Ring Pushups

so, i worked my way up to doing 4 one arm pushups (terrible form, go sue me) but I was feeling pain in my wrists, brachialis and scapula.  decided to test max pushups and I could only do 15!

 

So, I decided to start doing 50 pushups every day.  Even got around to buying a set of gymnastics rings.  worked my way up to 25 pushups really quickly, then started them on the rings.

 

 I could only do 7.

 

Now, I've heard that the more you work your stabiliser muscles, the less you work your prime movers. in terms of tendon health and preparing my body for one arm pushups, would I be better off working on regular pushups?

 

I'm probably going to keep working both either way, but I wanted to hear everyones thoughts on rings vs regular pushups.  for my own two cents, with regular pushups i could feel the work most in my shoulderblades (probably an aftereffect of learning to activate my scapula with one arm pushups)  but with rings pushups i didn't really feel it in any of my prime movers (triceps, delts, pecs ect) but more my abs and biceps of all things.

 

i know most people here probably work dips and handstand pushups more than anything horizontal, but anyone with any experience, feel free to chime in.

I do ring pushups. From my experience, ring pushup is a very quick way for me to have my primary muscles (triceps, delts, pecs) bulge up. Not sure why it's not working for you. Which variation did you do? And did you pay attention to your forms?

Same here, I can definitely feel my primary muscles work as I'm doing ring push ups. Maybe slow down your tempo? I know with my XR PPP I usually have a tempo of around 4-0-4.

I suppose it's a matter of balance.  Clearly all my support muscles aren't up to the task, as it's not lactic acid buildup in a paticular muscle that stops me, more like, my entire body gets fatigued equally.  today i hurt more in my traps and my lats than anything else.

 

 

with regular pushups I know the movement well and can really focus on getting the most out of every rep.  with ring pushups, I have to concentrate on stabilising the rings and getting full ROM...  I'm suprised at how difficult the movement is.  I'm trying to pay attention to form, but really just completing the movement takes my full attention.

 

To anyone that hasn't bought a pair of rings yet, I highly reccomend it!

Turning the rings out at the top will help you build your stabilizers faster. Try keeping the rings at least parallel to eachother throughout the movement. Once you get better begin to turn them out within the movemement (this small thing makes them much harder). This is where I found most of my gains in strength.

 

Hope it helps!