Legal
Copyright © 2009 Power Athletes, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Don't Steal this Book
This book is written for customers who have purchased the EXF Rings from Ringtraining.com or an authorized dealer. It is not for re-sale, distribution, inclusion
with any other product, duplication or public sharing of any kind. One printed copy for personal use is permitted. We worked hard on this book and care about
our customers. Please let us know if you received this book from an unauthorized source. E-mail us at info@ringtraining.com. We will give them a friendly
warning. If that does not work, we will unleash our lawyers on them. Seriously. We have lawyers. Mean ones. If you want to end up homeless and begging for
spare change, then please steal this book. Pirate our work and see what happens. But don't say we didn't warn you. We just did.
We Are Not Your Mom or Your Doctor or Your Trainer
This book is written for informational purposes only. Reading is not a substitute for hands-on learning from a qualified, professional trainer. You can see this
book, but it can't see you. You are responsible for your own safety. Don't perform any exercises if you consider them unsafe for your skill level or for your
health and fitness level. If you have any health concerns, be sure to seek the advice of a medical professional before starting any fitness program. Do not use
the rings for any other purpose than fitness training. They are not a toy and can lead to serious injury if mis-used. As much as we like watching stupid people
do stupid things on YouTube, we do not want to see our rings in those videos. If you do not agree to take full responsibility to train safely with your EXF Rings,
then please put them back in the box and return them to us. Power Athletes, LLC and Tyler Hass are not liable for any injuries, mental distress, bruised egos or
excessive soreness caused as a result of this book or any equipment mentioned.
Thank you. We hope you enjoy your ring training!
Table of Contents
Setup
Introduction
Basic Exercises
Support
Ring Pushup
Ring Row
Dip
Pullup
L-Sit
L-Pullup
Scaling
Fulcrum Principle
Torque Principle
Body Angle
The Muscle-Up
the False Grip
Center Your Bodyweight
Keep Your Friends Close and the Rings Closer
the Shoulder Roll
Suck Your Chest In and Up
Slow and Steady
Corkscrew Your Hands
Muscle-Up Progression Exercises
Support Holds
Dips and Tactical Dips
False Grip Rows
False Grip Pullups Pullups
Reverse Muscle-Up
Rowing Muscle-Up
Jumping Muscle-Up
Kipping Muscle-Up
Substitutions for the Muscle-Up
Flexibility Training
Skinning the Cat
Stick Stretch
Wall Stretch
Reverse Wrist Stretch
Training
the 3 to 5 Rule
Density Training
Brice Strength Program
the EXF Pullup Program
Programming
Unstructured Training
Ten Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Rings
Conclusion
Setup
The EXF Rings have a brand new mounting system. It is the most flexible and
effective system for hanging rings that has ever been designed. However, it can be
confusing at first, since it is different from what you might have seen in the past.
But after a few minutes, you'll be ready to go. After that, you will find the new
system to be a huge time-saver! You can also watch a video of the setup process if
you visit: www.ringtraining.com/setup
First Time Setup
When you first unbox your rings, there's just a few steps you need to take before
you start training. This is a one-time deal, so don't worry. It just takes a minute
and for the rest of eternity, you will be saving a minute or two (compared to
ordinary rings) every time you set up your rings!
1. Attach S-Buckle to the loop at the end of the strap. Slide loop to center bar of
S-Buckle.
2. Feed webbing through slots with printed side down.
3. Pass webbing through ring. Make sure the strap is not twisted.
4. Depress lever in cam buckle and feed webbing through the window in the back of
the buckle. Incorrectly feeding the webbing can break the buckle and
damage is NOT covered by warranty.
Observe the “FEED WEBBING” arrow on theside of the buckle.
The rings are now ready to be mounted.
EXF Mode
EXF Mode is the normal setup mode most people will use for the EXF Rings. It
allows you to set them up very quickly and double the length of the webbing for a
full 17 foot range. However, to take them down, you must be able to reach them,
so you might need a ladder. If this is a problem, use Legacy Mode.
1. Place S-Buckle over mounting surface.
2. Place webbing inside S-Buckle and pull tight. Ensure there are no twists.
Legacy Mode
This is the same as what you will find on all previous generation rings. It is slower
and you only have half the length of the webbing to work with (8.5 foot range),
but you can set up the rings on an overhead surface that is out of reach, without
needing a ladder.
1. Slide the S-Buckle towards the cam buckle by pulling the webbing through the
slots. You can remove the S-Buckle now or attach it to the adjacent webbing.
2. Depress the lever on the cam buckle and pull the excess webbing through, fully
removing the strap from the cam buckle.
3. Throw strap over mounting surface.
4. Feed webbing back through the cam buckle, making sure it is fed in through the
window in the back of the buckle, as directed by the "FEED Webbing" diagram.
Additional Tips:
Always protect the straps with a towel or something soft when placing the straps
over an abrasive surface, such as wood.
Keep your training area clear of anything or anyone that could distract or get in
the way of a person performing exercises on the rings.
Do not perform any dismounts or swinging moves on the EXF Rings. They are not
intended for competitive gymnastics. These movements require proper instruction
and landing mats.
Handstand training is great on the rings, but extremely challenging. Be sure to
have padding beneath you and a spotter ready to assist you.
When mounting the rings, always test each ring with your full bodyweight to
make sure it is securely mounted.
For more advice and examples of actual installations done by real customers,
check out this thread on our discussion board:
http://www.powerathletesmag.com/wforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1231
Introduction
What is Ring Training?
Gymnastics rings are legendary for producing unparalleled levels of upper body
and core strength. This apparatus has been around for hundreds of years and has
always been respected and even feared for the incredible amount of strength
required to train on them. They have also exposed countless meatheads to the fact
that lat pulldowns and tricep kickbacks don't develop nearly as much strength as
they think. Several years ago, I set up a pair of rings at the Arnold Fitness Expo.
This is the world's largest fitness industry exhibition. With over 80,000 attendees,
only 10 people were courageous enough to get on the rings. Eight of them were
kids. Children see a fun toy when they look at rings. Adults see a potentially
ebarrassing way to kill themselves. That's what I've set out to change. The benefits
of ring training are so profound, that people of all ages should, and must, train with
them if they hope to maximize their physical potential. And let's not forget women.
The rings are a men's only event in gymnastics, but the benefits are the same.
Women sometimes do better on rings than weights, because it levels the playing
field a bit. A 200 lbs guy with a 300 lbs bench is as intimidated by rings as a 115
lbs woman is by a 300 lbs barbell. Being big is a strength advantage when you're
lying down. But when you have to carry your own engine, the tables are turned. In
most real life situations, you have to carry your engine, so this is the way we
should train.
If you read books from the old school days of physical culture and WWII-era
military fitness manuals, you will see that most men exercised while wearing a
leopard skin speedo or maybe just a fig leaf. You will also notice they all did some
ring training, hand balancing, Olympic lifts and other feats of strength. But then the
self-esteem movement kicked in and ring training was removed from PE classes.
For the past several decades, this style of hard, functional training fell out of style.
Thanks to Nautilus machines, strength training became a seated activity. In recent
years, small pockets of rebels were able to connect with each other online and
revive the lost art of strength training. Now, ring training and other brutally
effective methods of training are coming back into the mainstream. And people are
training for strength while standing up!
Gymnasts are widely respected for having one of the highest strength to
bodyweight ratios of any athlete and the most flexibility. The rings are the event
best known for developing this unbelievable level of strength. In competition, they
perform a routine consisting of several strength, swing and combination moves
performed in a smooth sequence. It ends with a dismount and hopefully a stuck
landing. Over the years, the routines have become so ridiculously hard that the
average person can't even comprehend the difficulty. The muscle-up, which is one
of the best ring exercises out there and challenges almost everyone, is no longer
counted as a skill. It's been demoted out of the code of points! Even the iron cross,
which is the most famous ring move, is only worth a B (and A is the easiest).
Professional gymnastics is not what "Ring Training for Elite Fitness" is all about.
Unless you want to be surgically altered to become 5'4 and 140 lbs, then your
chances of Olympic glory are slim. And dismounts and swinging elements are too
dangerous without safety mats and qualified coaching. But don't worry, the bigger
you are, the more challenging the basics will be. So, you won't ever need to get
into that crazy stuff to get a good workout. And you can train at home, without
requiring safety mats, spotters, coaches, etc. The real point of ring training is to
make world class fitness accessible to everyone.
The origin of gymnastics was preparation for war. The pommel horse originally
looked like an actual horse and was used to train mounted infantry. As a system of
exercise, nothing else beats gymnastics for teaching body awareness and
movement. Gymnasts develop a "movement vocabulary" larger than athletes in any
other sport. Because of this they are able to learn new sports and new movements
faster than other athletes. You can't turn a gymnast into a linebacker, but you can
bet a gymnast could learn how to surf, ride a skateboard, learn a martial art or pick
up an unfamiliar sport quicker than a linebacker. Tumbling was originally used to
teach soldiers how to fall without getting hurt and developing the agility to get
back up quickly and without losing spatial awareness. Unfortunately, the military
discontinued this type of training. At a gymnastics seminar a few years ago, two
members of a military unit left the room after just 10 minutes of cartwheels and
basic rolls. They went to the bathroom to vomit and subsequently disappeared. To
be completely devastated and disoriented by a few minutes of rolling around
exposes a deficit that could become a potential liability in combat. A small amount
of gymnastics practice would correct this.
