Mirroredrain's Victorian Training Log

So I was unaware of a "workout logs" section of this website and have been posting what is essentially my training log in the general forum. My bad! This is now my new official training log, and will primarily focus on the Victorian, but also everything else I train.

That being said, I have been using the straps as forearm and upper arm assistance during some of the harder movements I train, in order to build up my body to do these elements without assistance whatsoever. Even though they can be painful, using straps built strength for me to achieve my first iron cross, and I think its a surefire way to improve quickly and efficiently.

So my first exercise for my training log is a combination of two of my favorite, and more or less complimentary, strength moves on the rings. The planche and Victorian. Obviously I can't do the full version of either of these on the rings, but I have been using straps and one legged versions to achieve a workout that is pretty intense, but brief.

ASSISTED PLANCHE TO VICTORIAN:

I only have the strength to do about 2 1/2-3 reps of this exercise. When I've built up to about 5 reps, I will lower the straps on my arms to make it more difficult.

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Post #2

ONE LEGGED STRAP VICTORIAN LEANS

The below video illustrates about where I'm at in my strap assisted VC leans. A couple weeks ago I decided it would be beneficial (or necessary rather) to use the straps on my forearms in order to allow myself to fully achieve a horizontal Victorian, since my shoulders were not getting low enough in my unassisted VC leans.

Basically, I do as many of these as I can per workout, and try to hold them as long as I can. Roughly 5 sets at around 2-3 seconds per set. I'm also working easier progressions with the hope that they benefit my static holds.

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Post #3

BEHIND THE BACK MUSCLE UPS (BtB MU's)

BtB muscle ups are an exercise that I theorized a year and a few months ago while working with my cross trainers. I later learned that they are essentially a progression towards Coach's Ians as shown in his BtGB. A great exercise in their own right, a few reps of these makes my arms, chest and shoulders feel completely dead. I still want to work on cleaning them up, but at least I'm working them for reps now. That's progress.

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POST #4

POSTERIOR DAY

Today I finished up my workout with several sets of these descending shoulder extensor exercises. (Or that's what I call them) It involves starting from a supported Inverted Planche, Lowering through a Victorian Cross down to a Front Lever, pausing in the Victorian when I have the energy to do so. I usually do 3-4 reps per set.

After this, and using my iron cross trainers still, I'll go through foot supported Victorian leans where I start at the first notch on the trainers, and then onto the second etc...until I can no longer do a Victorian with good form. By the end, I usually can't feel my back :|

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I like this style of workout. I think I'll stick with it as I develop my Victorian.

POST #5

INVERTED BUTTERFLY PULLS

There's been some chatter on the forums about butterfly pulls and the still theoretical inverted version (start from an inverted hang and pull through with straight arms to inverted cross, or handstand. I call it theoretical because as far as I know it's never been done yet, let alone in competition). I've been working both of these, with quite a bit of assistance for some time now, and I thought it might be a good idea to upload my progress with the inverted Butterfly Pull

Months ago I would use my legs as the primary movers, and my upper body as assistance, because it was too difficult for me. Now, I'm able to do them with only a little assistance from my legs. In the video, the first two reps were decent, with my legs mainly being used for balance. The last rep was pretty gnarly though, and I really had to pulled with my hamstrings to achieve the assisted inverted cross.

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POST #6

VICTORIAN

So since the title of this workout log implies that it is primarily focused the the Victorian Cross, I figured I should upload a progress video. It's not one of my unsupported progress videos, moreso a vid to show where I'm at with my training. With one leg tucked and one full lay, and with forearm support I've found that I can now hold the position in the video for 5+ seconds.

That means it's time to decrease the leverage.

It's taken awhile to develop the strength in my posterior delts and lats to hold this lean with a decent body line. Hopefully in a few months I might have my first one leg Victorian unsupported.

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It's getting better, but you still haven't hit horizontal yet. Keep working at it, you are clearly making progress. Be safe, and good training to you!

Thanks Joshua! I'll keep working it til I get it more level. I can hold a perfectly horizontal foot supported Victorian on notch 9 out of 10. So, maybe one of these days, months or years!

If I were you, I would not be trying to get to a full lay right now. I would be trying to get to an unassisted tuck with no forearm support.

Reason being that if you spend 5 years and finally build the lat strength, you will still be 5 years behind in your wrist and elbow and shoulder conditioning.

The overall path of least resistance is to orient your training mostly towards unassisted tuck victorians and assisted FL-Victorian pulls with less and less forearm support until you can do them pn the rings. At that point it becomes fairly similar to levers... just slowly start extending the legs over time.

The other stuff is fine for some assistance work, but I think that if that is the focus of your training you will be training much longer than you should have to.

Thanks for the insight man. I'll heed your advice.

