iron cross schedule

After 6 months i've mastered the preparatory straight arms elements on the rings, so RTO support holds, swinging RTO support holds and other dynamic support. i'm thinking about start to work seriously over iron cross and i thought about ic pullout and isometrich...

there is a optimal schedule that can i use at the beginning? how many times a week?

probably i'll use a steady state cycle for these type of elements...

thanks for your time

alex87 said:

After 6 months i've mastered the preparatory straight arms elements on the rings, so RTO support holds, swinging RTO support holds and other dynamic support. i'm thinking about start to work seriously over iron cross and i thought about ic pullout and isometrich...

there is a optimal schedule that can i use at the beginning? how many times a week?

 

probably i'll use a steady state cycle for these type of elements...

 

thanks for your time

Out of curiosity do you have straddle planche on rings?  I was going to work cross but decided to get that nailed down before I even seriously trained it.

only a couple of seconds and on low rings...is not the same thing as long straps but since the half of april until the start of june i can't use the competition rings. their use is restricted for the competitive gymnasts and my course is exactly in the same hours! i think that my hold on long straps is less then zero...

i do not really need to train iron cross, sometime i decided to start sometime not cause i'm think that 2 seconds are too little time for now!

for the rest i did for a long time these preparatory elements feeling less tension over the biceps week by week, month by month.

actually there is no exercises where i feel tension on them. in the past i was using back lever pullout to test the tension but now i use them in warm up. then i used muscle up to back lever but the story is the same of BL.

i don't want to work over my possibilities, the russian coach of the technical federal center of milan suggested to me to start with easy SA movements on low rings with reduced rom as IC pullout from vertical to max 45° degrees..

and as you can see i'm asking for a second opinion..

and you daniel have you ever tried the ic training?

Have you tried Cross pulls with your feet supported on à bo?. Imagine youself in à pike Cross with your feet supported on the box. When you do the pulls it is up to you how much assistance you want by pressing with your feet. As you get stonger you can do IT with only one foot on the box. I saw Allen doing these as an " in between" station when I was at the Arizona Seminar 2 or 3 years ago.

never tried them..but the last time i did an assisted cross with leg in L position seems that the muscles activation is shifted more over the press muscles then the pull muscles, i have to close a little my arms in the front of a certain degrees..

i've seen an iron cross in your youtube video..have you ever experimented what i'm saying?

I have only done very little. It seems to me (and others are welcome to criticize this) that there are two major elements of the cross.

One being the straight arm elbow prep and the other being the shoulder, lat and pec stength to lock the arms into position.

While you should probably optimally work these together at the same pace. I believe most people find one area lacking more than the other.

To work shoulder through full ROM I think it is best to do pulls and holds with arms in straps or using cross trainers.

This could also be combined with the full movement at a higher angle like you were mentioning.

I think it may also be useful when starting out to use the dream machine to get a feel for the position and gain some strength. If you have one that is attached to counter weights it could be a very effective tool letting you vary resistance as you get stronger.

Those are just my ideas and what I started with. Like I said I decided to really focus on other things first so I haven't gotten very far with the cross.

No.

My Cross work has been on rings with short straps.

In the beginning I did ALOT of of support RTO.

The other exercises i do is

Support swings.

Crosspulls ( very careful with not going to far down) and Cross with arms in the straps.

I just started trying Cross pulls on low rings with long straps (longer than competition rings) and the difference is HUGE compared to short straps. On rings with short straps I can actually hold it even though I try this very rarly but on rings with long straps I'm not near.

nice ideas guys! thanks...

mats i did the elements that coach showed at finland seminar...do you remember them? i drew them down into a paper but id did not wrote any name..

the last london seminar was very good. Coach suggested to me to start some SA training with iron cross and of course i'll continue to reach the mastery of all foundation elements . i've tried to move on IC during the seminar with him spotting me...i was a little bit scared!

So talking about the possible schedule he was talking about split:

-heavy day

-soft day.

I was thinking about doing a BAS and SAS and of course soft day and hard day for BAS. i think that for now i don't need to insert the IC hold but only build up slowly strength with pullouts. probably in BAS i'll continue the elevator work, maybe one 1-2 years more to achieve it.

my week will look like that:

MON - SAS heavy

TUE - H1 and gymnastic class at my gym (skill training)

WEN - BAS soft

THU - H1 and gymnastic class (skill training)

FRI - SAS soft

SAT - BAS hard and light wk at my gym (skill training)

probably i'll pair the SAS with RC for joint health as coach Sommer said.

if you have any opinions i'll appreciate it.

thanks

and for the soft day can i use the half of the hard intensity day?

first day with iron cross, not bad. i feel no tension over the elbow, fortunately i have the mirror to check the position in my home gym.