The sport of gymnastics has evolved to the point that it is so extreme that it is
irrelevant the average person. A double-twisting double back flip is truly incredible
to watch, but don't try that at home! For the average person, learning some basic
ring skills and a little bit of tumbling will enhance your athleticism and quality of
movement. It's fun, safe and does not require tons of equipment. Ringtraining.com
is famous for bringing gymnastics "into the wild". It's been stuck in private
gymnastics gyms for too long. As an outsider, I had long admired the strength and
quality of movement demonstrated by gymnasts. My interest was to get an edge in
my training for tennis. I already lifted kettlebells, was learning the Olympic Lifts
and ran sprints. After seeing the gymnastics world championships on TV and the
incredible strength and athleticism on display, I wanted to get some of that. So, I
designed the Power Rings (that's the name of our original model). They were a
little rough around the edges, but nearly everyone who tried them said they were
the best piece of fitness equipment they had ever used. As a tennis player, I found
they improved my strength in a way that I could feel while I played. Over the
years, I have received numerous thank you letters from people for fixing bad
shoulders, improving athletic performance or just for adding more fun to their
workouts.
Ring training is unique because it allows you to train movements in a "frictionless
plane". Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit, and I came up with this term while
discussing rings several years ago. What this means is that the rings are free to
move in any direction with only the slightest force causing movement. Any
weakness or misfire in your brain manifests itself as shaking of the rings. I actually
like to put a beginner on the rings and then attach a cocktail shaker. This is a great
way to make martinis if you like them shaken, not stirred. Over time, as you get
stronger and more comfortable on the rings, the shaking will start to go away. This
is a real strength gain, because your central nervous system now has an improved
signal to noise ratio. The small misfires in your brain are gone now, so you are
exerting pure strength. This is when the real fun begins, which is mobility in the
frictionless plane. Because the rings are mobile, you can unlock a huge variety of
movement patterns that aren't possible with static equipment. The rings are free to
twist, move side to side, front to back and your body can move up and down. A
huge variety of movements are possible. And the main innovation that we created
several years ago, in order to bring the rings into the wild, was portability and
adjustable height. This allows for tons of new stuff and makes them accessible for
beginners. Our new design took ring training out of gymnastics clubs and into
garages, gyms, parks and battle fields.
The application of gymnastics rings to fitness has been primarily to enhance
traditional calisthenics, or bodyweight exercises. By performing these exercises in a
frictionless plane, you are now able to increase the challenge and try new
variations. The four basic exercises are the pushup, ring row, dip and pullup. These
four train the shoulder joint in every direction, although I recommend adding a
vertical press, such as the military press or handstand pushup on the floor. The
handstand pushup on rings is too hard for most people. These four are also very
basic, functional movements that actually resemble real world physical tasks. The
Elite Rings are also great for preventing injuries and correcting muscle imbalances.
Because they are free to move in any direction, the rings will always move towards
where you are weakest. As a result, you are automatically strengthening your
weaknesses. The greater muscle recruitment also means that your joints will be
more protected. Lastly, the mobility of the rings allows you to move through the
most comfortable, natural range of motion for your body type. People who
experience pops and clicks in their joints with standard equipment often find
greater comfort on rings.
As ring training gets more advanced, the movements become more obscure, but
you can still see how they are derived from these basic movements. The athletes
you see competing at the Olympics weren't born that way (okay, maybe short).
They all started with the basics and gradually embarked on a series of progressions
towards world class levels of strength. If you have ever seen a commercial on TV
for fitness equipment, you can probably guess that the models have never used
that equipment until the day of the shoot. But with gymnasts, the opposite is true.
Using rings is the ONLY way they could get there. Ring training is time-tested and
proven. It has built thousands of people into strong athletes. So, there's no doubt
that enhancing standard calisthenics with the rings will yield superior results. And
by combining them with other time-tested and proven equipment, such as barbells,
dumbbells and kettlebells, you can create an all-around fitness program. You're
joining good company. Since we launched in 2003, ring training has been adopted
by pro sports teams, Olympic athletes in a variety of sports (including one very fast
swimmer), elite military units on the front lines of every combat zone, Cirque du
Soleil performers and a lot of everyday people just wanting to look good naked.
And I know that for a fact, because there is a hidden camera in every ring... Okay,
not really.
Basic Exercises
The basic exercises, or the "Core Four", as I will call them and possibly trademark,
are the pushup, body row, dip and pullup. These exercises form the foundation for
everything that follows later. No matter how far along you get in your training, they
will always be valuable for at least doing some functional, metabolic conditioning. I
recommend doing at least two of these in every workout. A push and pull. And you
also want to have a balance between horizontal- pushups and rows; and verticaldips and pullups. By doing balancing horizontal and vertical movements, you will
have balanced upper body strength, which is key for preventing injuries. A lot of
people have written to me over the years to let me know that ring training has
restored pain-free mobility and strength in their shoulders. Most of their problems
were caused by muscle imbalances. After introducing the basic movements, I will
show you how they can be scaled to decrease or increase the difficulty. Variable
resistance is one of the things that makes ring training so effective. We can also
make these movements easier, which is absolutely necessary in order to make ring
training accessible to everyone.
The Support
Even before you start on the Core Four, it's important to introduce the support
position. The support is the foundation of all advanced ring work. In this position,
you hold yourself above the rings with straight arms. It can be thought of as the
top position of a dip or pushup. It is important to be able to hold this position
before progressing onto more advanced exercises like dips and muscle-ups. It's
really the area where you will feel the most instability in the rings, because your
center of gravity is high above the rings. With pullups and other hanging exercises,
you feel the mobility, but not much instability.
In this position, your arms should be completely straight and should not be resting
against the straps. By bracing yourself against the straps, you are using friction to
stabilize the rings instead of your muscles. Our goal is to maximize the effect of the
frictionless plane, so you will get stronger much more quickly by keeping your arms
free of the straps. It also helps to turn the rings slightly outwards. You want to
actively push down on the rings, so your shoulders do not shrug up at all towards
your ears. Proper posture is also important. Keep your chest up and look forward.
It's like locking out a deadlift. If you stay hunched over, then you're not really
completing the movement. Gymnasts are famous for having high levels of strength,
even in extreme ranges of motion, and the reason is that the judging criteria in
their sport requires them to complete every movement.
The wrong way to hold a support position is with your elbows bent and pressing
into the straps. I call this a "chicken arm support". It's not just ugly, but it robs you
of a lot of the potential strength gains. If you can't hold a support with perfect
form, I would recommend starting with the pushup support until you get
comfortable there. Sacrificing form is not the best path to excellence.
The Ring Pushup
This is quite possibly my favorite movement on the rings. I like it because there
are so many different possibilities. It's possible to move the rings side to side and
front to back, so the number of possible variations feels limitless. Plus, you can
easily adjust the resistance by elevating the rings and changing your body angle.
Pushups give you a good taste of the frictionless plane and what ring training is all
about..
To do the ring pushup, you want to start off by lowering the rings down to a few
inches over the ground. You still want plenty of room to clear your knuckles over
the floor, so 8-12" of clearance is good. Start off just like a normal pushup with
your arms straight and a tight, straight body as well. You will probably feel more
activity in your abs and chest than usual. From here, descend down to the floor
slowly. The ring pushup is a bit deeper than a standard pushup, since the floor
does not get in the way. Now, push back up to a support. As you go through the
range of motion, it's natural for the rings to rotate and move sideways a bit. Do
whatever feels natural. Once you get comfortable on the rings, you can do these at
a quick pace, but never as fast as the floor, because you have to maintain perfect
control through the entire movement.
Make sure that your arms are not coming into contact with the straps, because if
you "ride the straps", you will lose out on the strength building benefits of the
rings. Letting your body sag is a normal flaw a lot of people make in normal
pushups, because you don't really get punished for it. On rings, this causes your
hands to fly forward, which takes more effort from your lats and abs to counteract.
If your abs and lats are weak, then you will face plant! The frictionless plane forces
you to do perfect pushups.
Adjusting the resistance is easy. You can either walk forward and/or elevate the
rings. If possible, you want the straps to run parallel to the direction of your
applied force. The straps should run at the same angle as your straight arms.
Pushups can also be performed from the knees. You can make the pushup tougher
by elevating your fee on a box. This shifts your center of gravity forward, so more
weight is resting on your hands. You can verify this with a bathroom scale. Get into
a pushup position with your hands on the scale. Sadly, you will notice that your are
supporting less weight than you think. Usually it's in the neighborhood of 50-65%.
Now, try the same with your feet elevated. You will see a bigger number on the
scale, which explains why this is more difficult.
The Body Row
The Body Row, aka Ring Row, is the equal and opposite of the pushup. As a
result, this exercise is one of the best for correcting muscle imbalances. If you're
one of those guys that only trains muscles that you can see in the mirror, then you
will probably want to add this one to your routine. Pretty much all of the tips on
form that go with the pushup apply here as well. You want to keep your body
straight and tight. The range of motion should be as deep as possible. You want to
pull up till your chest passes through the rings. At the bottom, it is okay for your
scapulae to extend. As your perform the body row, the scapulae will then be pulled
back together, as if you're trying to crack a walnut between your shoulder blades.
Keep your body tight and do not leg your butt sag at all. Some people start letting
their butt sag and then thrust their hips forward in order to complete the
movement. "Humping Rows" are fine for metcon, but for strength and for
developing the pushup, we do Body Rows with strict form.
Once again, you can modify the resistance by walking backwards and/or elevating
the rings. When you are at an incline, you are now pulling your body weight at an
angle, so the resistance is lower. Bending your knees makes them a bit easier and
performing them from a seated position is even easier. It actually becomes a
combination of a situp and a row. You can make them harder by elevating your
feet on a box.
The Dip
Once you have gotten comfortable with pushups, the dip is the next logical step.
Gym rats who like to train one muscle at a time hate this exercise because it
actually brings in more muscles than a standard dip. Prior to the steroid era, a lot
of bodybuilders did ring dips because they can pack on a lot of muscle. Jordan
Jovtchev and other high level gymnasts actually avoid dips and pullups for this
reason. They want to maximize their strength to weight ratio, so they are very
concerned about carrying extra muscle. For the rest of us, it is an essential
movement. Some people call the dip, the "squat of the upper body". It's that
effective as a strength builder.