POST #7

BRIEF MALTESE CROSS HOLD WITH ONE LEG

This isn't really a workout log entry. It's an update on my progress with the Maltese Cross.

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It needs a lot of work. I just thought I'd try it with one leg tucked and one extended. It's very brief and my body alignment isn't great, but it's coming along I think and I'm quite proud of it.

POST #8

PELICAN PLANCHE

Every once in a while, I return to the pelican planche (foot supported) and I am reaquainted with how brutal it is. This exercise simply kicks my ass! I am a huge advocate of any kind of behind the back pulling movements though, as I find they are excellent in developing bent arm strength. In fact, several months ago when I was only just starting training the pelican, I arm wrestled my 220 pound friend. (who is 220 lbs of muscle, not fat! He's pretty huge compared to me) In the past our arm wrestles were always very one-sided. He would slam my arm to the table like it was nothing. This time though, after some light exposure to the pelican and the behind the back MU, we tied. So I mainly accredit these exercises to my arm wrestling strength.

So anyway, here it is, only two reps:

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POST #9

REVERSE CRANKS

I'm being very diligent and careful with my exercises since my injury. Cranks and Reverse Cranks are awesome exercises and I'm using them mainly for maintenance.

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POST #10

BUTTERFLY CROSS (and variants)

So my shoulder has finally healed to the point where I feel comfortable resuming most of my training. I'm pretty much back full steam and uploads should be a bit more frequent.

Okay the first time I saw a Butterfly Pull to Cross a couple of things happened; one, I was utterly blown away, and two, I told myself it was a move I need to accomplish before I die. That being said, I have been training it on and off for a few months, and naturally with an element like this, progress has been slow. While training the regular dead hang straight arm pull, I sort of developed my own version of a butterfly pull. It's sort of like a Nakayama, but instead of going from or through a Back Lever to Cross, it involves going from a German Hang with straight arms to Cross.

Over the past few months I have moved the forearm support from being right in front of my elbow, to being a couple inches closer to my wrists. Progress feels good!!

So the video is a taste of how i train the Butterflies, and the first one is my GH Butterfly, while the second is the standard Butterfly.

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POST #11

ASSISTED FRONT LEVER PULL TO VICTORIAN

The most enticing thing about the FL pull to Victorian is that no one's done one yet AFAIK. Not even Danny Rodrigues. If I ever get one unassisted it won't be for years at least, but even achieving one in this lifetime would be a tall order. Anyway, It's a fun element to work with foot and forearm assistance, and quite a challenge. As you approach the Victorian position it becomes increasingly more difficult. It seems like during the first half of the pull your lats have a good enough leverage to assist in the lift, but as you approach the Victorian position your lats seem to lose a functional angle to assist much in the lift, and your body seems to rely almost entirely on your rear delts and SITS muscles...that's my two cents anyway.

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mirroredrain said:

... as you approach the Victorian position your lats seem to lose a functional angle to assist much in the lift, and your body seems to rely almost entirely on your rear delts and SITS muscles...that's my two cents anyway.

That is true if you are trying to stay flat. This is why every victorian you will see is going to be visibly hollow, with the center of the body below the hands. The very front of the pelvis is still below the hand in Danny's best Victorian that I have seen. I believe it is for this exact reason... we simply may not have the architecture to have a perfectly flat victorian at any normal adult body weight and size.

As the insertion gets closer to the plane of the origin, the lats lose most of their ability to perform as shoulder extensors and are mostly only able to adduct.

That's very nice! I'm loving these victorian training videos.

John Gill states in his website that he was able to pull into the victorian from a front lever, but was not able to hold it. He said he front pulled into front lever before the pull to victorian so he probably had some momentum from that to assist, but that is still crazy hard since it was unsupported.

As for why the lats can't assist as much in the victorian, that's because the lats are weak in transverse extension so the wider the arm angle is, the more work the posterior delts have to do.

I remember that you said were training the one arm front lever in one of your threads. How is your progress on that as well? I started working on it a little shortly.

@ Joshua, thanks for the clarification. From now on I'll strive harder to keep my hips as high as possible. Also I agree, Danny obviously competes the best Victorian, but even he always has bent arms and a somewhat slanted body line. I wonder if an elbow locked out-straight body VC is at all possible with hips at shoulder height. I guess we'll see with time....Oh and one question: I understand that the VC is an internal rotation element, it's also a shoulder adductor as well as a shoulder extensor move isn't it? Or was it just one or the other? Thanks in advance.

