Iron Cross is bad for you

I know some of you have seen this by now, a facebook comment by Ido Portal a few hours ago:

"I've written before on the Iron Cross. Short story: did it myself, taught it to others. Paid the price, so did others. Realized it is not a health promoting element, to say the least. Looked at the anatomy behind it - didnt like what I have seen as well. Eliminated it from my practice and from the practice of my students. I do not believe it is worth the risks and degradation of the shoulder capsule and glenohumeral joint as seen by a very high percentage of shoulder surgeries of elite level gymnasts in general and ring specialists specifically. Some can stay healthy on a diet of crosses, most will not. Other elements I am not fond of from similar reasons: inlocate/dislocate, maltese, various high impact swings and giants on the rings."

source: https://www.facebook.com/portal.ido

I'm not sure what to make of it. Of course, many of us look up to Ido so would like to hear your thoughts...comments...remarks...

I hurt myself swimming once, in fact every year there are swimming injuries, therefore swimming is not healthy.  

looks like someone didn't do their foundation work

The blind leading the blind.

Ido did indeed have an iron cross.  A nice bent arm iron cross.  

Years ago when he was still training with me, Ido sent me a link to a video of his new iron cross.  He had attempted to learn it on his own.  He was so proud.  My daughter and I sat down to watch it.  She was a young gymnast on pre-team at the time, only 5 or 6 yrs old.  She was quite excited as Ido had been a guest in our home not long before.  On seeing the video the first words out of her mouth were, "Ido's arms are bent.  Why are his arms bent?"

I jokingly sent my daughter's comment to Ido.  He was less than amused.  Even then his ego tended to far outstrip his abilities.  I however thought it was quite humorous that Ido's error was so glaring that even a child could see it.  And her comment was spot on.

The bottom line is that Ido had not the slightest clue then on how to properly train straight arm ring strength elements and he has not the slightest clue now.  Which is why he not only failed to achieve substantial straight arm ring strength himself, but his students continue to fail to achieve this as well.

Ido is entertaining.  And irreverent.  And he is certainly one of the best at paraphrasing old Bruce Lee writings.  But a master of ring strength?  Not even close.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

 

Ido did indeed have an iron cross.  A nice bent arm iron cross.  

 

So in other words, a bulgarian ring dip?

No, not nearly that bent.  But bent enough to be quite obvious.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Sorry, that was sarcasm there, should've had a smilie

I am very curious though, all of those elements he mentioned:  inlocate/dislocate, maltese, various high impact swings and giants on the rings.  Maltese is obvious (Iron Cross in R3 -> Maltese in R4), those other elements shouldn't be trained until after Iron Cross is mastered right?  Since you often talk about how exercises that are dynamic in nature places more stress on the connective tissues

The other elements are still ring swinging elements that are far beyond Ido's technical abilities.  He is merely speaking hypothetically without the benefit of any practical experience.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Enlightening, thank you.

Did some searching around to see if I could find if he had publicly posted the iron cross video shown to you. And perhaps the embedded video on this old blog is the one you are referring to. http://idoportal.blogspot.com/2008/04/san-francisco.html

Coach,

I noticed that I had only seen John sapinoso doing bent arm as well. To your knowledge did he develop one? I seem to recall josh saying he was working it many years ago at a seminar.

- That's the one, Micawberian.  Nice find.  

- Once Johnny headed over to train with Ido, he no longer had access to someone who could properly guide his straight arm ring strength training.  

Johnny spent several years with me rebuilding his ring strength after his elbow exploded when he tried to straighten the elbows of his bent arm iron cross.  His elbow swelled up to more than double its normal size and took over a year to heal.  Johnny is another who attempted to learn an iron cross on his own and paid a heavy price for his lack of knowledge.  