To start off, you need to have a solid support. You should be able to hold that for
at least 10-15 seconds in good form before trying the ring dip. You want to set the
rings at a height where your toes will barely touch the ground at the bottom of the
dip. If the rings are lower, it's okay to bend your knees and cross your ankles in
the back. Starting from the support position, lower yourself slowly and under
control. Keep your body tight from start to finish. The range of motion should be
as deep as you can go comfortably. It's okay to start out a bit shallow, but if you
hope to achieve a muscle-up, then you will need to work your way to a deep range
of motion. One great tip is to actively, but slowly, pull yourself down into the hole.
This helps to pre-stretch the antagonist muscles which will help you back up on the
ascent. People do the same thing with squatting. They don't just passively drop
down under the weight of the barbell. They perform an active role in pulling
themselves down into the hole. This technique works just as well for dips.
The dip is by far the most cheated move on rings. Almost every time I see it done,
the person rides the straps the whole way up and down. At the end of the set, they
have nice red marks on the outside of their arms, aka "Strap Burn". If you're
getting strap burn, then you're not really doing ring dips. I have identified a few
causes. First, people are going too fast to maintain control, so they have to stabilize
themselves against the straps. Slow down and pay attention to the movement.
Second is that people who are not yet ready for dips rush into them and aren't
strong enough to stabilize the rings via muscle control. If this is the case, go back
to pushups and work on holding supports. Lastly, some people do not set the rings
far enough apart, so there is really nowhere for them to go, except into the straps.
If this is the case, try re-setting the rings just slightly outside of shoulder width.
The standard is 50 cm, but since we're not competing, it's best to go with what is
most comfortable. I measure from my elbow to my finger tip, plus a few inches.
The standard distance works fine for most people when you hang the rings from a
tower and the straps are long. But the shorter the straps are, the more this
becomes a problem, so I don't recommend going by gymnastics standards for
fitness training.
The Pullup
This is by far one of the most popular bodyweight exercises. It's legendary for
producing high levels of upper body strength. Rock climbers are famous for doing
high numbers and even one arm pullups! Some rock climbers even do one arm
pullups from just one or two fingers! The amount of strength you can build is
incredible. Jordan Jovtchev told me about a milk delivery man in Bulgaria who can
do 16 consecutive one arm pullups at the age of 60. The rings bring some unique
benefits for the pullup. First, you can rotate the handles, which makes them more
ergonomic. Having to decide between pullups, chinups or neutral is a thing of the
past, because a single rep can combine all three.
Start out with the rings just barely within reach. A small jump up to the rings is
fine. If the rings are lower, it's okay to bend your knees at the bottom. The pullup
should start with locked arms and end with your chest up and pulling down as far
as possible. As you perform the rep, your hands should rotate naturally. Most
people don't really go down all the way at the bottom. This is probably the hardest
part of the range of motion, even though it's pretty subtle. Your elbows should lock
out at the bottom and your shoulders should be extended upwards (shoulders in
your ears).
I like my pullups on the rings to be strict. Kipping pullups are definitely possible,
but a lot of the energy of the kip is dissipated by the free movement of the rings. A
fixed bar allows you to apply force horizontally with no penalty. It makes your body
move faster horizontally and you can use this to accelerate yourself to the top of a
pullup. On rings, when you push horizontally, a portion of your energy goes into
moving the rings, so you get less acceleration from your effort. If the straps are
very short, then this is not so much of an issue, but the longer the straps are, the
less help you will get from your kip.
The L-Sit
The L-sit is a great abdominal exercise. It can be done on the ground, on bars,
rings and virtually anywhere else you can think of. On rings, it is more difficult,
because the support position is more challenging. The L-Sit involves holding a
support position with your legs bent 90 degrees at the hip joint. When in this
position, you should be able to hold a wooden dowel on your legs without it rolling
off. Also, take your shoes off it you are struggling. They might not be heavy, but
when you put any weight onto a lever as long as your legs, it adds up quickly.
To learn the L-Sit, you can start out with tucked legs and then extend one leg and
then eventually you will get both legs out. A lot of beginners get muscle crams in
their quads when they start training the L-Sit. For most people, this will go away
over time.
When you are in the L-Sit position, you want to actively push down on the rings.
Your butt should be above your hands. You should be able to hold this position
with the rings only an inch or two off the ground. In fact, try holding an L-Sit on
the ground, with your palms on the floor. You really have to push down hard to
keep yourself off the floor. Now, remember that feeling and take it to the rings.
Flexibility is a big part of the L-Sit. If you have tight hamstrings, you might as well
be pulling your feet down with a rubber band. When you see a beautiful,
professional quality L hold, you will see no rounding of the back (unlike mine, which
is not quite perfect). You the hips fold, but otherwise, no change in posture from a
normal support position.
The L-Pullup
The combination of the L-Sit and the Pullup becomes a potent exercise in its own
right. To do an L-Pullup, you start in a hang and lift your legs up to horizontal.
Your legs should remain straight for the whole movement. The range of motion is
essentially the same as a normal pullup, but you will notice that your body shifts
somewhat behind the rings to counteract the weight of your legs in front of you.
This is the strictest kind of pullup you can do and a great total body exercise. This
is also a fun way to do rope climbs.
Additional Exercises
This book is only scratching the surface of potential exercises you can do on
rings. There are literally hundreds. With some imagination, you can take the basic
exercises and manipulate the leverage, torque, body angle and more variables to
create new variations. And you have the sport of Olympic gymnastics, which
provides limitless challenges. We will post more exercises at ringtraining.com on
the blog and in the articles section.
I also recommend checking out the following sites:
Beast Skills by Jim Bathurst
www.beastskills.com
Jim has become famous for writing excellent, in-depth tutorials on a variety of
bodyweight and gymnastic exercises. He is very thorough and has had excellent
success in combining gymnastics and fitness training. If you are interested in
bodyweight exercise as a method of training for high-level strength, then his site is
a must-see.
Drills and Skills by Roger Harrell
www.drillsandskills.com
Roger is a gymnastics coach and now a CrossFit affiliate. His site covers the
movements of gymnastics for all of the events and has some great tips on
conditioning. It does cover a lot of gymnastics-only movements, which you should
not try at home. Dismounts and swinging skills are great for gymnasts, but not
worth the risk for fitness training. But you can get a great sense of what "real"
gymnastics is all about on his site.
CrossFit
www.crossfit.com
CrossFit is the fastest growing fitness movement in the world right now. Why?
Because it works. I've been a member of the CrossFit community since 2002 and
it's amazing to see how much it has grown. They combine weightlifting and other
modalities with some bodyweight exercises and basic gymnastics. Their emphasis in
on increasing power output, not complexity or technical difficulty, which is the
opposite of what gymnasts strive for. CrossFit will not turn you into a gymnast, but
it can turn you into one of the fittest people on the planet, as it has proven
countless times. The CrossFit Journal does contain many articles on gymnastics,
written by myself, Roger Harrell, Jeff Tucker and others.
Scaling Basic Exercises
It is possible to modify these basic exercises in several ways in order to make
them easier or harder. Scaling means to change the size of something without
distorting its meaning. In exercise terms, it means increasing or decreasing the
resistance, while maintaining the integrity of the stimulus. These methods are what
gymnasts use in order to progressively make their training more difficult and to
reach their goals. Weightlifters have it easy, because they can simply add more
weight to the bar. The progression from Point A to Point B is relatively simple. With
bodyweight exercise, you don't have this luxury, unless you can change your
bodyweight faster than Oprah. But this aspect also makes the training fun and
uniquely challenging. The path from Point A to Point B looks more like a Jackson
Pollock painting, since you have to branch out in different directions and
manipulate several different variables. I will go over a few methods of scaling
bodyweight exercises.
Fulcrum Principle
A fulcrum is a pivot point. In a pushup, the fulcrum is your feet. The resistance to
your working muscles is provided by your body, which is a long lever that rotates
from your feet. If you shorten the distance to the fulcrum, you can make the
pushup easier. You can do them on your knees or straddle your legs. With body
rows, you can perform them seated, bend your knees or straddle your legs. In
each case, you are moving the point of rotation closer to the rings, thereby
reducing the leverage you are working against.
This principle applies mostly to horizontal exercises, but you can see it at work in
the L-Pullup. And some of the techniques that make the muscle-up easier (see later
on), work by creating a shorter lever or changing the point of rotation.
Torque Principle
Somewhat similar to the fulcrum principle is the Torque Principle. Torque is a
rotational force about a joint. It is increased by leverage, so as you increase the
length of a lever, you are increasing the torque. Practical examples of this are
several variations of pushup. The standard pushup has optimal torque, because
your are applying force from your hands directly along a vector underneath your
shoulder joint. The next more difficult step is the wide grip pushup. You are now
adding additional leverage to make it more difficult. Next is the archer pushup,
which has more extreme leverage, because you have one arm straight. And then
there is the flye, which is the most extreme, since both arms are straight. All four of
the basic exercises can be done with these variations, but some of them are pretty
tough! When you think about it, the iron cross is just a really wide dip.
Body Angle
With horizontal exercises, such as pushups and rows, changing your body angle
can be used as a resistance modifier. You can make these easier by increasing the
height of your hands relative to your feet. Likewise, you can make them more
difficult by elevating your feet relative to your hands. At Westside Barbell, a club
legendary for producing top powerlifters and influencing the way people train for
that sport, they used this method to help their powerlifters perform handstand
pushups on the rings. They started with normal pushups and gradually elevated
their feet until they were in a handstand. This method makes the changes in
resistance very measurable and allows for accurate progressions from one step to
the next. The measured webbing the EXF straps makes the process much easier.
