Seeking general advice on advanced skill elements.

First off, the basics: I've been doing rings for 6 years now. I have a very good grasp of the basics: front-level, back-lever, muscle-up, handstand, press handstand, etc. I'm having some trouble building up to the more advanced strength elements, though, so I'm looking for some advice on augmenting my strength training.

Currently, I'm on a 5-day practice schedule, and work ring strength twice a week. I have access to a full gymnastics facility, including low-rings with a counterweight. On tuesdays (second day) I will usually perform and/or attempt various strength holds. For example, last week, my tuesday looked like this:

- V-walk across the floor

- 4x 2s planche on floor

- 4x 2s maltese with 25# counterweight.

- 4x 2s inverted cross with 25# counterweight

- 4x 2s cross with 35# counterweight

With the entire circuit performed twice through.

On fridays I tend to focus on dynamic exercises, sometimes with additional weight strapped to myself and sometimes with a counterweight. A typical Friday will look like this:

- 4x dips with 81# of weight

- 12x leg-lifts with 24# of weight on my ankles

- 4x pull-ups with 57# of weight

- 3x wide-arm handstand pushups on rings

- 2x Advanced negative maltese presses (like normal, but with support just above the elbow instead of at the shoulder); 2x straddled.

- 3-4x planche pushups (free standing)

- 2x butterflies (straight arm pullup to cross) with 70# counterweight

All reps are performed *very* slowly, and I do the entire circuit twice through.

I feel like I've hit a bit of a plateau. My maltese and my cross don't really feel any stronger now than they did several months ago. I can now perform a planche on rings and my inverted cross feels much stronger, but my maltese and iron cross seem to have stagnated. I'm not sure what I'm missing, so any advice or critiques of my workout would be appreciated.

I think you will get more of a response if you add some videos that show your workout and if you give more complete information. For example, what type of exercises do you do during the other three days? How much do you weigh (given that you use counterweights) and how tall are you?

Personally, I am curious to hear from you why you use only one day per week of 2x(4x2s) holds of your planche, etc. for your strength gain. After six years of training you must have figured that that works for you, but it seems to be a lot less than what generally is advised on this board.

FritsMB said:

I think you will get more of a response if you add some videos that show your workout and if you give more complete information. For example, what type of exercises do you do during the other three days? How much do you weigh (given that you use counterweights) and how tall are you?

Personally, I am curious to hear from you why you use only one day per week of 2x(4x2s) holds of your planche, etc. for your strength gain. After six years of training you must have figured that that works for you, but it seems to be a lot less than what generally is advised on this board.

I'm 5'6" and weigh 165#.

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday I do some minor conditioning drills (e.g. some wristups, hip-flexor strength, etc) but that only takes about five minutes. The majority of my time is spent on event work; swinging high bar, tumbling, etc, with 30 minutes of stretching at the end, too.

I do two days of strength a week because my coach recommended that I do so. His reasoning was that working muscles before they have a chance to fully recover is counterproductive, and since it takes 2-3 days to recover from a hard workout, any more than twice a week would be counterproductive.

I can take some videos of my workout tomorrow night. For now, this is a video I took Tuesday. Having recently read about Galimores here, I decided to try them out. This was my fourth set of the day:

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How does your diet look? I've ran into many plateaus that I was able to pass simply by eating more.

3-4k calories a day in general, but I don't keep careful track.

Breakfast is generally nonfat greek yoghurt, peanut butter and fruit.

Lunch is lots of veggies and meat, sometimes with cheese and/or bread.

Dinner is generally about the same as lunch, plus a protein shake on days that I do strength training.

Also, I *have* been getting stronger; I've been increasing the weight I use on weighted exercises by a couple pounds every couple of weeks. However, I'm starting to feel like I need to reorganize my workout because it doesn't seem to be helping much for the strength holds.

Either workout is light on volume. Perhaps try training more volume.

Your static work is light volume/high intensity.

Your bent arm work is medium volume/medium intensity.

How long have you been using the current scheme?

Lack of volume sounds about right. I feel like I could definitely be doing more each day, as I'm generally recovered within 1-2 days.

I've been doing this workout for about two months now. I think it's about time to change up some of the exercises I'm doing to prevent stagnation.

With regards to the volume issue, what do you think about adding a third run through for both days? I'd probably have to use more counterweight/less extra weight to keep it clean, but I could definitely make it through. Or would it be more beneficial to do strength on a third day, too?

Well, I think the Ring Strength on 2 days is fine where it is.

You probably just need to work more volume in on the general strength what you call dynamic strength days.

I take it that you workout M-F. I'd insert W as a lighter day if you're going 5 days in a row. This can be just HS work and event basics, trampoline whatever. I'm not if you're mainly a rings specialist or just a fitness enthusiast with a rings focus.

It would be simple enough to split it up into straight arm strength and bent arm strength days. This is what I did and I liked. However, I cannot say that would be good for you because you have advanced ring strength. C's and D's. At my best, I was working on B's. Whoopty frick'n do. For me, it allowed me to focus more on each modality more, and was a nice split instead of the same thing 4 days a week. As well, I'm into my 30's and sleep/recovery was an issue. It's not like it was 10 years ago.

Blairbob said:

Well, I think the Ring Strength on 2 days is fine where it is.

You probably just need to work more volume in on the general strength what you call dynamic strength days.

I'm gonna try adding some volume and also switching up the exercises I'm doing. I'll report back in a few weeks about any improvements. But I'll know by Sunday whether I've made things hard enough :twisted: .

I take it that you workout M-F. I'd insert W as a lighter day if you're going 5 days in a row. This can be just HS work and event basics, trampoline whatever. I'm not if you're mainly a rings specialist or just a fitness enthusiast with a rings focus.

Already doing that

Good luck. Possibly look into some of the other workout logs of advanced rings guys around. Gregor's come to mind. Gregor Saksida.

Friday I did this 3x through, with a 3-5 minute rest between each complete circuit:

1. 5x windsheild wipers (each way) with 24#

2. 4x dips on rings (turned out) with 40# weight

3. 4x wide-arm handstand pushups on rings

4. 1x rope climb with 40# weight (my biceps still hurt)

5. 4x planche pushups

6. 4x maltese presses

I struggled through the last round but I still feel like I could have done more. I'm thinking next time it might be worth trying a fourth run-through with less weight. Or maybe it'd be better to try some more weight on the 1st/2nd runs so I'll be more tired on the third. I'm still feeling a little bit sore, but mostly recovered now.

1. The windshield-wipers were tough, and a nice variation on leg lifts. I think I'll keep them for a while.

2. Switching from rings to p-bars for dips made them significantly harder. I think doing these with the rings out engages a different group of muscles, and it also engages some ancillary muscles for stabilizing the arms.

3. I definitely need to add some weight to myself for the wide-arm pushups (or find a new exercise for inverted cross strength), as these aren't much of a challenge anymore.

4. These are balls hard. Definitely going to keep them for a while.

5. I'm struggling to chain these together; I tend to do these very fast and fall a lot. I think I'll ask for a spot next time so I can do them right.

6. I can now do 4 of these without much trouble. Time to add some weight.