Ring Strength and WODs

After this Fridays WOD with the following ring strength routine-

3 sets of; MU, 2 XR Dips, L-sit press shoulder stand, roll fwd into a MU to a shoulder stand, negative Reverse MU down to an inverted hang, 2 slow Reverse Cranks, 2 slow FL Pulls

If i'm still working on Ring Strength I (can't do muscle up, and poor XR dips, working on Russian negatives now) do i just perform Ring Strength I in place of what ever the given routine?

Is there any benefit to working on some of the extra or new elements individually for example adding the rev cranks, FL pulls to RS I, or lowering the rings after doing the RS I and playing with Shoulder Stands?

Naturally its kind of nice to work on these, but is it going to help progress in the long run or If i can't do a muscle up yet, is it best if i focus most of my energy on that?

I've noticed that most of the WODs have gotten to the point where i pretty much know what to do and get through them fairly efficiently but the Ring Strength one i find i'm fiddling with what and how to do them, this Friday's was a disaster that way. I totally got bogged down, and ran out of time well before finishing.

I have the feeling i should just block the instructions on the page out and do RS I with some extra Muscle Up work and be happy.

I did note that Coach wants us to be able to do three MUs before moving on to RSII.

Scale down the muscle up to a jumping or negative and scale down others. Your main focus should be to get a muscle up and develop the upper body strength & stamina to preform the routines. This is what I personally thing, wait for other responses also don't just follow mine as others may have better ideas or opinions.

I'd agree: scale the ring stuff just like you would any other exercise. Get the basics solid before worrying about an exact ring series. And you can certainly do your own series with what you're capable of--it doesn't need to have the exact flow as RS3 to be effective. You can do a "top half" with jumping muscle-up with slow negative or to support, l-sit variation, negative dips, or a "bottom" half tuck 360 pulls, tuck fl/bl, inverted hang, german hang.

With clients, I typically begin elements as sets/reps and then slowly work it into a circuit of 2-3 things. We'll repeat that small circuit to proficiency while continuing set/reps with more difficult elements. First step for them is always a solid support. My clients will also tell you I'm a rings-turned-out nazi. I've tried focusing on getting the muscle up perfect before adding anything else after, but I found with most clients it's more about time to develop it rather than pure volume and focus. Using the above template is working best for them. As long as your work volume/intensity is appropriate and you continually make progress, you're good to go.

Then as you became comfortable with that, progress the variation. Once you're solid in RS1, continue with it, but add focus work on the forward roll. Once you develop basic proficiency from the focus work, start RS2. Shoulderstands also aren't anything you need to rush towards. They're fun, but imo lower priority than perfecting everything before it.

Edit: Could you give more detail on where you are ability wise? how long of a support, what you can do set/rep wise with your dip variation, etc. That'll allow more input on hammering out an exact routine for you.

Thanks for the replies-

Core- i haven't really tested my dips. Since i started do them a when i made the parallets during the summer i've improved. As a kid they were impossible, and i never tried again till now. First i could squeak out 5, the last dip WOD i did 7-10 no problem without breaks. These are full range dips. On rings i'm at about 2/3 range, not sure of reps, maybe 5.

Support hold on PBs a minute is easy, on rings about 30 sec but a bit unsteady at times.

The pulling is equally horrible, i'm only at 5 good pull ups per set. It feels like i need to put more time into them as well.

Other than the MU and forward roll the rest of RS I is no problem, scaled to tuck of flat tuck.

It definitely sounds like you should replace MU with dips and pull ups! On the rings, it's ok if you aren't at full ROM yet, just make sure what you CAN do is perfect! You will slowly work towards that full ROM.

It sounds like your dipping strength is progressing faster than your pull ups. You should definitely be concentrating there, and doing specific pull up work 2-3x per week. Not killing yourself, but if your max is 5 pull ups then 4-5 sets of 3 reps 2-3x per week shouldn't kill you. I'd do a different grip with each set, personally, just to make sure you're strengthening everything, but that's not absolutely necessary.

slizzardman said:

It definitely sounds like you should replace MU with dips and pull ups! On the rings, it's ok if you aren't at full ROM yet, just make sure what you CAN do is perfect! You will slowly work towards that full ROM.

