Inverted Butterfly Cross Progressions?

I'm posting here to receive ideas on how one would theoretically train for the element, Inverted Hang pull with straight arms to Inverted Cross. Emphasis in my training has shifted slightly to this, as I recently achieved a decent inverted MU half. A way that I'm attempting to, painfully slowly, build up to this is doing inverted MU halves with forearm support but with the hands and arms going out to the sides. Involving more external rotation places an insane amount of force on your shoulders as opposed to a regular inverted MU half and at least mimics a more bent arm version of the Inverted pull.

Anyway, here is the link for critique, and I understand it looks a little silly :

My hope is that with this I can slowly lower the forearm leverage to my hands, and then build up to this with straight arms. Then simply lessen the help from the ring trainers until, some years from now, I can transfer the full version to rings.

Thanks!

Hi mirrorredrain. I have said it before, but will say it again. Build yourself a dream machine, man! Your video clips will loose quite a bit of their entertainment quality, but believe me, it will make your training a lot more effective. Also, it will solve the problem you have with the rather limited space between the ground and your trusted (?) branch.

Haha thanks FritsMB. Im gonna look into that on google. I've usually tried to stay away from dream machines because coach said awhile ago that there's not that much transfer to real rings. But they do look very helpful and just fun. I'll try to make one for the tougher moves that I'm working on. Thanks!

Here's some progress on the move. Last night when I tried it I could do it with only my calves resting on the branch, assisting in balance and not the lift. I was a little more tired when I recorded it today so it required more feet assistance Still progress is much faster than I had anticipated and hopefully in a couple weeks I'll have a video with no feet assistance whatsoever! I hope...

Yes, you are getting there! Maybe, you do not need a dream machine.

Thank you my friend! I'm pretty excited. I still want to build a dream machine though

Quick progress update: not without feet support yet cause I keep training before I fully recover! It keeps feeling stronger though, and I've found that with proper scapular activation it becomes a little more manageable. I start in an inverted hang with scapular protraction, then while pressing up I strongly retract my shoulder blades. It's always fun when you find little nuances like that.

Can you do all the basic static positions like back lever and planche already?

To answer your question directly, yes and no. I developed a back lever some time ago.

The planche has always been a weakness of mine though. I used to train it day in day out a few years ago but very ignorantly. I didn't develop the proper scapular activation and made lots of progress but without the proper form. When I became a member here, they told me to start over and I learned the proper approach, and since have developed a decent straddle planche on floor and rings, but no full planche yet.

Coach Sommer said somewhere that you should have a perfect full planche on rings before even trying to start training the iron cross. You're already trying to do inverted butterfly crosses? Stop skipping the steps and go back and build your foundation.

mirroredrain said:

To answer your question directly, yes and no. I developed a back lever some time ago.

The planche has always been a weakness of mine though. I used to train it day in day out a few years ago but very ignorantly. I didn't develop the proper scapular activation and made lots of progress but without the proper form. When I became a member here, they told me to start over and I learned the proper approach, and since have developed a decent straddle planche on floor and rings, but no full planche yet.

That's actually pretty decent, straddle on rings. You should be ok for elbow prep as long as you're careful in your training, but I'd definitely keep making baby steps!

More in PM.

Sam Carr said:

Coach Sommer said somewhere that you should have a perfect full planche on rings before even trying to start training the iron cross. You're already trying to do inverted butterfly crosses? Stop skipping the steps and go back and build your foundation.

Coach Sommer never said that. He only said to have at least a straddle planche on rings before starting iron cross work. He did recommend to have a full planche first though. Besides, I believe mirroredrain already has an iron cross and the inverted cross would have the same amount of pressure on the elbows. There are also some very strong athletes who can't develop a full planche on rings for some reason and if that was the case then it was advised to skip full planche training.

We are thinking that the main reason some can't get full planche is that they start off wrong and would have to go back to the beginning to learn proper shape and build strength onto it.

That would eat up a lot of training time and take away a lot of options in one's routine, so by the time you get that far in the competitive world it is easy to decide that this backtracking isn't worth it. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case for quite a few people (whether they realize it or not).

B1214N said:

Coach Sommer never said that. He only said to have at least a straddle planche on rings before starting iron cross work. He did recommend to have a full planche first though. Besides, I believe mirroredrain already has an iron cross and the inverted cross would have the same amount of pressure on the elbows. There are also some very strong athletes who can't develop a full planche on rings for some reason and if that was the case then it was advised to skip full planche training.

Oh, my mistake. If this is the case then congratulations on your iron cross and good luck with the inverted cross, I have no idea how to help you. Have you tried the pelicans?

Joshua Naterman said:

We are thinking that the main reason some can't get full planche is that they start off wrong and would have to go back to the beginning to learn proper shape and build strength onto it.

