Arrow Finale: How Hard Is The Salmon Ladder?

In honor of the season finale of Arrow this week, I decided to go out and give Stephen Amell's [...]

In honor of the season finale of Arrow this week, I decided to go out and give Stephen Amell's trademark exercise from the series a try: the salmon ladder. In several montages throughout Arrow's run, Oliver Queen has been seen pulling himself up over the bar, hurling it into a holster inches higher, and repeating several times until he's at least 10 feet above the ground.

How hard can it be, though, right? Wrong!

As someone who regularly hits the weight room, I approached the salmon ladder thinking it couldn't be all that difficult. Watching Amell perform the exercise time and time again makes it look easy. Well, it's not. In addition to the general physical abilities required to perform the exercise, a serious amount of discipline, rhythm and skill go into climbing the very inconvenient ladder.

"Salmon ladder is really all in the hips," Ninja Warrior contestant Bobby Zavala explains. "A lot of people think it's all arms like pulls ups but if you explode off you're hips and get a rhythm going, you'll be able to do it that way." After the quick tutorial, Zavala wasted no time in getting himself to the top of the ladder, leaping across to another, and completing the course which is set up in his backyard for Team NASH to practice for Ninja Warrior contests.

When my turn came, I found myself on my back before I knew what hit me. Seeing the salmon ladder on TV was a far cry from having it right in front of me, in my hands, and attempting to climb it. A dozen tries came and went and I had very little success. Zavala coached me and demonstrated the course throughout the trials but a point came where admitting defeat crossed my mind.

Admitting defeat never gets you anywhere, though.

I found some focus, some additional motivation, and decided to try it one more time despite my fingers and forearms bleeding and soreness already setting in. I got to the top of that ladder and felt like a champion! Who cares if a thirteen year old girl and eleven year old boy hopped right up to the top before me? It was an accomplished feeling!

More importantly, it gave me a whole new respect for Stephen Amell's workout routine and anyone else who trains with such a discipline.

So, long story short... How hard is the salmon ladder? Very. It's not so much a test of physicality as it is a trial of discipline and determination.

Arrow's season four finale airs Wednesday at 8 PM ET on CW.

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