@ B1214N, thanks for the flattering post lols! I'm passionate about training and the Victorian in particular. Anyway it's true that I was training OAFL's but that was a while back, and I only ever did about two days work on it :wink: It's impressive and I like seeing a good OAFL, but it's not one of my favorite moves. Mainly because it's almost impossible to do with perfect form and hips shoulder high without a pike. But after you posted I tried my luck on my chin up bar and banged out a pretty decent OAFL for about 2-3 seconds. My hips were a little below my shoulders though, and my body was a little piked. Although my chest was almost directly to the celing, which was cool. I attribute any strength in my FL variations to the Victorian though, as like I said, I really don't train OAFL at all...you said you started training it yourself? Keep working on it and I'm sure you'll get it! Try doing what I believe is called a OAFL pull, which is to do the beginning of a OAP but then lift your core and simultaneously straighten your arm. That helped me lower into the OAFL. Good luck!

POST # 12

DEAD HANG TO VICTORIAN CROSS (as usual, assisted)

Something I'm working on a little bit these days. For some reason straight-arm-rowing movements are an obsession of mine right now. Anyway, dead hang straight arm pull to Victorian is an element I'm planning on opening my rings routine with in some years. The pull to VC is pretty tough and keeping locked out elbows is insanely hard for me in this movement.

It needs quite a lot of work, but on a good day, I can keep my body more parallel to the ground than in the vid.

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That's awesome that you can do a decent OAFL without much training and it was the body facing upwards one too. Yeah, I worked on the sideways FL a little bit and stopped for about a week because I wanted to increase my regular FL hold time before resuming. I just tried one attempt yesterday and managed to pull off a very narrow straddle sideways OAFL with hips level for 2 seconds. It seems like I'm not so far off from a full sideways OAFL and that the sideways variation isn't that much harder than a regular FL, but the OAFL with body facing up is much harder I believe and I could probably only do that one in adv tuck, so my respect for the upwards full OAFL. I was also going to ask you to train the element butterfly pull to victorian, but it seems that you already are and knew about it.

POST #13

REST DAY BACK EXERCISES

I'm kind of a freak about movements that work pulling, and just exercises that strengthen the posterior muscle groups in general. So on my days when I'm taking a break from Victorian Cross training, I'll usually do something similar to this sequence:

Weighted Yewkis (sloppy form) to failure

Weighted FL Pulls to failure

Bodyweight Yewkis to failure

One Legged FL Rows to failure

One finger assisted OAP's (I usually opt to assist with a finger because after the other pulling movements I'm typically too fried to pull off the real deal)

Bodyweight FL Pulls to failure

I do this in a sort of a 'super set' fashion, but not literally back-to-back. I usually take about three minutes between each exercise.

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Your form, on all of that, is pretty abominable. No hate, just pointing that out.

I know! I uploaded this with some hesitance, because with this sequence, i kind of disregard technique for adding weight and doing higher volume. And it had been awhile since I had trained things like yewkis and FL rows and such. And it shows! Having the weight pack on particularly throws me off so I'm thinking I should stop that and just go for better form...I think lately I've been focusing too much on maximal strength, and too little in the technical side of things. Oh, and too much on foot supported stuff. I've noticed a drop in core strength that shows.

Anyway, it's a series that I've been doing on my off days, not something I'd showcase at a meet. Just something to blast my pulling muscles. and although my strength in leverage work has increased of late, my quality in these areas has decreased. Definitely wanna see if I can still pull off some decent yewkis, on a fresh day that is.

The major problem with bad form, which no one seems to be aware of, is this:

Form = body shape and position throughout the exercise.

Form, therefore, shows you which muscles you are using, and to what degree. This is because your shape and your movement are a direct function of the muscles that are working.

If form is bad, body shape is wrong. If body shape is wrong, movement is wrong, and you are using the wrong muscles. That means you are literally spending a bunch of time NOT building strength where you really need it.

Just food for thought. Workouts are a lot of work, and it is a shame to waste work on something that won't help you move forward in the long run.

Haha! This is why I want my own gymnastics coach! And I guess why I post here. Because when you don't have someone helping you in person, you just kind of learn your own way. So other than my straight arm leverage work, which I'm satisfied with right now, I'm gonna reapproach the way I train. So I'm not just 'throwing myself around'. Lols thanks Josh.

Starting with this.

More focus on core strength. Which for me, is gonna be a long road...

No problem. I think the best thing about you is that you are willing to put exactly what you are doing out there on video, regardless of whether it's perfect or not.

Without that visual honestly and the lack of ego that allows such honesty, none of us would be able to help you

I don't know if you take it this way, but I mean that as a generous compliment.

I think that you will have extremely good results if you maintain what you have developed so far and stop trying to reach ahead for a bit with your straight arm work. Don't let it go, you've got some very good strength going on, just don't push ahead. Run a 6 month SSC for maintenance and put most of your focus on true developmental work with the basics.

Perfect your hollow hold progressions, body levers, pull ups (both arched and hollow), dips, muscle up, your handstand, your rope climbs, and multi-plane pulls.

If you post video of that stuff I think we can help you refine the form so that you get the most out of each workout.

I personally believe that if you do this, you will see unintended steps forward in your straight arm work as well.