After spending quite a bit of money on my new Battle Rope (and anchor system), I wanted to use an app to help me keep proper time, move from one Battle Rope (BR) exercise to the next, listen to my workout playlists, and track my progress. I thought the Pro version of this app would do it but was really disappointed overall with it.
It's a good concept (a dedicated BR app) but the execution of it is lacking a lot. Here's why:
* Only 5 basic BR exercises listed in the app when there are up to 50 to choose from (just go on YouTube to see for yourself). The app needs way more of these! And you should be able to choose or add as many as you want for customized BR workouts.
* The timer is not very customizable. You can't add additional exercises or greater rest periods (if you try to it defaults down to 0 seconds when you up the rep time). There are lots of Interval exercises that use different timings like Ladders, Tabatas, Strappers, Timed Sets, etc. The settings should allow you to customize your timing for any of those.
* The app does not work with iTunes playlists! In other words, if you fire up your workout music, then fire up the app and start BR-ing, the music stops! Like other workout apps, at the very least, your iTunes workout playlists should be playing in the background while using this app to to do the workout. Plus, you should be able to pick individual songs straight from the app. No music, no workout for this BR-er!
* The indicator tones are not very intuitive. I can't tell if the beeps are for starting or resting. Verbal cues would be better. Even better would be verbal announcements of the exercise to do (e.g. "Alternating Wave," "Hip-to-Hip Toss," "Jumping Rope Slam," etc.).
* Video instruction of the exercises would be a lot better than pictographic images and text. Novice BR-ers would really appreciate that. My 'You Are Your Own Gym' Bodyweight Training app by Mark Lauren does all of the above.
Until most of these upgrades are made to this app, I cannot recommend it right now. In the meantime, there are a number of highly reviewed and robust HIIT workout apps (that do most of the above) that will suffice for Battle Rope workouts.
Keep working on this app, and I will download the next update if it meets the features that I need for BR workouts!