The Muscle-Up
This is one of the most functional movements that can be performed on rings. It
has a very long range of motion and it's a very efficient movement when done
right. It just feels like a very natural thing to do. When you're below the rings,
getting on top just makes sense. It's also one of the most challenging moves for
beginners. I think part of it is psychological. People are often told how hard the
transition is. And then they go out and do everything possible to make it hard. I'll
be honest, once you get the technique mastered, the transition is pretty easy. In
fact, when I fail, it's usually locking out the dip on the last rep that gets me. In this
section, I will go over a ton of different tips and techniques to make learning the
muscle-up as easy as possible.
The movement on its surface is pretty simple. It's a pullup that transitions into a
dip and ends in a support. Being able to do a dip and a pullup is necessary but not
sufficient, because of the pesky transition. This is where things get tricky, because
it's a somewhat unusual range of motion. It requires you to pass through a range
where the leverage is pretty bad and most people have never trained before. Plus,
you will be using a false grip, which seriously drains your strength when you are
not used to it. But once you get it, you'll be false-gripping everything in sight.
Picking up your cat? Use a false grip. Throwing a jiu-jitsu move? Try a false grip.
Even when arm wrestling you can use the false grip. With just a bit of training, you
can turn this awkward grip into a powerful one.
The False Grip
The false grip is one of the keys to learning the muscle-up for several reason.
First, it shortens your forearm, so you are reducing the torque about the elbow
joint (see Torque Principle). Second, it places your weight on the base of your
palm, which is right where you want it when you start the dip. And lastly, it creates
a pivot point for transitioning from below to above the rings on the base of your
palm. An important tip is to apply chalk not just to your hands, but down your wrist
as well. This makes a huge difference in holding onto your false grip. Slippery rings
can be a culprit as well. We designed the new multi-textured rings for this very
reason. The rough and rubberized non-slip portions are ideal for holding onto the
rings with a false grip.
To hold a false grip, grab the rings in a normal grip and then shift your wrists
forward. Some people think at first that it is a thumbless grip (pictured above). Do
NOT do this. It would be very dangerous to attempt muscle-ups with a thumbless
grip. The base of your palm will rest on lowest point on the ring and your wrist will
be run down the side the ring. You might feel some friction on your wrist and this
is normal. You will know you're doing it right if you get friction burns on the inside
of your wrist an inch or two below your palm.
A common beginner mistake is to grab the side of the ring. This is bad news,
because if you were to actually maintain a grip on the side of the ring, you will now
be facing an uphill battle as you transition into the dip. The curvature of the ring
will literally push you away. If you trace a line from your pinky finger to the base of
your palm, you will find the point that should be at the bottom of the ring. This
point is ideal for transmitting force, because it is right in line with the ulna (outer
bone in the forearm). If you have your weight resting too close to your fingers, you
will be damping your force application, because you are applying force through the
muscles, tendons and ligaments of your wrist, instead of through bone. If you have
ever seen a Karate master break a pile of bricks, you will notice that they are using
the same power point on the hand that we will be using here. If they tried to use
the base of the fingers, they would probably break their wrists and not the bricks.
Transmitting force from bone to bone is always the strongest structure. Can you
imagine trying a max effort squat from the balls of your feet?
As you transition from the pullup to the dip, you naturally lose the false grip, but
the pressure is still being applied from that point on the base of your palm. After
you lock out and come back down, getting back into the false grip can be a bit
tricky. At first, just go slow and try to reverse the movement that got you there.
Rather than going straight down, try leaning back a little and keep the rings in
front of you. Also read the Corkscrew Technique further ahead. It's easier to
maintain the false grip this way. When you are strong on the rings, you can go the
side a bit more instead, but for beginners it is best to keep the rings in close.
Center Your Bodyweight
Many people try to approach the transition like a triceps extension. This isn't 24
Hour Fitness, so get that out of your head! In functional movements, anything you
do on a Nautilus machine will get you nowhere. The ideal way to do a muscle-up is
to keep your weight evenly distributed in front of and behind the rings. If you were
to imagine that the line of the straps formed a plane, then half of your weight
should be on each side of this plane at all times. Some people keep their shoulders
too far behind the rings and try to push down using their triceps. Instead, what
you want to do is thrust your shoulders forward and your hips slightly back. The 24
Hour Fitness guys are doing things the hard way. If it seems like the transition is
impossible, there is a good chance that too much of your bodyweight is behind the
rings.
Keep Your Friends Close and the Rings Closer
Watching a person struggle to get their first muscle-up is exciting, but it can be
maddening at the same time. People have a tendency to try every possible path
except the path of least resistance. And the stronger people are, the uglier their
first muscle-up is. I saw a member of Delta Force nearly do an iron cross on the
way to his first muscle-up. It was impressive as hell, but this is much harder! So,
make sure that you keep the rings in close to your body. As you pull up, the rings
should naturally turn inwards, so the backs of your hands are facing each other.
Then, as you push your shoulders through during the transition, the rings will
quickly turn out. At this point, it's crucial that the rings stay close to your lats.
Another technique some people use is to stick one arm out and transition above the
ring, while the other arm stays below and then try to pry their way up. This can
actually work, but it's much easier doing both arms at the same time. It's also quite
a bit safer.
the Shoulder Roll
Many people think that the most important thing during the transition is to press
down on the rings. This would be wrong! Some people will call me crazy for saying
this. But the most important thing is getting your elbows above your hands.
Pressing down as hard as you can on the rings can actually push you away from
the rings. What you want to do, instead of pressing down, is to just roll your
shoulders forward. This movement will cause your elbows to retreat back behind
you, brushing against your ribcage as they pass by. During the shoulder roll, you
should try to quickly shrug your shoulders upwards towards your ears. Our goal is
to get as much elevation as possible when it's cheap. Now that your shoulders are
higher than your hands, it is now just a matter of getting them directly above or
slightly in front of your hands. We do this by rolling our shoulders, not lifting our
whole body. Completing the shoulder roll will get you to where you want to be.
If you don't have a very high pull to work with, then the shoulder roll will leave you
with a very deep dip. This is okay, as long as you've practiced your deep dips. On
high rep muscle-ups, your last few will no doubt look like this. On your first few
reps, you might not even need much a shoulder roll, but it will get more
pronounced as your pull gets weaker.
I think this is really the best tip out there for achieving the muscle-up, but if you're
not getting a lot of mileage out of it, then there is a good chance that you have
tight shoulders. Do the recommended shoulder stretches from later on in this book
and then give this tip another try. Once you master the shoulder roll, the transition
will no longer be the failure point in high rep sets of muscle-ups. On number 15,
you'll probably not be able to lock out or pull yourself out of the hole. But you will
no longer get stuck in the transition.
Suck Your Chest In and UP
This tip may sound arcane, but it's actually pretty useful. The muscle-up is a
three-dimensional movement and to master it, we must think in three dimensions.
To suck your chest in and up, imagine you are getting punched right below the
sternum. It's an uppercut and the punch knocks you off your feet. Your chest caves
in and your shoulders lurch forward. We will try and cultivate the same sensation
during the transition, but without the pain, of course. Remember, our goal is to
generate as much elevation as possible with the least amount of effort.
As you perform the pullup phase of the movement, you will stick your chest out
and pull your shoulder blades together. At this point, imagine there is a rope tied
around your torso, just below the sternum. This rope goes up the to ceiling and
through a pulley and then back down to your training partner. When you reach the
transition point, imagine the training partner pulling on the rope. This will literally
suck your chest up and back. Your chest will cave in and your shoulders and head
will fall forward. But guess what? Your shoulders are now above the rings! Don't
actually do this, but use this as a visualization for how your body should move.
For this to work, you have to be quick in the transition. It's not for beginners.
Experts do this intuitively. I learned this trick when I was taught how to do a
standing front flip. Because of the direction of rotation, it's nothing like a standing
back flip. You get almost no power from your legs, so you really need to learn how
to pivot around your sternum. If you try to pivot around your hips, you will hit the
ground before you even know it. On the muscle-up, the pivot point is your sternum.
Learning how to pivot from here takes practice, but it is worth the effort.
A Slow, Steady Pull
A lot of tutorials on the muscle-up tell people to pull as explosively as possible to
get over the rings. And a lot of tutorials are dead wrong. For beginners, this is
actually the opposite of what you want to do. If you aren't experienced in the
technique of the transition, this will backfire on you. "What goes up, must come
down." This expression is all too familiar to anyone that has ever failed in a
muscle-up. And this includes a lot of strong guys. What happens is that they pull
hard and get above the rings, but can't maintain this hard pull during the transition.
When the leverage changes, the pull stalls. They start to drop and then have to
transition while carrying the extra weight of their falling body.
A slow, steady pull allows you begin the transition while you are still on the way
up. And if you incorporate the shoulder roll and the chest suck, it's pretty easy to
transition, even if you are only applying enough force to hold steady. Remember, it
doesn't matter if your head is dropping, as long as your shoulders are rising. This
can't last forever, but luckily, the transition only needs to last fractions of a second.
Keeping steady pressure on the rings is much better than applying max force and
then losing it when you need it most. Be smooth and deliberate. Once you have
mastered the transition, you will be able to execute it in a split second. It becomes
just a quick flick of the rings. At this point, a powerful pull can work in your favor,
because even if your tension drops momentarily, the speed of your transition will
get you over the rings without any trouble. The drop will be barely noticeable.
Corkscrew Your Hands
Many people get stuck right before the transition point because they fail to rotate
their hands. I almost didn't include this tip, because it is something that happens
naturally when you do the shoulder roll. But if you find you are getting stuck, give
it a try.
Right before the transition, your hands should be right by your arm pits. The rings
should be turned in, so that the backs of your hands are facing each other. During
the transition, as your shoulders roll forward and your elbows fly back, the rings
will naturally turn out. This position will be maintained through the dip. As you drop
back down, this process will reverse itself. The rings will stay turned in as long as
you have a bend in your elbows. But something interesting happens when you
straighten your arms at the bottom. The rings now must be turned out again. This
makes it much easier to maintain the false grip, because you can push out against
the rings, which will help maintain pressure between your wrists and the rings.