That would eat up a lot of training time and take away a lot of options in one's routine, so by the time you get that far in the competitive world it is easy to decide that this backtracking isn't worth it. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case for quite a few people (whether they realize it or not).

This is referring to the rings full planche right? I'm not sure if I remember hearing some people who can do a full planche on floor, but not on rings. Could Gregor do a full planche on the floor or PB?

Gregor has full planche on rings, but he got it after he learned maltese. For him, planche was apparently harder. I can do a flat tuck strap maltese and press out to strap cross for reps, and I've been out of the game for a while so I might end up being the same way, who knows.

Edit: yes, I am referring to rings specifically in the previous post, but it could certainly apply to floor or PB as well!

Thanks for the input guys! I did also see coach say that a decent straddle planche should be achieved before serious cross work, but unfortunately I started my straight-arm strength journey long before ever discovering this website and thus long before being educated on proper progressions. I did develop the iron cross slowly though and with caution.

Anyway, I view the inverted butterfly to be essentially a straight arm inverted MU, so I agree with Joshua that the top half of the movement should be developed prior to serious focused work on the bottom half.

In response to Sam, I did fool around with pelicans a lot around a half a year ago. This is kind of digressing, but here's an old vid of the progress I made: I don't think I could imitate this today cause I sort of slowed down my bent arm strength training awhile ago...

PS: I also agree with Josh about how the planche can eat up too much valuable training time. Like I said I threw sooo much time and effort into it before I realized I was training it wrong, and got frustrated for not improving. After I learned the proper way to train, I was practically bored of the planche! Still am haha.

While I am a firm believer in coaches progressions and straight-arm strength development, I personally believe too many people are too strict and too black and white with the application of his rules. I think a little deviation in your training is sometimes a good idea, even if just to see where you stand, and where your strengths and weaknesses are. If I never started iron cross training before I got a 'perfect full planche' like you suggested I wouldn't have the cross yet. In fact I wouldn't have nearly even started training it. We all have strengths and weaknesses that we have to play off of. The planche is one of mine. And I view that our most dangerous weakness is not in training something that might be slightly out of order, but in our egoes that force us forward and into injury.

Hey mirroredrain,

Would you mind posting a video of you doing ring strength series #3? You seem to be about the same build as me and I would be intrigued to see and learn from it!

Hahaha similar build as in a skinny ectomorph? Yea I haven't touched that one in a long while but I'll definitely upload a version asap. Not to confuse but I'm gonna upload it under my workout log 'mirroredrain's Victorian training log' to avoid off-roading this topic. thanks for hitting me up!

Progress update! I found a way to use my ring trainers to allow me to do fully suspended (more or less) reps of the Inverted butterfly. On the last rep I do use a little foot assistance to complete the rep I'm trying to focus on having a good ROM during these sets and I'm gonna try to incorporate a full overhead press to handstand, working around the little room that I have. Whenever a position feels solid I will decrease the leverage. Is this a decent way to build up the strength?

Working it this way does cause some pretty gnarly bruising on the arms btw hehe. Probably gonna take the rest of the week off.

mirroredrain said:

Hahaha similar build as in a skinny ectomorph? Yea I haven't touched that one in a long while but I'll definitely upload a version asap. Not to confuse but I'm gonna upload it under my workout log 'mirroredrain's Victorian training log' to avoid off-roading this topic. thanks for hitting me up!

Yep, 100% ectomorph I am Haha.

Good stuff that'd be interesting, thanks mate.

Calling all physics and simple machines buffs! Is the inverted butterfly pull a third class lever? Or perhaps a combination of third class levers?

So here's a supplementary exercise I've been doing after I hit the IB's on the rings. When I first started training it, I could barely do 1 rep on it. So I'll stick with it and make use of the otherwise dust-gathering Total gym. 

It's set to the highest notch, so to increase the difficulty I guess I could grab a sofa and stick the total gym on top to increase the incline...that should be safe...

Here is a progression of the inverted butterfly I've been working lately. Until I find a way to support my upper arms AND utilize my grip strength at the same time this has been an excellent exercise for building strength in the position.

I'm glad that I recorded myself because it always shows the flaws (too much arching in the back, weird ROM)

alec_ar said:

So here's a supplementary exercise I've been doing after I hit the IB's on the rings. When I first started training it, I could barely do 1 rep on it. So I'll stick with it and make use of the otherwise dust-gathering Total gym. 

 

 

 

It's set to the highest notch, so to increase the difficulty I guess I could grab a sofa and stick the total gym on top to increase the incline...that should be safe...

I like how you even do a false-grip with those

I don't know if it's the machine that's limiting you, but it doesn't look like you're doing full ROM: your hands aren't quite coming into line with your shoulders.