Training Archives

I'll organize this a bit better, I just wanted to get it off the main page to help load time.

November 1st, 2005

    Modified my ring set-up slightly by adding some C clamps to the beam that the rings hang from. They are not clamped to the straps, but rather outside of the straps. This way, the straps will not slide along the beam when I'm lowering down into a cross. This will now help mimic the slight inward pull of the straps that is present in an iron cross on a regular set of rings.

    The iron cross itself is getting stronger, but still has a bit to go. Here is my best unassisted cross I could snap a picture of -

    It's coming along. I feel more confident with my technique, although I feel I could change my hand and wrist position a bit.

    I'm coming into the problem of my toes nearly touching the ground now. So it looks like I'll have to bend my legs, or start off with the L cross! Below was a quick try-out of an alternative.

    Not the best showing there, but in my defense I'd done some cable work for the iron cross and some heavy manual labor that day. But in any case, it shows that bending my legs up is a viable option to deal with my low ring height.

    After research, conversations, and advice, there are several things I'll be adding to my cross training. First are iron cross dips with my feet/legs up on a block to take some of the weight away. This was an exercise I had been aware of through the ringtraining.com dvd, but working the exercise before felt too hard on my elbows. All the bungee work I've been doing has been strengthening up the joints though and I'll give these another shot.

    The next addition to my training will be working to lock out BELOW the level of the cross and slowly increasing the height of my lockout until I'm at cross level. Attack this thing from both directions.

    So thanks goes to Steve L. and Matt J. for all the helpful iron cross advice.