It sounds like your dipping strength is progressing faster than your pull ups. You should definitely be concentrating there, and doing specific pull up work 2-3x per week. Not killing yourself, but if your max is 5 pull ups then 4-5 sets of 3 reps 2-3x per week shouldn't kill you. I'd do a different grip with each set, personally, just to make sure you're strengthening everything, but that's not absolutely necessary.

Sounds like good advice to me and pretty much my intuition as well. I've been doing pyramids 1 / 2 / 3 / 3or4 , but somewhat sporadicly, i'll make it a regular thing now.

Is more than 3x week too much?

One other question since you have so much pullup experience. Does the bar matter, i have a free hanging oak dowel i use. Its hanging on climbing straps so it is free to swing and turn. I used to it but occasionally wonder if this is working against me. It is hard to get a finger grip, are there any other reasons i should think of having a fixed bar or just shut up and do pull ups on whatever?

3x a week ought to be fine with pull ups. Poliquin's GVT method at half your max reps is another really effective method. As for the bar, having it fixed would help a lot in the development stage. Your goal at this point is getting full ROM and as little kip-like movement as possible.

Mr Brady said:

Sounds like good advice to me and pretty much my intuition as well. I've been doing pyramids 1 / 2 / 3 / 3or4 , but somewhat sporadicly, i'll make it a regular thing now.

Is more than 3x week too much?

One other question since you have so much pullup experience. Does the bar matter, i have a free hanging oak dowel i use. Its hanging on climbing straps so it is free to swing and turn. I used to it but occasionally wonder if this is working against me. It is hard to get a finger grip, are there any other reasons i should think of having a fixed bar or just shut up and do pull ups on whatever?

I've done pullups on a free hanging bar like that. It is just harder. You probably would be able to do a few more on a fixed bar, but the one you are using would be more like the rings, so unless you really want it, I think that is fine.

coreathlete said:

3x a week ought to be fine with pull ups. Poliquin's 10x10 method at half your max reps is another really effective method. As for the bar, having it fixed would help a lot in the development stage. Your goal at this point is getting full ROM and as little kip-like movement as possible.

I went to research this before I commented because it's been a while since I have seen the German Volume Training guidelines. I have a question:

1) Since GVT, 10x10, whatever you want to call it, is based around doing 100 reps with 60% of 1RM in a very short period of time. with the sole goal being muscular hypertrophy. I absolutely agree that Mr. Brady's pull up ability will benefit from packing on some more muscle in the lats and scapular regions, but I fail to see how it is possible to apply a 10x10 method to someone who can not perform 10 reps. You would be fundamentally changing the nature of the stimulus. I suppose that with enough assistance he could do it, and that I could see being effective, but altering the reps (especially with such a low rep count) wouldn't really be 10x10 and certainly wouldn't produce analogous results.

Having a fixed bar will make a small difference, but that's a small detail. Mr Brady could staple through the strap into the wood with wood staples to prevent dowel rotation to prevent the rotation, but I don't think that's going to make a big difference in his progress.

I'll have to dig up my 12 weeks to BUDs workout to verify, but Stew Smith's program for getting people's pull ups to the point where they could actually do the program was very simple, very similar to what I suggested and looks like this:

2 rounds of 5 reps per grip: Close, regular, wide, chin up, parallel grip. If this is too much, do 2 rounds of 2, 3, 4 etc until you get to 2 rounds of 5 reps. Do not increase the reps of your first sets until ALL rounds and reps can be done at a particular level. Example, don't start doing 4 rep sets until all 5 sets in both rounds are at 3 reps.