After we taught Johnny to slow down and put quality first he began making excellent progress.  I do not remember clearly however whether Johnny progressed up to an iron cross or not.  I think so, but I would not swear to it.  Johnny has some very good posts here on the forum documenting his GB training for those who care to dig for them.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Out of curiosity, since your own personal athletes experience correct progressions from day 1 of their training, do they struggle more with bent arm strength or straight arm strength

Straight arm ring strength is where the majority of the ring strength benefits occur.  And everyone struggles more with straight arm strength on rings.  At least those who learn it properly.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

It is kind of depressing to hear that Ido is so ignorant as it seems. He is a role model to many people. It probably comes from being right 95% of the time and therefore assuming that he is right the rest 5%. Also, he does not strike me as a guy, who say "Wait, I don't really know. Let me look into it for you. Maybe I someone out there is better suited to answer you than me".

Freshpro said:

It is kind of depressing to hear that Ido is so ignorant as it seems. He is a role model to many people. It probably comes from being right 95% of the time and therefore assuming that he is right the rest 5%. Also, he does not strike me as a guy, who say "Wait, I don't really know. Let me look into it for you. Maybe I someone out there is better suited to answer you than me".

Plenty of people know plenty about their fields.

Coach is a very high-level gymnastics specialist with an analytical mind and access to thousands of hours in the lab. It's plain hard to find a source comparable, within that field.

Well.... that's what brought us here in the first place, isn't it?

It's hardly depressing, and calling Ido Portal ignorant is probably somewhat exaggerated. Nobody's perfect, and to be fair, Mr. Portal does cover a wide spectrum of arts, whereby the depth of knowledge of the individual areas become not shallow, but perhaps not as deep as someone who has been specializing in a particular area for a lifetime.

http://idoportal.blogspot.co.at/2008/05/grand-canyon-coach-sommer-and-misc.html

and this is the visit of him that you mentioned which was not long before he send the iron cross video to you?

it's really interesting to hear this insightful information about Ido Portal. people always tend to think "wow he has got so smooth moves he must know his stuff" when in reality he has obviously no clue about teaching harder progressions, especially ring strength elements.

and the ego is usually what stalls the progress on everyone if you let it

Ido is a great athlete, no question about that. Most of his movements and movement combinations obviously come from his background in capoeira but he has combined it nicely with some handbalancing, basic gymnastics positions and 'locomotion' patterns. And he's able to execute his stuff with confidence.

What I do find annoying is that he always talks about The Process, being thorough and systematic and building from the basics but then goes on to show videos of his students boasting that they learned to do the stuff in the video (always handstand, straddle planche, front and back lever, muscle up and one-arm chin, never anything else except maybe tiny amounts of floreio/locomotion) in 3 to 12 months. I don't care that he is able to teach some people (most of them already strong to begin with) to do these things in a short amount of time - but they always seem to stall after reaching a certain level. At least, I haven't seen anything more advanced from his students.

I think Ido should have stayed in his niche of capoeira-inspired floreio movements. I feel that's where he can actually contribute.

I guess the day will come that people start noticing that there are better ways to work on GST than Ido's, and to actually *gasp* progress beyond sPL, FL, BL, MU and OAC.

MvdB said:

 

What I do find annoying is that he always talks about The Process, being thorough and systematic and building from the basics but then goes on to show videos of his students boasting that they learned to do the stuff in the video (always handstand, straddle planche, front and back lever, muscle up and one-arm chin, never anything else except maybe tiny amounts of floreio/locomotion) in 3 to 12 months. I don't care that he is able to teach some people (most of them already strong to begin with) to do these things in a short amount of time - but they always seem to stall after reaching a certain level. At least, I haven't seen anything more advanced from his students.

 

They focus a lot on other things too, as 'generalists' wouldn't it be hard to advance beyond already pretty advanced moves like straddle planche and one-arm chin-up. It's hard enough getting there as it is!

Jon Douglas said:

Plenty of people know plenty about their fields.

Coach is a very high-level gymnastics specialist with an analytical mind and access to thousands of hours in the lab. It's plain hard to find a source comparable, within that field.

Well.... that's what brought us here in the first place, isn't it?