Going all the way down is much, much harder than going almost all the way down.
But the strength it develops is well worth the effort.
Muscle-Up Progression Exercises
The following section goes over some of my favorite (and my least favorite) ways
of building up to the muscle-up. I wish I had known of these progressions when I
first got started. When I learned the muscle-up, I had very little to study, so I
pieced together what I could find. One of my training partners, Robb Wolf, was
able to get his muscle-up after several weeks of attempts. He was by far the
strongest in our group, so when he struggled, we all assumed we had a lot of work
ahead of us. When we learned the muscle-up, we literally muscled it up! We didn't
know anything about technique, so we just pushed harder and harder until we got
it. All of us experienced severe elbow pain for 2-3 days after our first muscle-up.
Not a big surprise, considering the route we took. Since then, I've learned a lot
more about the muscle-up from working with high level coaches, Olympians and
collegiate gymnasts. But I learned the most from experimenting on myself and
others who struggled along the way. You can learn the most about muscle-ups
from someone who accomplishes it with the least amount of strength. Over the
years, I've tried various methods and removed what I found to be ineffective. What
has remained is what I will now share with you.
The Support
You can't do a muscle-up or really anything worthwhile on the rings unless you
can hold a support. I like to get people holding it for 20 seconds in good form
before moving on to anything else. Good form means that the arms are straight,
you're maintaining good posture, looking straight ahead and clear of the straps. If
you are riding the straps, then you're wasting your time. If support holds are too
tough, then do them in the pushup position and on your knees, if necessary.
I'm not a fan of using a spotter to assist a client with support holds. It's actually
sort of dangerous for the spotter and getting into a pushup position instead allows
the client to work entirely under his own power. You might as well just hold the
support on static bars. In the video I have seen of this technique, the coach almost
gets kicked in a very sensitive place every time his client jumps into the support.
Deep Dips
The dip is probably harder than the pullup for most people. This is because it is
the deepest dip you have ever done in your life. Try this. Do a few dips and make
a video recording of yourself. Go as low as you can. You will probably be surprised
at how much room you have to go further.
the Tactical Dip
Another option that helps is to start dips from the bottom position. This variation
is called the Tactical Dip. With your feet on the ground and making sure the rings
are set at the height of your arm pits, get in position to do a dip and press to the
top. Don't jump at all. Each rep starts with your feet on the ground and with no
momentum. You need to come to a complete stop between each rep. This is good
training for when you have to dig your way out of a low transition during your
muscle-up. This variation eliminates the pre-stretch in your muscles, just like you
experience in after the transition.
False Grip Row
Learning the false grip is one of the keys to muscle-up success. But if you have
never done a false grip, your pulling strength will be weaker than Paris Hilton! After
some training, you will get more comfortable. The first place to start is the row. In
this position, you can support some of your bodyweight with your feet, so you can
build strength in this position in smaller increments.
False Grip Pullup
The false grip pullup is the next logical step. Simply perform pullups with the
same grip you learned in the row. It's a little bit harder to maintain the grip with
your arms overhead. If you find this to be the case, then work on your shoulder
and wrist flexibility. When you do these pullups, pull high! Don't stop when your
chin passes the rings. Keep going as high as you can. Eventually, you will know
when you're ready to pull off a muscle-up.
If you can't even pull yourself up, just hang in the bottom position with a false grip.
Reverse Muscle-Up
Reverse engineering the muscle-up is an interesting and effective approach that
works for many other skills as well. To do these, get up and over the rings in
whatever way you feel most comfortable- jump, get a spotter, etc. Now, start to
slowly descend downwards. Go SLOW. Once you hit the bottom of the dip position,
start to lean back and keep pressure on the rings. SLOW. Keep going down and let
the rings turn inward (corkscrew). As the rings come around to the front of your
body, try your best to maintain a deep false grip. Keep this false grip all the way
down to the bottom. Try and go down till your arms are straight and the rings are
turned out. You honestly can't go slow enough in this exercise.
Another cool variation is to pause at various portions of the range of motion. And
another variation is to go down, pause and then push back up out of it. See how
low you can go and still push back out.
Rowing Muscle-Up
This is one of my favorite muscle-up progressions and I learned it from world
champion Jordan Jovtchev. To do it, you want to have your feet supported at
around the same height of the rings. From here, you will be in the same position as
a body row. As you pull towards the transition point, your body will fold in half and
you will go through the transition just like you learned before. The dip is a little
different, because of the position of your feet, but it really just means the rings will
stay slightly behind your torso. To adjust the difficulty, you can change the position
of your feet relative to the rings. The lower your feet are, the more support you
will get, which makes it easier. I show a second, easier variation with my feet on a
chair and my knees bent. Bending your knees allows you to spot yourself much
more than staight legs. But it is not a squatting muscle-up, where your feet would
be directly underneath you. Those are another option, but I find it is too easy to
get away with sloppy technique when doing the squat-assisted muscle-up.
One thing that trips a lot of people up on this movement is being too far forward.
Don't start under the rings and then prop your feet up in front of you. If you do
this, the rings will move forward and you will have to perform the transition at an
angle. This means you are performing the transition uphill! So, you want to start
out with your body behind the suspension point and the rings should pulled back at
an angle. Your feet will be slightly in front of the suspension point. At the
transition, the straps should be close to vertical and stay that way during the dip. It
is also easier the further you walk back, because of this ramp effect.
The Jumping Muscle-Up
I HATE THIS EXERCISE. Everyone teaches it this way and I can't stand it. You can
do a thousand of these and learn absolutely nothing about the muscle-up. The
problem is that is gives you the illusion of a super powerful pull. Remember what I
said earlier about slow and steady? And because of this, you can get away with
anything. It doesn't matter if you roll your shoulders at the wrong time or if you
aren't keeping the rings in tight. Anything works. And if it doesn't, then you will just
jump harder the next time.
When I use this movement with clients, I call it a "jump to support". And
sometimes they keep their arms straight, so it's more like a jumping iron cross.
Either way, I use it as a metabolic move to drive heart rate and it works well for
this. But as a teaching aid for the muscle-up, it's a complete waste of time.
Kipping Muscle-Up
This is probably the most common method of performing the muscle-up, even
though it is not really a muscle-up by the strictest definition. "Muscle-up" in
gymnastics means that you are not using swing or kip to generate power. In
gymnastics, there are skills called uprises. The front and back uprises are the two
variations and they use pure swing to get up above the rings. There is also the Kip
to Support, which uses power from a hip thrust to get over the rings. In this
variation, you completely fold in half at the hips and then powerfully thrust your
body upwards by explosively unfolding at the hip joint. The kipping muscle-up is
kind of a hybrid between a muscle-up and a front uprise. I do consider it legitimate
in most workout situations, unless specifically told to perform them strict.
Th kipping muscle-up involves using a forward swing and an upward thrust of the
knees in order to generate greater elevation of the shoulders. Once the shoulders
are up, the legs fall back down during the transition. Pretend you are jumping
during this phase, even though your feet aren't on the ground. While your legs are
falling, the lower half of your body is essentially weightless, so you are able to get
through the transition with much less effort. If you mis-time the kipping action, you
will actually make the transition much harder, because you will be fighting against
the deceleration of your lower body. That "weightless moment" is very quick and at
the other end, you have to catch your body, which has now gathered some
momentum, so you better be ready for that. This is one reason why I don't like the
kipping muscle-up for beginners. You need to be strong and comfortable in a
support position, otherwise you can get hurt. This is a vulnerable position for your
elbows and mistimed kipping exposes them to extra shock loads.
The advantage of the kipping muscle-up is that you can crank out more reps in a
shorter amount of time. The disadvantage is that you develop less strength. If you
want to do muscle-ups and develop almost no strength at all, then perform a
strong kip and then slam into the straps with your forearms in the "chicken arm
support" position. And then ride the straps 3/4 of the way up, just shy of locking
out. If you watch enough muscle-up videos on YouTube, you will see that this is
how 80-90% of people are doing it. Sadly, it's robbing them of most of the benefits
of training on the rings.
Can I Join the Muscle-Up Club?
I'm going to be a mean coach and tell a lot of people that their first muscle-up
didn't count. Sorry, but someone has to do it. To join the muscle-up club, I think it
has a to be a strict one for it to count. In the same vein, when someone gets their
first pullup, I like to see a strict one. Flailing away until your chin gets over the bar
just isn't the same. And to someone outside of the CrossFit community, you have
some explaining to do.
"Isn't that cheating?"
"Well, I'm kipping because incorporating a hip drive maximizes power output over
broad time and modal domains."
"Okay..."
The same goes for the muscle-up. Kipping muscle-ups are fine for getting a faster
time on the WOD, but it doesn't get you a membership into the muscle-up club.
And for safety, I like to see a strict one first. Can you image a coach telling a
beginner: "Alright, you don't have much experience on the rings, so you might be a
little bit out of control. To compensate for this, we will just do the movement WAY
faster."
"Sure thing, Coach!"
Splat!
If you are not comfortable in the support position, the last thing you need to do is
launch yourself up there with a powerful kip and no real certainty where you will
end up. The one thing you don't want to do is lose the muscle-up and fall forward.
If you hang onto the rings for too long, you can really tear up your shoulders.
Falling backwards is almost never a problem.
Substitutions for the Muscle-Up
If you are doing a workout that calls for muscle-ups, I recommend choosing a
substitution from somewhere in this progression. The CrossFit standard is 4 pullups
and 4 dips for every 1 muscle-up. I think this is completely wrong for a variety of
reasons. For one, this is training for endurance, but most people need to develop
strength for the muscle-up, not more endurance. Second, the muscle-up really isn't
that hard. If you aren't strong enough for it, then trading 30 muscle-ups for 120
pullups and 120 dips is insane! For a beginner, that's way too much for one
workout. Third, it doesn't develop any of the important skills you need for a
muscle-up, such as the false grip or the transition technique. Personally, I love the
fact that the 4-to-1 substitution sells a lot of rings! But it's not my favorite
approach.