At 2 rounds of 5 reps per grip, you should have a max of 7-9 pull ups at least. You're then ready to start tackling 2 rounds of 7 reps and then 2 rounds of 10 reps. You COULD just keep increasing the reps of your first sets every time you are able to handle a specific number of reps for both rounds. This is a great beginning pull up program, and actually works well all the way up through the 10 reps per set. I never took it past this. 2-3x per week is perfect, and that will be dependent on each person's recovery ability and how their progress goes.

3-5x5 isn't all that different. The program I described is specifically designed to produce relatively quick increases in pull up endurance. In my opinion, doing that at least once every other week is a good idea, both to give the body something new to deal with and to facilitate rehab and vascularization of the muscles. The rest of the time, the 5x5 should be cake even with weight. Once you're at 2 rounds of 5 reps, 5x5 is going to be easy, because that's 25 reps instead of 50. You' will probably have to add a little weight, maybe 5-10 lbs, for the non-L variations.

Wow thanks for the replies everyone!

I was also wondering how 10x10 would work for me, w/o having to use so much band assistance that its silly at least.

I like the sound of your Multi-grip program Slizz: work up to 2 supersets of 5 reps of 5 variations.

It helpful to hear comments about the bar, mostly i wanted to hear from you all just so i could know if it has some effect. I don't mind if its harder, but i wasn't sure if it was just that the pull ups are hard for me anyway (they are) or the bar makes them harder (it does, but not unmanageably). If i get a chance to set up a solid one i will, but now i know its just a little harder, no big deal.

I'm somewhat confused by the ending of your last post though Slizz, i didn't quite get where you were coming from in the last paragraph, why you went into the 5x5 is that different. I guess i don't see where that comes into play unless they somehow fit into the WODs?

BTW so this is from some kind of BUDS prep course?

edit:

Oh how would you fit lets say 3x / week of this in with the WODs program? Do as stand alone, warmup, tie into pulling WODs or replace them?

If the day's wod is not a pull day then I would do your pull ups in your warm up. You are not allowed to take more than 30s rest between grips, but 3-5 minutes between the two rounds is fine.

The 5x5 is more like what will be expected in strength WODs, but right now that doesn't matter for you because you are not there yet. The 2 round program I outlined will have you there very quickly, probably by the end of the year. I would personally suggest working up to 2 rounds of at least 7 reps per grip since these reps are not "tempo" reps. Make sure you go to dead hang each rep, but outside of that just use good form. That will have you in good shape for the tempo reps we do on many WODs.

The GVT protocol with pull ups/chins is not 10x10, rather it is your (max number of pull ups) )/2 done for those ten sets. Round down if your half number is a decimal. I'll link the exact article once i'm home. I've used it for a year and a half now and found it very effective witu clients. I'll also use small weights to increase the load while a client is not quite to another rep for the whole series. Best way I found to get the two percent rule with that.

Edit: I just realized my first post did say 10x10 not Gvt like I had in my head. Sorry for the confusion, fixed it.

Gotcha. So it ends up being essentially the same program as what I was talking about... interesting. Where did you hear about that?

Mr Brady said:

Wow thanks for the replies everyone!

I was also wondering how 10x10 would work for me, w/o having to use so much band assistance that its silly at least.

I like the sound of your Multi-grip program Slizz: work up to 2 supersets of 5 reps of 5 variations.

It helpful to hear comments about the bar, mostly i wanted to hear from you all just so i could know if it has some effect. I don't mind if its harder, but i wasn't sure if it was just that the pull ups are hard for me anyway (they are) or the bar makes them harder (it does, but not unmanageably). If i get a chance to set up a solid one i will, but now i know its just a little harder, no big deal.

I'm somewhat confused by the ending of your last post though Slizz, i didn't quite get where you were coming from in the last paragraph, why you went into the 5x5 is that different. I guess i don't see where that comes into play unless they somehow fit into the WODs?

BTW so this is from some kind of BUDS prep course?

edit:

Oh how would you fit lets say 3x / week of this in with the WODs program? Do as stand alone, warmup, tie into pulling WODs or replace them?

