Ring work

muerteverde said:
I woudl like to try out some ring work but I have no place I can hang them and haven-t figured out a way around this problem. My dad and I built a good pullup bar outside when I was a freshamn (or sophomore?) in high school, but I see no way to attatch rings to this effectively and haven-t come up with any other way to mount them on anything. I ahve no rafters inside to attatch them to.

How about hanging som playground rings from a sturdy treebranch?
 
Grady said:
I was watching TV and caught a program of olympic gymnasts working the rings. Damn, those dudes have some freaking strong shoulders.

It insipired me to pick up a pair of rings for pullups/chinups/dip work. (these -- http://www.ringtraining.com/). Going to start on em this weekend.

Ultimately, I think I'll work to muscle-ups on these, although it will take me a ton of work to get there. I think these will hit my shoulders, lats, and just about everything a bit more than a pulllup bar, and get some nice stablizer work.

Does anyone else here use rings currently? If so, have they helped you in overall strength gains over a bar? Just looking for some opinions and how others incorporate them into the routine.

(edit - fixed a sentence)

i hope you know, you'll never do a muscle up without what's called using a "false grip". if you dont know what that is, just lemme know. also, by the way, yeah gymnasts are extremely well conditioned and have great endurance with their strength (which may or may not carry over to any sort of grappling) but i've been working in gymnastics places for years, i, myself, weigh about 185 and train and lift weights (along with other workouts) and i continually throw around male gymnasts like they're nothing.
 
Superbad09 said:
i hope you know, you'll never do a muscle up without what's called using a "false grip". if you dont know what that is, just lemme know. also, by the way, yeah gymnasts are extremely well conditioned and have great endurance with their strength (which may or may not carry over to any sort of grappling) but i've been working in gymnastics places for years, i, myself, weigh about 185 and train and lift weights (along with other workouts) and i continually throw around male gymnasts like they're nothing.

Yes, I'm aware of the false grip, thanks for pointing that out though.

The gymnasts you throw around -- I'm guessing you are trained in judo or wrestling and they aren't? Or maybe you are just strong.

I'm not saying gymnastic ring work > weights, because each type of stength conditioning has its own merits. Weightlifting is what I do now, and I have no plan to stop. I am adding the ring work to help me really strengthen my upper body & stablizers.

And, it looks fun.
 
killer_kicks88 said:
it IS fun

Well, I finally installed the rings from my garage ceiling.

These things are evil.

Doing pullups is nice, it is actually much easier on the elbow joint than on a bar, as each arm is free to rotate as you pullup, but freaking dips, I can barely squeeze out one or two of them on these suckers.

It really hit home just how much my stabilizers need development. Trying to hold the rings close against my body, just keeping them from shaking or flying apart while trying to dip is really, really difficult. It is nothing like doing dips on parallel bars.

This is gonna be fun, killer_kicks :) Hey, do you do dips on the rings, and if so, how long till you were cranking them out? I'm thinking of just trying to hold static position at the top of the rings for time, until that gets easier, before trying to increase reps on dips. Do you think that is a decent approach?
 
hey buddy,

the support, with any real amount of work, will stop shaking very very soon (or at least it did with me). your support should be very sturdy in a week or so, and dips will progressively get better.

just wait until you can start weighting the frickin dips :) ....its a shit load of fun.......
 
I was a state gymnast in highschool. I specialized in the still rings, it got me quite strong for rarely ever touching weights. Its also a "whole body" strength that isn't isolated to one muscle group. I used to never be able to work out my back with pulldowns and whatnot because it was hard to isolate it and not have my other muscles (i.e. rear delts and especially bicpes help out since I trained for 4 years to use those muscles in unison. Also I went from never touching a nail, to bending a grade 5 the first day I tried and a red about two months later (with mediocre training). I think that was from the upper body strength of the rings and wrist strength from rings and pommel horse. This was also 4 years after doing gymnastics, the strength really stays with you.

About training I would say the best things you can do are dips, pushups, and handstand pushups. Front and back levers are good, but more sport specific. Things like planches, iron crosss', malteses and victorians (the last two you will NEVER get) are much more sport specific. If you can mount them high enough learning to swing a bit might help just overall strength and kinesthetics. You can also do "L" by bringing your feet parallel to the floor when holding yourself up.

I think the stability work from doing the regular exercises listed above is just the biggest benefit. Good luck with them. Also get yourself some chalk, that is a must. Don't get grips if anyone tells you to, that is a waste of money for sure.

Edit: When you do your dips, pushups and handstand pushups make sure you hold the rings parallel with each other. Overcompensate a bit by rotation them out a bit more than parallel. It takes some concentration and wrist strength, but its much better.
 
Thanks Weni & Rjkd.

I'm going to hit the rings hard tonight. I'm looking forward to getting some nice DOMS hehe. I guess if I can't do many dips yet, I will focus on static holding at the top of the dip, or lower the rings and use my legs to assist, until the stabilizers improve.

Rjkd - one thing you said:
When you do your dips, pushups and handstand pushups make sure you hold the rings parallel with each other. Overcompensate a bit by rotation them out a bit more than parallel. It takes some concentration and wrist strength, but its much better.

Not quite sure what you mean by overcompensation by rotating a bit more than parallel. Do you mean rotate them counterclockwise (left ring) and clockwise (right ring) until the plane of the ring is about the angle of / \ for each hand?
 
anyone know what those "lashing straps" are?

and if they are adjustable?