Instead, do 30 rowing muscle-ups or 30 very slow reverse muscle-ups. Or even just
do 30 false grip pullups and 30 tactical dips. Practicing these progressions is a
faster way to accomplish the muscle-up.
Flexibility Training
Shoulder Flexibility
Flexibility in the shoulders is extremely important for muscle-ups. Whenever I do a
high rep set, I feel like the last three wouldn't be possible without good shoulder
flexibility. If your shoulders are flexible enough, you can turn even a weak pullup
into something transitionable. Many people say the goal of the transition is to get
your shoulders above the rings. All you really have to do is get your elbows above
your hands. How high your shoulders are is determined by how high you are able
to pull. But the minimum height required for a successful transition is determined
by your shoulder flexibility. So, increased shoulder mobility allows you to get away
with a weaker pull. If you have tight shoulders, you will need to pull much higher
and the transition will be tougher. If you can pull really high and have flexible
shoulders, then your sets will end at the point where your pull has fatigued and
you have reached the limit of your flexibility. That convergence point sets the limit
on how many muscle-ups you can perform in one set.
Skinning the Cat
To do this stretch, you simply pull yourself upside down and then keep rolling
backwards. You want to roll as far as possible without extreme discomfort.
Generally, it is okay to let go of the rings in an emergency, since your feet will be
pointing at the ground. But it's a bad habit to get into. Letting go while you are in a
full stretch or under high tension is like dry firing a bow and arrow. Your muscles
prefer to go back to resting tension/length naturally. But, if you are losing control,
let go! Don't tear your shoulders out. In fact, when you are starting out, keep your
feet on the ground as a spotter. Then squat down till you have a good stretch on
your shoulders and then squat back up. Keep landing mats beneath you if there is
a risk of falling from a great height when doing the suspended version.
The full version involves going all the way back, while hanging on the rings and
then pulling yourself back up to inverted. To do this, you will use core strength and
hamstring/lower back flexibility. You want to pull yourself into a tight pike position,
while applying pressure on the rings to pull your hips back up. It's a great exercise
for stretching and strengthening your shoulders. It gives you exactly the kind of
flexibility you need for the muscle-up.
Stick Stretch
For this stretch, you take a stick in your hands and rotate your arms backwards till they touch your back and then repeat going forwards. Over time, your goal
is to bring your hands closer and closer together. Using a rubber band is a great option as well.
Wall Stretch
This is another great stretch for the shoulders and thoracic region. Get in front of
a wall and place your hands on the wall at shoulder height. Now fold at the hips
and try to keep your arms level, but sink your chest down as low as possible.
Actively push away from the wall as well, as if you are trying to extend the length
from your shoulders to your tail bone. This also stretches out the wrists a little bit.
I'm showing the same stretch on rings. Either one works fine.
Reverse Wrist Stretch
If you are having trouble holding a false grip, it might not be that your wrists are
weak, but inflexible. To fix this, I like the reverse wrist stretch. Get on all fours and
place the backs of your hands on the ground. Now while keeping your arms
straight, stretch out the wrists.
You can also do pushups from this position. It can be a little painful at first, so start
from your knees, then go to a wide stance before finally taking on the full "fin
pushups". Keep your fingertips pointing towards eachother when doing these
pushups.
Training
The majority of people using rings today are doing the CrossFit program. By one
estimate, I heard there are only 500 male gymnasts in the United States over the
age of 18! For the workout portion of this guide, we will not be covering how to
train like a gymnast. Nor will we go over how to design CrossFit-style workouts,
since that has been covered in a lot of other places. But, we will talk about how to
incorporate more ring work into CrossFit. We will also cover how to design a ring
strength program, the EXF pullup program and some fun ring workouts.
Before I start, I want to mention that I hate "Muscle and Fiction" magazines. Every
month they have a new 3 week plan that promises a 5% reduction in bodyfat. The
people who write these plans are liars. Most of them never even test these
programs on anyone and rarely on more than a handful. And oftentimes, their
claims of a 13% strength increase (or whatever their claim might be) is based on a
result from an obscure study. The study might have been using leg extensions and
untrained subjects. And the Muscle and Fiction routine might apply a principle
derived from that study. But that doesn't mean you can extrapolate that the routine
will have the same effect on different movements and in a trained subject, or even
that the routine will have any results at all! Even honest writers get sucked in by
this, because they want to get published. The magazine doesn't want you to learn
enough to train on your own. They want to tell you what to do for just long
enough to need the next issue and the next "miracle plan".
I am not going to offer any training plans or quick-fix routines in this book. To me,
any attempt to do so is voodoo. Plans that are designed to offer specific workouts
and deliver a specific adaption on a given date are completely bogus. Investment
bankers can't do it and neither can trainers or exercise physiologists. Instead of
plans, I will offer strategies. These don't give you day by day prescriptions or
promise results by a certain date. But they do offer a logical progression from point
A to point B. In this way, you can proceed at a pace that is optimal for you. From
these strategies, you should have no trouble designing your own custom workout
program. I provide a few templates and examples, but you still have to fill in the
details for yourself.
Strength Program Design
The 3 to 5 Rule
Rule
Rule
Rule
Rule
Rule
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
Pick 3 to 5 exercises covering your whole body.
Perform 3 to 5 reps of each exercise.
Perform 3 to 5 sets of each exercise.
Train 3 to 5 times per week.
Switch programs every 3 to 5 weeks.
Strength training does not need to be any more complicated than that. But there
is a lot of flexibility and room for growth within these rules. Let's take a look at
each principle.
Rule #1
It's possible to train all of the major movement patterns of your body using just a
small number of exercises. At minimum, you should have a lower body exercise, an
upper body pull and an upper body push. You can also break the upper body
movements into horizontal and vertical motions, which will add up to 5 total
exercises. Here are some examples:
Lower Body: Squat, Deadlift, Olympic Lifts, Sprinting, Jumping, Lunges, Step Ups
Upper Body Horizontal Pulls: Body Row, Front Lever, Barbell Rows, Renegade Rows
Upper Body Horizontal Pushes: Push Ups, Planche, Bench Press
Upper Body Vertical Pulls: Pullups, Iron Cross
Upper Body Vertical Pushes: Military Press, Dips, Handstand Pushups, Inverted Cross
I didn't even list the many variations that exist in each of those exercises. There
are too many to count. But you always want 1 or 2 lower body. And an upper body
push and pull. Over time, you will want to make sure that you balance out
horizontal and vertical motions, as this will lead to balanced development in the
shoulders.
Rule #2
Many great strength coaches have said that anything over 5 reps is not strength
training. And many also advise to train with sets of 3-5 reps most of the time, so
that you're not constantly training at your absolute limits. It's interesting that Kevin
Mazeika, two-time head coach of the US Olympic Men's Gymnastics team,
recommends sets of 6 for his athletes. He arrived at this completely independent of
the weight training community. Keep in mind that a gymnastics routine is not the
same as a max effort on a barbell lift. A routine is a sequence of several moves, so
you need strength that lasts for 30 seconds or more. Even so, 6 reps is pretty close
to the same number that barbell coaches have recommended. The reason for
sticking with relatively low reps is that this type of training makes you strong
without adding too much bulk. For a gymnast, this is particularly important,
because you don't want to carry around extra muscle that is not being used
efficiently. High load, low rep training helps to develop greater neurological
efficiency, or "strength as a skill". World champion ringman Jordan Jovtchev
typically trains at a very low volume. His maintenance program is to perform his
ring routine three times a day after a thorough warm-up. At age 36, he is still
competing at the top of his sport. High volume can be effective, but it's tough on
the body. If you are training for the long haul, this is another reason why less is
more. But taking another lesson from Jordan, you must treat this training with
laser-like focus. Make every rep count!
Rule #3
The number of sets you perform is directly related to how many exercises and
how many reps you are doing. The total volume of your training can be
manipulated by changing any of these variables. During a training cycle, I generally
like to add sets before I start to add reps. So, in the first week, I might do 3x3.
Once I can comfortably train at that load, I add a set. And then another. Once I
am at 5x3 (5 sets of 3), I go back to 3x4. Now I climb back up to 5 sets using 4
reps per set. And then I repeat the same with 5 reps. This is a great way to train,
but there are plenty of variations to choose from. See the Brice Strength Program
and Density Training for a different approach.
Rule #4
Recovery is one of the most important aspects of training. Your muscles don't
grow during the workout. They grow between workouts. That pump you feel is not
permanent! And if you are training too hard and not recovering enough, you will
not make as much progress and you are more likely to get injured. With low
volume, high load training you can train more frequently than with other systems.
Because you are always leaving plenty of reps in the tank and staying fresh, you
can train more often. If your goal is not to get bigger, but rather to get stronger
(strength as skill), then frequent practice is the way to go. Higher volume training
is better for stimulating growth hormone production and muscle capillarization, but
requires more rest between workouts. Some bodybuilders have even been known
to train only once or twice a week. But they tended to perform pretty brutal
workouts and took advantage of "special vitamins". If you are not going the
chemically-enhanced route, then stick to 3 to 5 smaller workouts. Do 3 higher
volume workouts if size is your priority. Or 5 practices if strength is your priority.
Either way, how much you eat is always the biggest factor, but hormone
production does influence your appetite.
Rule #5
Strength coach Dan John has often said that for an untrained client, any program
will work for the first six weeks. I call this the "Untrained Idiot Effect". Most studies
conducted by exercise physiologists are done using untrained college students.