I am talking about Ido making statements based only on individual considerations instead of looking to (in this case) gymnastics to find an answer. It reminds me of him saying that he does not want to work with vegans because they are weak.

When I say ignorant, I mean as a person in general.

He is very knowledgeable in his field, but tries to make more of it like I stated in my previous comments. And when confronted with the possibility of being wrong he take it personal and acts immature. His facebook statuses really reflects this. I have respect for Ido for his movement philosophy and his knowledge in his field, but sometimes he just acts "inappropriate".

imo, if one wants to be a generalist, he is right. if ido wanted to direct all his efforts into advanced ring strength i'm sure he would have remarkable progress. however his ring strength is trained along with handbalancing, climbing, locomotion, floreio, brachiating etc etc. so him having easy straddle planches and one arm chins (i've seen a picture of him full planching floating around somewhere) is pretty incredible, as ring strength or gymnastic strength is only a small percentage of his overall practice.

For a generalist, can you "afford" to iron cross? What is the point? just to say you did it? it is certainly not a necessity if being a mover is your primary goal, and where is the transfer to other organic disciplines (climbing,various martial arts, parkour etc.). After a certain point, you are going to be subtracting time from other 'more human' skills and be incomplete or imbalanced as a mover.

And also yes you can adapt to almost anything, but that doesnt mean it is good for you. Normal people adapt to sitting 12-14 hours a day and for many many years or decades feel normal until it catches up with them. Immense stress under almost full internal rotation of the shoulder, maybe you'll be fine for a while, but we don't see many ex gymnasts showing health and longevity though their are some exceptions (as opposed to, for example, handbalancers. many examples of those in their 40's and older at almost peak performance and health still).

Again, you may be able to slowly work up to it and balance out the shoulder girdle from almost the full internal rotation, but at the end you will probably have just an iron cross to show for it, when alot of that adaptive energy can be used for enhancing and promoting other basic and human qualities. If being a specialist is your goal, then this doesn't apply! But for a generalist the cost of the iron cross will make the rest of your practice suffer.

NikArun said:

imo, if one wants to be a generalist, he is right. if ido wanted to direct all his efforts into advanced ring strength i'm sure he would have remarkable progress. however his ring strength is trained along with handbalancing, climbing, locomotion, floreio, brachiating etc etc. so him having easy straddle planches and one arm chins (i've seen a picture of him full planching floating around somewhere) is pretty incredible, as ring strength or gymnastic strength is only a small percentage of his overall practice.

 

For a generalist, can you "afford" to iron cross? What is the point? just to say you did it? it is certainly not a necessity if being a mover is your primary goal, and where is the transfer to other organic disciplines (climbing,various martial arts, parkour etc.). After a certain point, you are going to be subtracting time from other 'more human' skills and be incomplete or imbalanced as a mover.

 

And also yes you can adapt to almost anything, but that doesnt mean it is good for you. Normal people adapt to sitting 12-14 hours a day and for many many years or decades feel normal until it catches up with them. Immense stress under almost full internal rotation of the shoulder, maybe you'll be fine for a while, but we don't see many ex gymnasts showing health and longevity though their are some exceptions (as opposed to, for example, handbalancers. many examples of those in their 40's and older at almost peak performance and health still).

 

Again, you may be able to slowly work up to it and balance out the shoulder girdle from almost the full internal rotation, but at the end you will probably have just an iron cross to show for it, when alot of that adaptive energy can be used for enhancing and promoting other basic and human qualities. If being a specialist is your goal, then this doesn't apply! But for a generalist the cost of the iron cross will make the rest of your practice suffer.

Do you think gymnasts only train strength. You should visit a gym sometime.

We train straight arm ring strength, not for its entertainment value, but because of the tremendous strength benefits it conveys to the practioner. Performed properly it takes no longer than other strength training modality with much better end results.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Man, guys, I'm sorry. It was just supposed to be a simple question about iron cross safety...