6' 2" — is it "diagnosis" for skills like planche/maltese?

Hello, Folks. I'm totally new to this resource and have 3,5 months of ring training. Before that there were 4 years of swimming, 3 years of BMX street and 4-5 years of rock climbing.

I'm 25 yo, 6' 2" height and 185 pounds weight. Through entire life have an ectomorph body type, but in 5 last years have really gained some muscle mass, don't know from where, so now looking more like something between "ecto" 'n "mezo". And also not to mention — my nutrition and sleeping order are super ugly and unstable (in general i'm eating 'n sleeping too little).

For this months on rings have gained next skills: solid muscle up without kipping (a bit slow, cause the transition part from pull to dip is still demanding, but solid), L-sit RTO, 140 degree V-sit on the parallettes, clear back lever with pullout without any pike, one-leg front lever with pullout, 3 front rolls to support in a row, front kip to support, rare back kip (or feldge) to support with pike, handstand using cables, totally solid straight arms 50 degrees (lacking 40 to full) iron cross with pullout.

But all the skills which assume the holding body in horizontal positions such as levers, planche, they are SO struggling for me. Of course, it's obvious why — my own body is such a LONG lever.

At present my lower body and upper body have pretty harmony development (legs are really strong because of really much time spent in trekking with bags from 30 to 65 pounds in local mountains). So i have an assumption to take my sleeping and eating to normal planned manner which would be aimed to get about 15-20 pounds of muscles into upper body.

I think that more muscle volume with identical strength reserve could develop more power than lower volume. Is that suggestion in general view correct?

Of course, "everything is possible" but what do you think at all on my case: would it become enormously harder to develop skill as planche with the body like mine comparing to "standart" body measurements for gymnast, which specializes on rings event?

ps: i could attach photo of mine, but suppose it could be interpreted pretty gay, haha )

I thought I replied to this yesterday :?: I was saying that it is harder for us taller guys (I'm 6-5) but we'll just be that much stronger from it. My little brother is getting pretty strong from conventional weightlifting, but whenever we do everyday life random strength things, I always out-muscle him, I believe it's from my gymnastic strength work.

sasquatch said:

I thought I replied to this yesterday :?: I was saying that it is harder for us taller guys (I'm 6-5) but we'll just be that much stronger from it. My little brother is getting pretty strong from conventional weightlifting, but whenever we do everyday life random strength things, I always out-muscle him, I believe it's from my gymnastic strength work.

Thanks, Sasquatch =)

I'm also very tall at 6'5'' and I've found from experience now that the higher volume approach actually made me consistently weaker for a year and half (Full body routines 3 times a week) and it's taking me long time to get it back now I've switched to a lower volume routine. You might get away with a little more volume if you aren't paying much attention to your legs as they tax most of your recovery systems. As for potential you'll probably take a lot longer to get there than shorter guys but nothings impossible. It might even be worth trying to specialize later on in less 'lever dependent' strength moves such as one arm chins or handstand pushups.

Longshanks said:

I'm also very tall at 6'5'' and I've found from experience now that the higher volume approach actually made me consistently weaker for a year and half (Full body routines 3 times a week) and it's taking me long time to get it back now I've switched to a lower volume routine. You might get away with a little more volume if you aren't paying much attention to your legs as they tax most of your recovery systems. As for potential you'll probably take a lot longer to get there than shorter guys but nothings impossible. It might even be worth trying to specialize later on in less 'lever dependent' strength moves such as one arm chins or handstand pushups.

Thank you for detailed answer. I'm trying to separate bent/straight arm days and pull/push days. Also training 3 days per week. Doing one leg workout per week - one leg squats, some more bodyweight leg exercises and slackline walking/jumping also. But what is really making me wonder that after really hard regular session without any leg workout (for example, back levers, L/V-sits, handstands, pushup variations) i have often REALLY tired "pumped" legs! :shock:

I agree with you about that the way of specializing on less lever-demanding skills could be much more productive and faster, but... the straight body felges, handstand-planche-maltese transitions in just my opinion are the most badass-looking stuff on rings (forgot about cross/inverted cross but it's about another stuff than levers), that is my dream So just looked for any kind of motivation from folks in this thread. One more time thank you!

ps: possibility of perfoming really clear back lever with pullout (without any legs bending and lasting upwards) with correct arm position (palms looking down) in spite of my height motivates me strong. But at the same moment the absolutely poor strength on front lever really... Motivates me even more, hehe!