Yes, it's from BUDS prep. Pull ups are the primary indicator of success, surprisingly.

Ok that makes sense, and here's what's funny- if you look at Slizz's suggestion it amounts to the same thing.

I did it tonight, its 10 sets total, and the number of pull ups i found i had to use was about half my max. The only difference being the variations in grip.

I really appreciate the help with this. I see that for at least a few months i need to concentrate on building pulls, which is actually what got me going on GB in the first place, i would like to get to 10 max by next year, i think that's realistic barring health problems.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes now that i have a good idea of how to proceed in mind.

slizzardman said:

Gotcha. So it ends up being essentially the same program as what I was talking about... interesting. Where did you hear about that?

The pull up method? I've been a proponent of pull ups as a training staple since day 1. That caught me a ton of flack from the other trainers and my manager at the Flag Athletic Club, so I did some digging for proof and found out exactly what Poliquin recommended. Actually, I think the first bit of Poliquin I ever heard was his statement that he measures a good trainer by how they get their clients doing chin/pull ups.

Pull ups are indeed integral to many athletic endeavors, not to mention getting through the world. I was simply curious about where you read the GVT for pull ups. It is essentially identical to Stew Smith's method, which makes me think that he learned it from someone else. Smart man, to recognize something effective and use it, if that is what happened. I've read a good bit of poliquin but I haven't seen the GVT pull up stuff. I'll go search for it now.

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/432/Rising_to_Pull-Up_Success.aspx

This is a rewrite of what I had a couple years ago, but the information is the same, just less detailed on the GVT method. Who knows whether Poliquin learned it elsewhere or came up with an application of GVT; it doesn't make too much of a difference to me. He's generally great at crediting techniques to sources so it wouldn't surprise me if both parties came to the same conclusion independently. Effective training is effective training, and equally educated minds will often arrive at the same place.

You might already do this, but early on, I started printing every article or post I might need at some point in the future to a pdf file and organizing it by author/site and general subject (training, gymnastics, etc). Makes it simple to pull up Ido: Advanced training methods, or Studies: celiac disease as you need to reference something. I take a copy of the library around with me on a flash drive and it's been awesome when I need to print something for a client, doctor, or whoever.

coreathlete said:

You might already do this, but early on, I started printing every article or post I might need at some point in the future to a pdf file and organizing it by author/site and general subject (training, gymnastics, etc). Makes it simple to pull up Ido: Advanced training methods, or Studies: celiac disease as you need to reference something. I take a copy of the library around with me on a flash drive and it's been awesome when I need to print something for a client, doctor, or whoever.

Great idea.

It looks like Slizz and i posted at the same time. I love this forum.

coreathlete said:

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/432/Rising_to_Pull-Up_Success.aspx

This is a rewrite of what I had a couple years ago, but the information is the same, just less detailed on the GVT method. Who knows whether Poliquin learned it elsewhere or came up with an application of GVT; it doesn't make too much of a difference to me. He's generally great at crediting techniques to sources so it wouldn't surprise me if both parties came to the same conclusion independently. Effective training is effective training, and equally educated minds will often arrive at the same place.

I meant Stew Smith, not Poliquin. Poliquin is always very clear about who he learns things from, and that's one of my favorite things about him! I just read the link you posted, thanks! I do need to start filing my articles and posts.

Small progress report: Today to celebrate my 48th birthday i did a pull up test and hit my goal of 10. I did 4 sets: 7, 10, 10 , 9 reps. Have been doing WODs, the Slizz multi-grip plan.

Mr Brady said:

Today to celebrate my 48th birthday i did a pull up test and hit my goal of 10.

Excellent! Happy Birthday, and congrats on the achievement!

Nice Mr. Brady! Congratulations

Nice coincidence. It is my 48th birthday as well. I didn't have a specific goal, but when I tested my floor L-sit today I was able to keep it nice and solid for 35 seconds. Two months ago it was 20. Thanks to Coach, I think I'm getting stronger as I get older. Greatest b'day gift for me!