How are you doing Cali Crowd?
We are 1000 subscribers strong - that is just mad!
I just want to take a second to say thank you so much for the continuous stream of support
we've been getting here on this channel. Showing the journey of how to move better
and perform various calisthenics skills in real time is what this channel is all about
and the community that we are building off the back of that; people pushing and encouraging each
other to move better and train smarter is just phenomenal, and I cannot reiterate that enough!
Jumping into today's topic though and we will be discussing gymnastics rings - more
specifically why you should think about integrating them into your
calisthenics training. Let's start with number one, which is their variability.
I once had a football coach tell me that if you want to progress you have to keep
your body guessing. Keeping slightly beyond the realms of your comfort zone is what allows us to
move forward both in exercise and actually in life generally. With gymnastics rings we actually have
a tool that allows us to vary what we train, where we train and how intense we actually want to go.
This makes mixing things up and keeping things interesting very very easy.
There are very few tools out there that allow us to get such a complete
workout so easily. Which brings me on to the second reason to incorporate rings
into your training which is their affordability.
Okay so gymnastics rings effectively allow you to carry around your own gym
in your backpack. Couple this with the fact that they cost about 30 pounds and what you
have is a really accessible piece of equipment. Just think of how much it
would cost you to get your hands on a set of dumbbells, a barbell, and weights for example,
and that's assuming you have the space in your house to store it all. Compare all of this to a
really small investment for some tiny hula hoops on some string that can arguably do the same job,
in an industry where every company is trying to get you to part with your cash - it's
refreshing to come across a tool that makes it easier to keep more of it in your pocket.
Third we have the fact that they provide unstable grounding.
Gymnastics rings takes exercises that you could be quite familiar with
and displaces them to quite far outside of your comfort zone.
Take the dip for example. Classically performed on parallel bars, we have
a fantastic compound exercise where the triceps and chest are the prime movers.
Take this to the rings though and due to the added instability the lats will fire up more to adduct
the arms and stop them from flying outwards under your weight. Your chest and triceps and delts now
also have a job of establishing a strong base of support in addition to pushing you through the
range. And where on the parallel bars you may be able to get away with having a floppy midsection,
gymnastics rings just have no mercy for such nonsense.
If we agree that one of the benefits of calisthenics is utilizing compound
movements for effective strength and muscle gains then all this extra tension in the
muscles that aren't even primary drivers to the movement is why rings will add so much value.
We know that time under tension is one of the factors that triggers growth,
and we can use that here to elicit some serious gains.
And finally we have the benefits on the joints. This one is actually
less of a positive and more of a public service announcement.
On the negative side we have the fact that the added tension created by the instability of the
rings is going to place more stress on the joint structures. This may mean that we need
to focus more on recovery in order to avoid over training and overuse injuries. However with bars,
our hands and arms are rooted to positions that may not be entirely safe for us
throughout the entire range of the movement. With gymnastics rings though
they give us the freedom to express that movement without the restriction of a solid
structure fixing us into place which allows the joints to move in more natural ways.
As you can probably tell I am a huge fan of gymnastics rings but ultimately
it comes down to your goals. What you want to achieve is
always going to be the main focus to determine what you want to do.
Leave a comment below on your favorite gymnastics rings exercise or skill, and why it's your
favorite exercise or skill even if you can't do it yourself! Mine for example is a skill called
the Maltese. I mean come on! It's a planche, iron cross combo on rings - that's just nuts!
As always, if you enjoyed the video be sure to leave a like
as it really really helps us out and I'll see you in the next one!