Progress?

The above schedule is very similar to what I was following.  I followed a kinda steady state cycle as i upped my intensity my cycles got longer.  For example beginning I did 3 weeks same exercise.  Then I did 5 weeks with another rep then so on....

The last session I trained I had full strap cross pullouts 3x3. I also was doing spotted cross pullouts on full rings with false grip. On ring trainer I was warming up with butterflies  azarian, and roll from cross to maltese.  Occasionally I would also go from victorian to cross.  I could hold the cross for about 10 seconds on ring trainer though I didn't really do maximum holds.

I use the "newer form" of cross where I roll shoulders over some instead of trying to keep chest high.  My coach did both during his career and said that it is easier to get to maltese from the rolled shoulder version.

i did intense RC work after the Helsinki seminar exactly one year ago till may where i attended the london seminar.

After the seminar i started to work with some rings trainer made on my forearm measure with 11 level instead of 7-8 or 5-6 of educano from gymnova.

So the jump from one level to the following is very little and i used the 5x5 schema on 12 weeks. Sometime i use the sensation on pressure on my tendons or the sensation of joints dom on the following day to decide if it's necessary to move on or rest on the same level and same reps x set.

For now i'm focusing only on iron cross, i'll wait a solid cross before train maltese.

I do not have access to a spotter in the gym for strength training but only for technique-related skills.

I'm currently doing 1 day heavy with cross pullout and one day light where i did usually cross negative + isometric that is for definition easier then pullout or assisted pullout.

i began from  RTO L-si then i moved to Support hold swing, support hold hips swing, support hold slide, support hold circles on the side and support hold front/back half circle.

I'm continuing to use RC, handstand, back lever to warm up properly before cross work.

Rope is definitely the way to go!!  I am trying to work up to what coach's kids do before ring strength so far I am at 5 doing 2x2 climbs and then a single to finish out.

I also found the the lockoffs coach does help the elbows a good bit.  

Did you find that you like the cross trainers more than the straps?  I borrowed some for a while but got tired of carrying them around and setting them up when the straps was just so easy.

Also be careful with negatives.  They are deceiving  especially since they cause damage.  I am theorizing that they prepare the tendons more however.

I have had to pause my rings for the next six months so I trying to stay interested and live vicariously through others

Yes actually negative can cause more damage but i never work to muscles failure and usually negative + isometric hold are done with 1 level more so they are always a form of light work. i use them to perceive the correct shoulders alignment. 

For the rope i'm actually doing 3 laps of 4 meters followed by 1.5 laps with 5-6 kg as a warm up, they are very useful for the forearms also if you practice inverted muscleup.

I definitely prefer the ring trainer, since they are done on my forearms measure (they are self made), and i have a simple way to attach them to the rings. the rings are always at the same length in my gym and if i cannot use the competition rings i can move to the dream machine where you can adjust the height. in this way you only need 20 seconds to attach them up.

I used for a little period the straps but everytime i got a big edema on my forearms for 3-4 days and i can't have the same same same leverage for all the training days.

why you need to pause on rings?

I'm very impressed of how much long straps have great influence on iron cross hold. today i tried it for first time on low strap( 1.5 meters. this is very very easy, i did 10 seconds hold. i've very curious to try it on the final form on the regular rings. not now, i have 5 more levels to master!

Yes. Length of straps makes a very large difference. I always trained mine on the long straps that were probably double the length of regulation. I rarely worked it on the regular rings.

What is the spacing between loops on your ring trainers.  Would be interesting to calculate how much of a jump in intensity each notch is.

IS 0.8 cm, i noticed that, when a 5x5 on the previous level is achieved I can do only one rep on the following.

Interesting,  according to my calculation that distance jump is only about 1 percent of the total torque required for the complete cross.  This assumes that your arm length is about 30 inches.

Its an increase of about 5.2Nm for each notch where the total cross is about 525Nm for a person weighing 66kg.

Use more levels wasn't a decision taken by a chance!