Do Battle Ropes Work Legs? [Top 7 Leg Exercises]

When used correctly, battle ropes are a total body workout that provides an excellent way to build leg strength and muscle. At first glance, it may look like you use only your arms to move battle ropes, but this isn’t the case. Standard battle rope workouts performed in a standing position recruit muscles throughout the lower body to perform powerful rope workouts safely. By adding squats, lunges, and jumps to these movements you’ll truly target your lower body during your rope workout.

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How Do Battle Ropes Work Your Legs?

The best battle rope movements require you to use muscles throughout your body to move the ropes in powerful waves, whips, and slams. When you’re standing in an athletic position with your knees bent during waves, you’ll absorb the shock of the rope’s momentum in your legs, working your quads, hamstrings, and stabilizer muscles. When you jump up to slam the rope down, you’ll use your calves, glutes, quads, and hamstrings.

Many standard battle rope movements activate muscles throughout your entire body, including your legs.
Standing battle rope exercises use stabilizer muscles in your lower body to maintain balance.
Jumping during a battle rope workout targets several leg muscles.
Adding squats, lunges, and agility movements to battle ropes turns them into an intense lower body workout.

The potential for battle ropes to work the lower body can be increased by blending traditional leg workouts with your rope movements. Hold a squat position while doing waves, slamming the rope from one side to another as you drop into side lunges, or doing high knees while performing lateral waves add a lower body component to any movement. If you have space outdoors, you can incorporate even more into your workout. Try running backward for 40 yards towing a battle rope to get an intense quad workout.

7 Battle Rope Movements that Maximize Leg Strength

If you’ve got a set of battle ropes in the gym and want to use them for more than just an upper body workout, then you’ve got the right idea. Ropes are a versatile training tool that can increase your strength and conditioning in nearly any muscle group. Here’s how to build muscle and really target your legs using the heavy ropes.

Alternating Waves with Squats

Let’s start with one of our favorite battle rope movements—the alternating wave. It’s a great arm and shoulder workout but it can be modified to provide a great leg workout as well. Perform squats as you wave the ropes to activate your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and hip flexors. Here’s how:

Hold the ropes in a handshake grip.
Take a squat-ready stance, with feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent.
With your arms extended, move the ropes up and down to create waves that travel to the anchor point.
Squat until your thighs are parallel with the floor while continuing to make rope waves.
Rise from the squat, driving up through your legs and hips.
Maintain a straight back with retracted shoulders and eyes forward throughout the motion.
Work for 30 seconds, or for 8–12 squats.

As an alternative to performing several squats, a variation on this exercise is to hold the squat position for the full 30 seconds. Either way, you’ll get a great leg workout.

Side Lunge Slams

Side lunge slams are one of our favorites because they not only work the legs, but also recruit many other muscle groups as well. As an added bonus, they incorporate a turning movement to safely work the core and ab muscles in a way most traditional exercises don’t. Here’s how to perform this movement.

Hold the ropes in a reverse grip, with the handles pointing toward the ceiling.
Drop into a lunge position. Your right leg should be bent and your right side should be facing the rope’s anchor point. Think of your body as the top of ‘T’ and the ropes as the long leg of the ‘T’.
Bring your hands in front of you. Your arms should be extended at about knee height.
Power up from the lunge position, extending your arms overhead as you pivot from left to right.
Slam the rope down as you sink into the lunge position facing the opposite direction.
Repeat for 30 seconds.

This rope workout is incredible for the lower body because it requires you to power up from the lunge position to help throw the ropes overhead in a high arc. As a bonus, it’s a great workout to increase upper body and core strength as well.

Sidestep Waves

A unique component of rope workouts for the lower body is that you can incorporate movement. This increases functional strength, agility, and cardio endurance. One of our favorite movements for this purpose are sidestep waves. To do them:

Hold the ropes in a handshake grip.
Sink halfway into a squat position, with feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
Begin making alternating waves in the rope, making sure they are symmetrical and powerful enough to travel to the anchor point.
Maintaining your low stance, sidestep 3 times to the left, then 3 steps to the right.
Work for 30 seconds.

Depending on the space available in your gym, you can perform this exercise with more or fewer sidesteps. If you have limited space, you can perform high knees while standing in place for a greater leg workout.

Jump Slams

Build explosive power in your legs by adding jump slams to your routine. This movement will work your hamstrings, glutes, quads, and calves all at once as you power yourself off the ground while slamming the ropes. For this exercise:

Hold the ropes in a handshake grip.
Start in an athletic stance, prepared to sink into a squat.
Drop down into a squat position and gather yourself for an explosive leap.
Leap upward out of squat position, powering yourself off the ground.
Keeping your arms extended, raise them overhead, creating an arc in the rope.
As you land, bring the rope down hard in a slam.
Bend your knees as you land, cushioning your landing and sinking down into a squat position for the next rep.
Work for 30 seconds, then rest.

When performing any jump motion with the battle ropes it’s important to remember to bend your knees as you land. This will allow you to absorb the impact of the landing safely. Landing stiff-legged can cause knee injury. The key to jump slams is taking it slowly at first, performing the exercise as one fluid motion before you ramp up the speed.

Reverse Lunge Waves

Lunges are an amazing unilateral lower body exercise. They build strength and muscle evenly by working each leg independently, ensuring that a stronger leg can’t compensate for a weaker one. You can add lunges to your battle rope workout with the following exercise:

Face the anchor point and hold the ropes in a handshake grip.
Begin performing alternating waves.
As you move the ropes in waves, step back with the right leg and lower yourself into a lunge position until your right knee touches the floor.
Stand up from the lunge and step forward back to the starting position.
Step back with the left leg to perform a lunge.
Work for 30 seconds, alternating lunges as you work.

By adding lunges to alternating waves, you kick up the cardio intensity at the same time you activate more leg muscles. You’ll burn more calories, build endurance, and develop strength at the same time.

Burpee Slams

By adding burpees to your battle rope movements you will not only boost your heart rate, but you’ll also train your leg muscles for explosive power. This variation is performed by doing the following:

Hold the ropes in a handshake grip.
Stand in an athletic position, knees slightly bent and back straight.
Drop down into the plank position, kicking your legs out behind you.
Gather your legs under yourself in a crouch.
Jump upward, extending your arms overhead to bring the ropes up in an arc.
Bring the ropes down into a hard slam as you land, bending your knees and preparing to drop into plank position again.
Work for 30 seconds, then rest.

The constant movement of the burpee works on natural flexibility and functional strength. Leaping, crouching, and gathering all require different muscles. You’ll feel the burn in your legs after this one.

Battle Rope Jumping Jacks

Jumping jacks might seem simple, but once you add a heavy rope to the equation, they get a lot more intense. This is a great rope warm-up or the perfect way to end a tough circuit. To perform this movement:

Stand with your back to the rope’s anchor point.
With your arms at your side and your palms facing inwards, grab a rope in each hand.
Jump, straddling your legs in a ‘V’.
As you jump, bring your arms up laterally above shoulder height. Keep your arms extended with only a slight bend in the elbow
Land with your legs straddled and arms raised.
Jump again, bringing your legs together and arms down.
Work for 30 seconds, then rest.

By adding weighted ropes, your legs will be required to produce more power to leap off the ground. This will activate your glutes, hamstrings, and calves. At the same time, your shoulder muscles will be working to raise the ropes, adding an upper-body component to this simple exercise.