How strong is it to do rope climbing without using the legs?

Rope climbing is a great exercise for fighters, possibly the best overall upper body exercise for grapplers (though Rocky Marciano apparently was a fan, too). It mimics gripfighting, seizing and immediately pulling, total body tension, etc. Plus, when climbing rope, you always pull towards your center of gravity (belly button) rather than towards the shoulders like in pull-ups; just like you do when grappling. The height adds a bit of spice, simulating the adrenaline. No other training tool does exactly the same in my experience. In the words of Dan Gable: "I would hate to wrestle another wrestler who climbs a lot of rope." Needless to say, I love it, and have climbed many a mile of rope.

As for difficulty, it depends on how you climb.
First of all, some variations of rope climbing are more difficult than others. In my opinion, two ropes is actually the easiest of the legless variations, because you can technically climb without bending the arms at all, just tilting the shoulders side to side; plus, you can throw the body upwards with parallel grips if you want, while with one rope, you always have a staggered grip. It's therefore the variation closest to pull-ups, and the variation where you lean back the least, meaning it's the easiest on the core. The main drawback or mental block in this style is that you can't just wrap the legs around the rope in case you get tired, you need to swing to one of the ropes first. Yet, i continue hearing from people being super impressed by this - I must conclude they either didn't try it, or have little experience climbing rope. Standard single rope climbing with kicking the legs in the air is next (you see this style in rope climbing competitions); then, we have holding the legs stiff, legs held out in L-sit, upside-down climbing, and (for the freaks only) one handed climbing. If any variation is too easy, just add weight. I have held medicine balls between the legs, even a wrestling dummy at some point. I have seen one guy tie a dummy to his waist using a 5 m resistance band (similar to a Dopa); haven't tried that yet - I currently don't have access to a rope and a dummy in the same place - but I bet it's fun. A martial arts beld and weight plates is more convenient, though.
Then, it's about HOW you climb. Often, beginners climb with very short reaches (one or two hand widths apart), which turns climbing into more of a grip exercise and takes stress away from the arms and back. That's like doing quarter pull-ups. Advanced climbers usually do long reaches, at least forearm length apart, ideally the length of the whole arm. Sitting starts makes things harder, because you need to build up momentum first; a strict standing start (lifting the legs) is medium, a jumbing start the easiest. Ideally, you want to go up fast and down slowly; this way, it becomes both a power and a strength exercise.
I should also point out that climbing only one length of rope in the standard style is hardly advanced, rather it may separate beginners from intermediate. Iaskevich wrote that in the Soviet Union, national team members had to be able to climb a 5 m rope five times in a row without using the legs, regardless of weight class (!). That's a serious goal for most people. The lightweights and middleweights are usually the best climbers, and the best I have met so far is my former Greco coach (formerly German Bundesliga, incidentally a teammate of Joel Romeiro in Nurnberg). He wrestled at 68 kg, and was able to climb up and down an 8 m rope 15 times in a row, in an L-sit the whole time.
As for volume, apparently competitive rope climbers recommend climbing a mile of rope per week. That's 200 lengths of an 8 m rope, or 267 lengths of a 6 m rope. So at least 40 lengths of rope daily if you climb 5 days per week. Good luck getting to that level. Me, I usually limited myself to 10 lengths tops after wrestling practice.
 
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PS: Correlating pull-ups and rope climbing is only possible to a certain degree - it's a bit like comparing squat numbers and jumping or sprinting performance, since it's a separate skill with some additional components like coordination etc. That being said, if someone is able to do at least ten pull-ups in a row, they should be able to climb rope without legs ok (maybe one length or so, probably not with great form). To be at an intermediate level, 20 pull-ups would be a more realistic base. Really good rope climbers will usually be able to do at least 30, probably closer to 50 pull-ups (kipping).
 
I'm assuming you mean using only one arm?
You mean with the pull-ups numbers? No, two arms. In rope climbing, you have various movement phases during the ascent: 1. the initial pull (two arms, staggered grip - a bit like doing a pull-up with one hand on the bar and one hand lower down on a rope; the further the hands are apart, the harder it becomes to use the lower arm for help), 2. the continuation of the pull with one arm while reaching with the other (using the momentum that was built up in phase 1), 3. making contact and gripping; you could break down the descent in a similar manner. In any case, you build up upwards momentum with two arms and continue the pull with one arm, but since your body is already in motion, you only add to the drive. It's a bit like running, really - a one-legged sprint start would be inefficient, so you build up momentum with both legs and then maintain that. And while you do balance and push off your bodyweight on one foot, it's not necessary to be able to do one legged spuats in order to run, since your never use the full range of motion of the squat in the run. Likewise, most people will never get to the point where they can use the full range of motion of the one-arm pull-up in the rope climb, and even if they could, it would be a deliberately slow, strength-intense but rather inefficient form of motion - like hopping forward from one leg to the other and landing in a full pistol or shrimp squat each time.
While you could technically use rope climbing to build up to a one-arm pull-up, only very few people who climb rope are able to do one of those - competition climbers and gymnasts, mostly. The number of fighters I know who can do a one-arm pull up I can count one one hand (with fingers to spare), and they're not the best rope climbers, either - one arm pull-up training is very specialized and for most people requires low volume and loads of rest. One arm pull-ups are like powerlifting, a max effort; rope climbing is more like sprinting or middle distance running, depending how long you go. While a stronger pull will help your climbing to an extent, spending a lot of time and effort to increase that pull over a certain level can be detrimental, at least if it takes away from your specific training. I hope that makes sense.
 
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