It'd be great if you could rig up the handles to their respective straps, and take them anywhere there is something that'll support your weight and set it up for pull-ups/dips.
 
gruesome said:
anyone know what those "lashing straps" are?

and if they are adjustable?


It'd be great if you could rig up the handles to their respective straps, and take them anywhere there is something that'll support your weight and set it up for pull-ups/dips.

Gruesome, these particular rings that I have (from ringtraining.com) come with nylon webbing that can be hung over any sturdy object. I have mine hanging through a quick-connector on eye-bolts in the ceiling joist*, but you can loop them over a tree branch, playground equipment, or anything. There is a buckle that allows you to change the height of the rings on the straps. This allows me to say, change from dead-hang pullup height, down to pushup height (3" off the ground). The range, I 'm not 100% sure of, but there is plenty extra, at least 15' of adjustable webbing.
 
Rjkd12 said:
Things like planches, iron crosss', malteses and victorians (the last two you will NEVER get) are much more sport specific.

HAHA, ill get a maltese one of these damn days......like 10 years from now.....but yeah im not even gonna say anything about the mother fuckin victorian....that thing is frickin impossible
 
wenispinkle said:
HAHA, ill get a maltese one of these damn days......like 10 years from now.....but yeah im not even gonna say anything about the mother fuckin victorian....that thing is frickin impossible

whats a maltese? whats a victorian?
 
Grady said:
Gruesome, these particular rings that I have (from ringtraining.com) come with nylon webbing that can be hung over any sturdy object. I have mine hanging through a quick-connector on eye-bolts in the ceiling joist*, but you can loop them over a tree branch, playground equipment, or anything. There is a buckle that allows you to change the height of the rings on the straps. This allows me to say, change from dead-hang pullup height, down to pushup height (3" off the ground). The range, I 'm not 100% sure of, but there is plenty extra, at least 15' of adjustable webbing.

I just saw you mentioned this a couple posts ago, damn my lazy reading...

thanks Grady
 
rEmY said:
whats a maltese? whats a victorian?


http://www.usa-gymnasticsolympics.com/2004/athletes/images/gatson_maltese.jpg

http://www.insidegymnastics.com/news/images/052604/maltese.jpg


those are the maltese.

its kind of hard to find a picture of a victorian, because not very many people have done it, haha. its the same position as the maltese but youre facing up, holding the rings near the waist.

http://www.drillsandskills.com/video/display?path=rie006b.mpg

theres a video of some guy almost doing it
 
wenispinkle said:
http://www.usa-gymnasticsolympics.com/2004/athletes/images/gatson_maltese.jpg

http://www.insidegymnastics.com/news/images/052604/maltese.jpg


those are the maltese.

its kind of hard to find a picture of a victorian, because not very many people have done it, haha. its the same position as the maltese but youre facing up, holding the rings near the waist.

http://www.drillsandskills.com/video/display?path=rie006b.mpg

theres a video of some guy almost doing it

wow, those look impossible.
 
Ok.

First, I mean if you are doing pushups, hold the rings like this \ / more than / \ . You really want | |, so to get that I felt it was good to overcompensate so parallel felt natural. Especially with dips the natural tendancy is to hold the rings like / \ .

Wenispinckle. To my knoweldge (which is 5 years or so out of date) a victorian has never been done in competition. I think part of this is it isn't necissary. Its so hard, and probably would drain the gymnast quite a bit.

Malteses are cool, there are also maltese crosses which the person separates their hands away from the side of the body. I don't know if its technically a seperate move or just done for flair. You can't move your hands too far otherwise you'd lose balance.

One last thing, for planches if you do them with your legs split, its easier. You have less weight leaning forward to support.
 
oh, your most likely right about the victorian...ive seen a couple videos of some guys getting pretty close though.

the split leggy thing on the planches is called a straddle right? i can do a straddle planche on the ground, but it eludes me on the rings.
 
Unfuckingbelievable.

I'd guess not too much of them gymnast are 6'2 @ 230 and up. Am I right? With the kind of frame that I have, being good at these sorts of things just seems impossible to me.

Not trying to take anything away from them, I'm just a bit jealous.
 
Well, I got some bad DOMS today (just like I planned!!) from only just working pullups and chins (alternating sets), negative dips, body rows, and doing a cool kind of ab-wheel like jacknife thing with the rings a couple feet off the ground. Holy crap, that burned from the lower groin all the way up through the shoulders. Then I went inside the house and did a few sets of squats on conventional weights just to hit the legs.

Man, my whole midsection hurts and I am just getting started with these.

Could one of that are experienced with the rings explain to me the Skin the cat routine? (Weni or Rkjd) I read description but I can't find any pics and I don't quite follow what you are supposed to do.

P.S. when looking for examples on the web, I found this video of a guy who does that Victorian you guys are talking about: Peter Derman - Victorian

Although it looks like his body isn't perfectly flat, it looks a lot better than the other vid posted.
 
Noskill said:
Unfuckingbelievable.

I'd guess not too much of them gymnast are 6'2 @ 230 and up. Am I right? With the kind of frame that I have, being good at these sorts of things just seems impossible to me.

Not trying to take anything away from them, I'm just a bit jealous.

coach sommer called a guy who was 5'8" , 170 lbs a "giant" of gymnastics in an article i read by him.

grady, go here

http://beastskills.com/Back lever.htm

a few pictures down he explains what a skin the cat is. then how to go into a back lever
 
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