Iron Cross Pulls with a assistance machine

[Gaben18]

Say if a gym had rings, and a assistance machine, couldn't you increase your strength rapidly, and make iron cross pulls your predominant shoulder, compound exercise? Incrementing the weight later on with a weight belt, and 1.5 pound increments.

Demonstrated below

Article on Iron-cross, and bodybuilding.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... s_for_body

builders

[Coach Sommer]

If you have already prepared the elbows for iron cross work; yes, it is a clever idea. If not, you will more than likely injure yourself.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[dzejkej]

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... s_for_body

builders

The link is not working. Can you please fix it? I would love to read the article .

[Gaben18]

How do i prepare my elbows Coach?

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... dybuilders

[Piotr Ochocki]

Start with using search function, good info from Coach about conditioning them for iron cross is on the forum and should be easy to find.

[Coach Sommer]

How do i prepare my elbows Coach?

The essay on how to prepare the elbows for iron cross work is one of the stickies here in the ring strength forum.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Baldux]

Hi coach, I workout in a gym in Italy, and my coach says that is better for me to workout first iron cross, and later straddle planche, why this different view of training?

I started gymnastics at 20, but I have done weight for some years, I have a good conditioning and never had a joint problem.

[Coach Sommer]

Hi coach, I workout in a gym in Italy, and my coach says that is better for me to workout first iron cross, and later straddle planche, why this different view of training?

No idea. This is not a training philosphy that I have heard of previously nor do I recommend it.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Baldux]

Ok thanks, for now I'm working on tuck and advanced tuck planche, and for iron cross I do some set on rings dream machine, and some set of cross pulls with feet on a support.

I don't try normal cross negatives to avoid injury.

[Gaben18]

Thanks coach! Say Iron cross does primarily work the shoulders right?

[Baldux]

I think that Iron cross work more pectoral and the lats, the impact on shoulder is only on the anterior deltoid.

[Joshua Naterman]

Iron cross works everything attached to the upper arm, lower arm, and/or shoulder blades. That's a LOT of muscles, and many are working extremely hard.

Traps, serratus anterior, the entire shoulder rotator cuff, pecs, lats, deltoids, and all elbow flexors are the primary muscles working, and not necessarily in that order.

It is not very helpful to think of it in that way, in my opinion, but you asked so there's the answer.

Baldux: The entire deltoid is working. Anterior is certainly doing more work, but all of it is doing quite a bit.

[Baldux]

Yes, but he's asking to doing iron cross as a shoulder exercise, and I don't think that a newbie could do a good iron cross pulls due to elbow conditioning, so deltoids are not working enough to stimulate volumization or strenght.

[Joshua Naterman]

Baldux, I would think that both my explanation and yours would help make the point that it is a bit silly to think of cross pulls as a shoulder exercise, but I've found that telling people that what they want isn't what they think it is just doesn't work.

I don't know what we can say that hasn't already been said

I can see the opinion of cross coming before planche being rooted in the fact that cross requires virtually no balance, only strength. Planche, on the other hand, is honestly a more difficult thing to do. It also happens to be great elbow prep for the cross, and in that sense learning planche first would probably save time in the long run since the major roadblock to IC really is primarily elbow prep (the major muscles holding the arms in place are the pecs and lats, and they are stupidly strong muscles) and to a somewhat lesser but still significant degree rotator cuff strength in the shoulder. I mean think about it, planche develops the elbow conditioning for IC as well as overall body strength for planche, maltese, straight arm rolls, straight arm roll out of planche, all the skills passing through planche, and I don't know what else. During the time you spend developing planche you're also developing the difficult muscle ups (like wide MU) and dips (bulgarian dips, done properly) that prepare various parts of the musculature so that when you DO finally work on cross it comes quickly. Cross just won't prepare you for as wide a variety of skills as planche, in terms of overall muscular development, so if you learn cross before working on planche then I could see that being a big time waster for a competitive gymnast. Of course, if everything is happening at the same time but cross happens to be the primary focus for whatever reason... I suppose that would simply be a different ideology.

The actual skill side is much less difficult for cross vs planche, due to the balancing involved with each and also the width of the hands vs the width of the ring attachments in the finished position and how that affects the instability of the position (much more inward pressure during IC, which helps stabilize everything, the entire body is in the same plane as the rings, and the center of mass is lower than the rings).

I think the only thing where cross is really significantly tougher is the stress on the elbows, which is part of why planche is a preferred component of Coach Sommer's approach to ring strength. I think Coach's approach is well thought out, for whatever my opinion is worth.

[Baldux]

Thanks for the explanation, I really don't know why my instructor says to work cross, the only reason that I think is that my coach could think that iron cross is simplier in tecnique, and for a 20 years old person is simplier to work on strenght than working on tecnique.

I still work a lot more planche than cross, I do cross about 2 times a week, and I do cross pulls with feet on a support.