Their relevance to a high caliber athlete is debatable. But in the trenches,
experienced coaches know that athletes hit a plateau after repeating the same
workout too many times. I will say 3 to 5 weeks, but it could be 2, 6, 8 or more. It
will depend on how specific the training is, how intense and the person's training
history. Many people attack CrossFit based on the SAID principle. I don't think it
applies, though, because the CrossFit program is pretty well randomized and the
goal is general fitness, not a specific adaptation. The more specific and narrow a
goal is, the sooner you reach the plateau. Because CrossFit is so broad, it can often
take years before you hit a noticeable plateau in your general fitness.
Quite a few people are now adding a rotating program of structured strength
training on top of CrossFit. A hybrid of randomized and planned training seems to
be working well for a lot of people. They add this extra strength work before the
WOD, because you always want to do heavy strength work when you're fresh and
focused.
After a 3 to 5 week cycle ends, switch exercises or at minimum change the sets,
reps or frequency of workouts.
Density Training
Ethan Reeve of Wake Forest University is a proponent of this excellent method for
rapidly gaining strength, endurance or both. You pick a target goal of reps you wish
to achieve and then double it. You will perform this number of reps, divided into
multiple sets, in each workout. Over time, the goal is to do this amount of work in
fewer and fewer sets. Thus, you are increasing the density. Keep your eye on a
clock and perform one set at the start of every minute. In this example, your goal
is to get 30 consecutive pullups:
Step
Step
Step
Step
1:
3:
5:
7:
6 reps every minute for 10 minutes (60 total reps)
8 reps every minute for 8 minutes (64 total reps)
10 reps every minute for 6 minutes (60 total reps)
12 reps every minute for 5 minutes (60 total reps)
You can fill in the blanks. Keep progressing like this until you reach your target.
You do not necessarily have to progress this quickly. You can repeat a workout if
you are unable to perform all of the sets unbroken.
Keep increasing the density until you reach your goal. When you reach 35-45% of
your target in each set, then you are probably ready to test yourself to see how
close you are to your goal. Once you have reached your goal, you can add weight
to your body, add more reps, or switch to a harder exercise or variation.
Isometric Density Training
Since a lot of skills in gymnastics are isometric in nature, the above scheme of
counting reps will not apply. But Density Training can easily be modified to allow
for progression in isometrics. If your goal is a 30 second L-Sit, then try this:
Step 1: 15 holds of 4 seconds
Step
Step
Step
Step
3:
5:
7:
9:
10 holds of 6 seconds
8 holds of 8 seconds
6 holds of 10 seconds
5 holds of 12 seconds
Like before, you will keep doing fewer holds until you get 35-45% of your target
in each set. Then test yourself and either keep going or change to a new target.
Brice Strength Program
The Brice Strength Program was developed by powerlifter Jason Brice. He used
this for his bench press, but it can work for just about any strength exercise. In 4
months, his bench went from 335 to 420 lbs. He trained 5 days per week doing 1
set of 5 reps. He added 5 lbs to the bar every workout. When things got tough, he
switched to ladders. When you do ladders, you start with a set of 1 and then after
a short rest you do another set with 1 more rep than the previous set. You
continue on taking rests as if you had a ghost training partner sharing the bar (or
rings) with you. So, you do a set, then your ghost partner does an equivalent set,
then you do your next set, etc. Once you reach a set where you struggle to
complete it (but not failing), then drop back to 1 rep and climb back up. A ladder
might look like this:
1,2,3,4,1,2,3,1,2,1,1
He would train with ladders for 2 weeks and then drop 10 lbs off the bar and
start doing 1 set of 5 and adding 5 lbs to the bar every workout. His results from
this simple program speak for themselves.
For pullups, it is more appropriate to add 2.5 lbs per set, since the potential max
loads are much lower than with the bench press.
This training method is simple, effective and very low in volume. This is the type of
strength training that I recommend if you already have a complete fitness program,
such as CrossFit, but want some supplemental strength work.
Greasing the Groove
This is a training method designed by Pavel Tsatsouline. The idea is to train as
often as possible in mini-workouts spread throughout the day. You might do a set
of pullups once every hour and do about 40-60% of your max reps each time. This
training method is effective because it improves your neurological efficiency, or skill,
in the movement. Every human movement is the sum of muscle activation and
relaxation. To move a joint, you have to contract one muscle, while its opposite
relaxes. If they are both equally tense, then no movement will occur. Part of
getting stronger is not just being able to contract harder, but also relaxing the right
muscles at the right time. In complex movements, the tensing and relaxing
sequence becomes a complex symphony. It all happens without consciously
thinking about it (for the most part). In simple movements, it's of course possible
to "think into the muscle", as bodybuilders are fond of saying. But when you get
into more complex movements, you have to "think into the movement". Which
muscles are firing and when is secondary, not a primary focus. Sometimes thinking
about a specific muscle during a movement can throw you off and cause "analysis
paralysis".
Your body is an adaptive organism and always moves towards increasing
efficiency. When you first learn a movement, not all of the neurological connections
are in place.It's like driving a car. You have the accelerator and the brakes, but
thousands of wires connect them to the engine and some of the wires connect in
the wrong place. What training for neurological efficiency does is take these wires
and re-connect them in the right places. You are literally re-wiring your central
nervous system. In a given movement, when you had been stepping on the
accelerator and the brakes at the same time, you are now getting pure
acceleration. Instead of building bigger muscles, you are building smarter muscles.
Since a gymnast has to "carry his own engine", any type of training that improves
his strength to bodyweight ratio is beneficial.
Generally, Grease the Groove has been applied to a very narrow focus, such as a
single exercise. I have experimented in the past with doing more complete miniworkouts spread throughout the day. For example, I would do one round of a
multi-round CrossFit workout several times a day. I might end up totalling double
or even triple the actual number of rounds called for by the workout. This type of
training worked great for 2-3 weeks, but then I lost "wind". My efficiency had
definitely improved, but my ability to sustain exertion started to decline. If you try
this approach, I would recommend not doing it more than twice a week. If you are
doing it for a specific skill, then you can do it 3-4 times a week stacked on top of
your normal workout program.
You can read more about Grease the Groove training in this article by Clarence
Bass.
The EXF Pullup Program
This is a program for improving your pullups and getting more reps. There are a
few different principles involved here. These concepts are derived from studying
the world's best strength and fitness coaches. And these concepts work just as well
with any other exercise. We are just using the pullup as a platform to demonstrate
the concepts. Most programs you find for pullup training basically work by getting
you to do a lot of pullups. Some of them break up the workload into mini-workouts
spread throughout the day. This isn't too bad and you can apply that line of
thinking with the EXF Pullup Program. Other programs involve doing long workouts.
The one commonality is that they all involve doing a lot of pullups. This makes
logical sense and it does work. However, you hit a point of diminishing returns,
where more work leads to smaller and smaller gains. For this reason, we approach
the problem of developing gains in pullups from multiple directions. If you attack
your target head on with a singular approach, you will hit the point of diminishing
returns much sooner.
Before getting into the program itself, I will explain some of the concepts that make
this program work. And yes, it does work for other exercises.
Bracketing
This is the strategy of approaching a problem from multiple directions. It basically
means that you will train sometimes above and sometimes below your goal. You
will jump back and forth, with your target in the middle. If your goal is to run a
mile in 6 minutes, then sometimes you should run as far as possible within 6
minutes. And other times you should run the mile as fast as possible. And at other
times, you should try to run at a 6-minute-mile pace for as long as you can sustain
that speed. In this way, you are approaching the problem from three different
directions. For pullups, this means you will sometimes perform the target reps at
lower loads, fewer reps at higher loads or as many reps as you can manage at the
target load. In this case, the target load is bodyweight. As you can see, there are
strong similarities between the running program and the pullup program. Bracketing
is a powerful strategy for reaching any goal.
Overstrength
Strength is the foundation of all physical qualities. If you cannot perform a single
rep of an exercise, then your endurance in that exercise is also zero. With
overstrength training, your goal is to train a movement at higher intensity than
your target load. As a result, when you are actually doing the targeted load, it will
feel lighter and easier. The cool thing about overstrength is that the benefits kick in
with your very first rep. If you train for a 10 minute fight, but the other guy knocks
you out after 2 minutes, then you never got to use your endurance. Strength
always comes into play first!
For overstrength, there are a lot of potential options. One is to add weight.
Weighted pullups are an excellent way to gain strength. You can use a weight vest,
weight belt or even hold a dumbbell or kettlebell with your feet. Another option is
to train using gymnastics progressions for the front lever and iron cross. By doing
this, you are training movements that are above and beyond the pullup in terms of
strength required, but use the same muscle groups. Another option is using a more
explosive movement. You can do kipping muscle-ups, clapping pullups or flying
pullups (jumping up to a higher bar). These are all great options.
For your overstrength training, you can use 3 to 5, Density Training with low reps
or Brice Strength as your workout progression.
Extended Set Training
If you have aspirations of getting high numbers of pullups, you need to develop
endurance, in addition to strength. Since the key principle in the EXF Pullup
Program is bracketing, we need to have "understrength" to go along with
overstrength training. Extended Set Training is pairing two related exercises to
reach a specific number of reps. One exercise will be harder than the other. And
the easier exercise will be used to extend the set. Extended Set Training will give
you the most realistic simulation of actually doing your targeted number of reps.
For example, the first thing you need to do to get a big number on pullups is hold
on to the bar long enough. If your hands aren't on the bar, you're not in the game.
If your goal is 20 pullups, then you need to be able to stay on the bar for the
amount of time it takes to do 20 pullups. This means at least 40 seconds. So, after
a set of pullups, you will hang onto the bar until 40 seconds have elapsed since you
started the set.
Another example of this would be to pair kipping pullups with kip swings. If your
goal is 50 kipping pullups in a row, then first you need to be able to do 50 kip
swings in a row. This is a good intermediate goal to set. Once you get this, then
start adding a few kipping pullups to the start of the set. Start with 5 kipping
pullups followed by 45 swings. Then you do 10 pullups followed by 40 swings, etc.
Keep replacing swings with pullups and eventually you will close in on 50.
