alternatives in this article. Each one uses similar muscles but is far more accessible.

Whether you don’t have access to a climbing rope or want to train to be a better rope climber, these exercises will help.

References:

1 – PubMed: Effects of different intensities of resistance training with equated volume load on muscle strength and hypertrophy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29564973/

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