The Iron Cross

Castleclimber said:

Excellent! Slizzardman, can you already do a cross at 220Lbs or are you training for it like me?

I'm currently doing two sessions a week on the long rings with false grip and spotter and one session a week on my Elite rings (5" straps) with no spotter or false grip. I'm hoping that this will help me get to the non false grip cross by next January.

On short rings, almost. around 75-80 degrees. Long rings? HA! Not even close. I can't train anything that stresses my elbows right now, so cross training is out for a while. We can do it though! Just take your time, don't be a retard like me and hurt your elbows by trying to do fingers-backwards planches too fast!

slizzardman said:

On short rings, almost. around 75-80 degrees. Long rings? HA! Not even close. I can't train anything that stresses my elbows right now, so cross training is out for a while. We can do it though! Just take your time, don't be a retard like me and hurt your elbows by trying to do fingers-backwards planches too fast!

Nice one on the cross progress! I'm sorry to hear that your training has been impeded by an annoying injury. I'm taking planche progressions very slowly as I'm quite new to them and have the most inflexible wrists ever.

I hope you recover soon.

I forgot to mention; I'm 65 degrees into the cross on short strapped rings at the moment but feel I'm failing more due to lack of joint preparation than muscular failure. Perhaps when the elbows get used to the stress, I'll make faster progress

The joint prep is really important. Specific biceps training will help your cross as well, or so I see posted here a lot!

I'm healing up ok, it's just going to take time My shoulder is the real issue, I may end up having to go to a doctor in the end but so far it seems like I am making slow but steady progress there too. I know that elastic band spotting with the cross is supposed to help a lot too, if you don't do that go buy some cheap bands or something and hold the ends on the rings while you stand on the band to train cross pulls and your cross static hold. It'll take some weight off, helping you adapt to more extreme angles. A lot of people here have had success with that as well!

Handbalancer said:

Hello, I have a question about the cross. I am a handbalancer and I just started circus school at a circus school where they have a couple of long rings. I have a fair bit of straight arm strenght due to 1 arm handstands, planches and other skills. I tried lowering into a cross today, and though I couldnt hold it, I felt quite strong and comfortable with it. The thing was, that when I fell, it didnt feel like a collapse. I could still feel that I exerted some force, and it reminded me of a negative repetition. There was no discomfort at all in my elbows or shoulders, even after 3 or 4 tries. The last time I tried a bit on this(before I did a LOT of planche work) I got weak pains in my elbows even on low rings.

My question is basically if there is anything to gain from working with negatives at crosses or if it easily can end in injuries. Since you are allways moving a tiny bit beyond your controlled range of movement, it seems like a pretty good way to build strenght. The reason I ask is because a lot of the strenght I have at presses to handstand, 1 arm handstand positions, planches, and even 1 arm presses to handstand have come from doing negatives, lowering controlled down from handstand. Even so, I have little knowledge of rings, and would like to know from someone who is experienced before working further on it, or if I should do pullouts instead.

I think that if you can feel some kind of tension all the way through the cross, you probably have a good amount of strength in that positions. Just try to feel a point where your shoulder can lock. Try rolling your shoulders forward also. It's weird to explain, maybe try to find someone to show this to you or a video of it. Once you learn to do that, I am sure you will be fine in your crosses!!

Good Luck!

here is a good video of showing how to roll the shoulders forward in the cross

Sorry i can't see where is the video :|