Here is a chart of a progression from zero pullups towards 20 consecutive strict
pullups with 20 lbs of weight added. At each step, the previously hard exercise will
become the extender and a new hard exercise will take its place. The more
intermediate steps you design, the quicker you will progress towards your goal.
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
Bar Hang for 40 Seconds
Kip Swings plus Bar Hang. (start at 5 kip swings and work up to 20, every set lasts 40 seconds)
Kipping Pullups plus Kip Swings (start at 5 kipping pullups and extend the set to 20 with kip swings)
Strict Pullups plus Kipping Pullups
Weighted Pullups plus Strict Pullups (hold a 20 lbs dumbbell in your feet, drop it after 5 reps and then extend the set)
You reach your goal of 20 weighted pullups!
At each step, you gradually add more reps and take away from the "extender
exercise". So, at Step 3, you will start at 5 kipping pullups and 15 kip swings. You
will work your way up to 6,7,8,9,10, etc, kipping pullups and extend the set with
kip swings for a total of 20. Once you reach 20 consecuitive kipping pullups, then
you are ready for the next step.
This is a powerful method of training! And it doesn't require a ton of volume, so
you can safely add a set of Extended Set Training before your main workout and
not burn out. Pairing this with some overstrength work is a simple method of
bracketing your way to pullup excellence.
Variety
If you are training for higher reps, you need variety, otherwise it is easy to burn
out. Bracketing is by definition a form of structured variance around a specific
target. There is a common saying in strength training that "specificity rules". And
they even give it a scientific sounding name, the SAID Principle (specific adaption
to imposed demands). Let's throw it out the window! The evidence coming out of
CrossFit and other programs is showing that non-specific training can create sports
specific adaptations. Several distance runners and Olympic lifters have tried
incorporating some CrossFit training and subsequently hit new personal records.
The problem with the SAID principle is that some people take it too far. Training
outside of your comfort zone or the specific demands of your sport can yield insight
into weaknesses you might have. You might discover a lack of flexibility in your
shoulders or weakness in your hips. Just the hormonal response of fitness training
can stimulate performance gains in other areas. In any case, variety is an important
component of any program, even one that is oriented towards a specific goal such
as pullups.
What is the correct way to incorporate variety into your training? That's a difficult
question to answer. But in general, when you are doing overstrength and extended
sets, you will progress through a series of different exercises by design. It's also
okay to do overstrength with weighted pullups one day and front lever
progressions in the next session. Or you can switch according to the 3 to 5 Rule.
Almost all of the training methods in this book are based on the concept of
gymnastics progressions, which is a form of structured variance. Unlike barbell
strength progressions, where the path between 300lbs and 400lbs is a straight line
(although some powerlifting coaches are more creative and less linear than others),
you have to take a more branched approach with bodyweight exercises. The path
between two points might alternate between using leverage as a progression,
loading or de-loading or even switching surfaces as a progression. Switching from
bar to rings is one example of that. You will sometimes veer away from your target
in two different directions at the same time, but ultimately, you will keeping moving
towards your goal.
Variety just for the sake of variety is okay, but gymnasts use variety in a very
purposeful manner. I think this book is unique in teaching variety as a tool for
progression. It is a thinking man's approach, so you need to think hard about
creating intermediate steps when you design a progression. My goal is to give you
the tools, but you have to supply your own goals and create your own plan of
action for reaching those goals.
Measurement and Testing
Accountability is one of the biggest keys to success in all aspects of life. Physical
training is nice in that it is generally easy to measure and test. You should test
your max at least every 5-10 sessions. Some people suggest following a Fibonacci
sequence. If you're into rocket science, give this a try. Read the wikipedia article on
"Fibonacci Sequence" for more info on how these numbers came about, but
basically it means testing yourself on days 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34... The use of
Fibonacci sequences for physical training has been written about in the book
"Consistent Winning". It's NOT necessary, but some people find this stuff
fascinating. If you are not one of them, then just test yourself once every week or
two with a max set of pullups. One implication of the Fibonacci sequence is that
your testing will be less frequently over time. This makes sense, because for a top
athlete, a max effort is far more taxing than for a beginner.
However you choose to test yourself, when you find your progress starting to stall,
then it's a good time to change your training approach.
Programming
The actual program depends on what other activities your are doing. Don't add
too much volume if you are already doing a fitness program that includes a lot of
pullups. Here is an example of someone who follows a 3-1 format (3 workouts for
every 1 rest day).
Day 1
Overstrength
WOD
Day 2
WOD
Day 3
Extended Set
WOD
Day 4
Rest
In this example, you are having one overstrength day and one extended set day in your 3 day cycle.
If your fitness program is already very pullup intensive, then you can try this template.
Day 1
Overstrength
WOD
Day 2
Overstrenght
WOD
Day 3
WOD
Day 4
Rest
You can do some overstrength work on your rest day if you feel you are well
recovered from the previous cycle. If not, do some recovery work or just take it
easy. I like to hit strength two days in a row and then take two days off, but you
can try alternating days of overstrength work. It might also depend on your
recovering level and what workouts you have to do in that cycle.
If you are not doing a full fitness program, then here is a more comprehensive pullup program.
Day 1
3 to 5 Strength
Day 2
Density Training
Day 3
3 to 5 Strength
Day 4
Rest
Day 5
Density Training
Day 6
3 to 5 Strength
Day 7
Density Training
Day 8
Rest
Repeat
Selecting a Method
How do you choose between all these great methods of training? Here is a comparison chart to help you decide.
Program
Volume
3 to 5 Strength
Brice Strength
Extended Set Training
Density Training
Grease the Groove
CrossFit
3-5x target
1x target
1x target
2x target
>60% Target
High
Loads
High
High
Low
Medium/High
High
Medium
Frequency
Medium
High
High
Medium
Extremely High
Medium/High
Committment Level
Medium
Low
Low/Medium
Medium/High
Medium
High
Unstructured Training
Sometimes it's fun and productive just to play around and experiment. When you
first get your rings, here are some fun workouts for getting familiar with the feel of
the rings in a variety of exercises. Even though the whole point of this book is
progressions, structured variance and measurement and testing, unstructured
training can often yield new insights or spark a new interest. It's okay to train just
because you love to do it.
Beginner
3x3 Skin the Cats tucked
3x5 Jackknives from Knees
2x10 Pushups
2x10 Hanging Knee Raises
1x10 Body Rows
3x20 second L-Sit with knees bent
5 Muscle-Ups (can be rowing or reverse muscle-ups)
2x10 Dips
2x10 Pullups
Intermediate
3x3 Skin the Cats Piked
3x5 Jackknives from Feet with rings elevated
3x(5 Ring Flyes, 5 Reverse Grip Pushups)
2x10 Hanging Leg Raises
2x5 left x 5 right One-Arm emphasis Body Rows-alternating arms
3x20 second L-sit
10 Muslce-ups in smallest number of sets possible
2x15 dips
2x10 L-Hang Pullups
Advanced
1 set of each (5 Crescent Pushups, 5 Ring Flyes, 5 Reverse Grip Pushups) with no rest in between.
3x5 Jackknives from feet
3 Back Levers with 5 second holds
2x5 Front Lever Pull-Throughs
10 One-Arm Body Rows each arm alternated
1 minute L-sit
20 Muslce-Ups in as few sets as possible
2x25 dips
2x10 Inverted Pullups
10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of your EXF Rings
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Take them with you. They are designed to be light and portable. Take them with
you to the park, on vacations, etc.
Create your own exercises. The exercises shown in this guide are just a starting
point. You can create your own exercises by changing your body position, the
height of the rings, your hand placement and other variables.
Attend an adult gymnastics class. Call your local gymnastics gyms and see what
they have to offer.
Master the basics. Learning something as simple as a support pays big dividends
later. If something seems easy, you might be doing it wrong.
Design progressions. In weightlifting, the path from point A to point B is very
clear. You just add more weight. In gymnastics, you are stuck with the weight of
your body, so you must be creative. If you are struggling to learn a skill, break it
down into several intermediary skills and progressively learn those in order to build
up to the harder skill.
Adjust the height. One of the ways to vary the difficulty of an exercise is to adjust
the height of the rings. For pushups, you can raise the height to make them easier,
or you can even elevate your feet to make them harder. This is just one possible
progression.
Regularly visit www.ringtraining.com for new articles and participate in the online
discussion forum.
Do not train the same exercises or the same workout every day. Mix things up
and train a variety of exercises.
Design yourself a ring routine. This is what competitive gymnasts do and it is
largely responsible for their incredible strength. A routine should be 5-10+
connected movements. You should not repeat a movement unless it has a different
transition to or from another movement.
Use the rings with your other favorite training tools. Mixing barbell, Kettlebell,
running, rowing, calisthenics and other forms of exercise with ring training can lead
to a very challenging whole-body workout. Visit crossfit.com for one great example
of how this is done.
Bonus! Tension is everything. I met Powerlifting champion Garry Frank shortly
after he broke the world record. He was the size of a refrigerator, but soft-spoken
and friendly. We talked for a while about strength training and he said the key is
body tension. And this is equally true in the gymnastics world. Coaches constantly
tell their athletes to maintain tight abs and squeeze their glutes. Watch the Ring
Strength DVD and you will hear Jordan Jovtchev mention this several times. You
can't go wrong taking the advice of two of the strongest men on the planet!
In Conclusion
I hope the EXF Rings and this book revolutionize your training program, or at
least makes a positive impact. Ring Training is now being used by pro athletes, elite
military units and the fittest men and women on the planet. You are joining good
company every time you step up to the rings. No matter where you start, there is
always a logical and efficient path to where you want to go. It takes curiosity and a
problem-solving approach to get there, plus the tenacity to keep pushing when
things get tough. But no matter where you are or where you're going, there are
others right there with you. Please join the ring training community and share your
experiences with us.
Good luck with your training!
Tyler Hass