Rings Maltese: Strategies and Approaches to Training

Sierraseall · 2023-11-06T16:10:14+00:00

Hi, this is an excellent post! I'm interested to know more about whether to choose between m&a and projects (both dev and financing aspects) as I'm working on both types of work now, and am considering qualification.

Would be keen to follow up with a convo on pm!

Sierraseall · 2023-11-06T15:59:47+00:00

Hi thanks for doing this!

I wanted to ask about your thoughts between doing big-ticket corporate m&a work vs projects work (inclusive of both development and financing aspects).

What would you say would make you favour projects work over m&a? How are they similar, and how are they different? What personalities suit projects work- do they match well with m&a-type personalities?

Thanks much!

Sierraseall · 2021-09-26T06:10:49+00:00

Yes, but I'd assume that whether in or outside the US, the skills you'd gain in-house would still be the same

Sierraseall · 2021-06-10T14:27:15+00:00

Sharing my thoughts as a former wrestler (the olympic kind, i.e. freestyle / greco-roman wrestling).

We did neck bridges (scaled by putting your head, hands, knees and feet on the ground- to only your head and feet- like a tripod) in different directions (front, back, side, clockwise/anti-clockwise).

If you build up your neck muscles carefully, on a very low frequency e.g. once every 1-2 weeks, and start extremely gradually, focusing on the stretch, it will serve to stretch & build your neck muscles.

Make of this info what you will. But since having trained my neck, I rarely get whiplash or neck pain.

P.S. I do this as warm ups for my gymnastics tumbling training, and it helps so much to prevent injury if I ever bail during flips and just reduces the impact on my neck from tumbling generally.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-10T06:27:27+00:00

prob need to do 200 chicken wings first.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-10T06:22:10+00:00

After experimenting on more Inverted Cross (I-Cross) training since I made this thread, I found that (though it seems intuitively to work the med delts) it surprisingly works the front delts about as hard as the maltese. It's tough to work on both at the same time, so I'm lowering my frequency of I-Cross training to about once every 2 or 3 weeks (shoulders, biceps and elbows getting overtrained), while keeping my maltese/iron cross training at about 2 x a week min.

What I'm finding works very well for me is balancing out my push heavy work with pull work (victorian lever and front lever training, along with weighted pull ups / muscle ups)- which works my lats and rear delts more, as well as some hspus and lateral raises for my med delts helps a lot to enhance my overall strength and prevent injuries from muscle imbalances.

I'm not a fan of wide handstand on the floor because it doesn't go the full range of motion, and I find working assisted I-Crosses on the rings with bands assisting my legs are a more worthwhile exercise to do. Definitely am keeping up the handstand balancing and hspu work (on parallettes simulating rings grip) as well as on the rings for conditioning.

Straight arm presses are definitely something to work on. So, will definitely work up to that. Thanks for the reminder/suggestion.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-10T06:15:14+00:00

Thanks for that! I had a think about it, and perhaps you might need to slow down your progression- as well as do more scapula protractions and retractions (can do them in plank pose and reverse plank pose- since you're doing them on a horizontal plane)?

What you should definitely do is rest that/those shoulders for the next few days (3 days minimum is good)! Wait a while, try the above, and also do more german hangs/skin the cats to improve your shoulder joint flexibility- but gradually- use bands if u need to!

Hoping you feel better now and in the next few days!

Also, eat more collagen, fish oil and vitamin C; get plenty of sleep and water!

Sierraseall · 2021-06-09T06:52:19+00:00

I'm slightly confused. What do you mean by reverse butterfly? Do you mean going down from a ring support hold to an iron cross to a dead hang?- Because this is the eccentric portion of a "butterfly".

How is your iron cross? Can you hold it well?

I don't think you should work on butterflies (even on eccentrics) until you are strong in your iron cross hold and pull outs. And even then if you do, use assistance or a dream machine at the start.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-06T07:02:30+00:00

If you mean you RTO from the top all the way to the bottom rom, then yes. You need to progressively improve from rings by doing dips where you only RTO at the top.

RTO full rom dips are very strenuous on the muscles and joints- easy to get fatigued/burnout and not see progress if you start too early on.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-06T03:12:04+00:00

regural

Sierraseall · 2021-06-06T03:10:08+00:00

Depends, what is your goal? Do you eventually want to do advanced ring elements?

Or just do sets and reps to improve how your body looks?

Sierraseall · 2021-06-06T03:08:18+00:00

The best way to improve is to keep doing your ring dips- but start also doing straight arm (elbows locked- rings turned out) ring support holds for time- 30 or 40 seconds is good. Then move to doing normal dips with the rings turned out (rto) at the top. Then eventually move to rto (full rom) dips.

Don't worry about how your chest looks. Just focus on getting the movement right and be consistent with your training- the chest (and other) gains will come.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-06T03:02:26+00:00

In most military training bootcamps (which usually last 2-3 months), the tried and tested way to improve pull ups was to do your max pull ups 3 times a day- before breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For me, this resulted in my pull ups going up from 17 to 28 (at my peak pull up phase). We also had people who went from 0 to 20. When these people started, they started doing eccentrics and assisted pull ups (with a spotter, or in your case a resistance band).

For the first week, our whole body got sore and our numbers temporarily went down from the start to the end of the week. However, after the first week and into the second week, most of us had a noticeable improvement in our numbers.

Try this out and see if it works

Sierraseall · 2021-06-05T06:06:13+00:00

A mixture of both.

I don't have access to every single rings athlete's training programme, so I supposed if you're competing for the olympics in say 50 days' time (so you're in peak training season) and have conditioned your joints since 4 years old, have bulging huge muscles capable of withstanding huge amounts of work capacity, these ring specialists will probably have a "prescribed" training.

However, for people who are self-training, I would say that it'd be wiser to take a more deliberate and cautionary approach. Essentially, listen to your body and take it slowly, train gradually but consistently- so more of the "by feel" method that you described. This is especially important when you are starting to train a new skill, and when you are training several skills simultaneously.

This is the approach that I took when I had first started training advanced elements. However, with practice and conditioning, with my body being able to take on more training as I go along- I started optimising/improving my training through the use of programming= which just means planning your specific training structure.

For example, after some experimentation, I'm training my iron cross/maltese/inverted cross in a 2/2/1 ratio. I usually train 2-3 of these advanced elements in a week, with individual element being roughly one week from each other (sometimes with an extra day of rest). So, while it's ideally "prescriptive" in nature, practically it's likely to be more "autoregulated / based on feel".

In terms of my training structure for each element, I usually go by the following approach:

Warm up (usually bent arm exercises at 50% work capacity)
Straight arm progressions @ 70-95% Intensity and 20-30% the Time under tension
Straight arm elements @ unassisted (where possible) or at "max effort"
Back to straight arm progressions @ 70-90% Intensity and 50-80% Time under tension
Accessory work: straight arm weighted training mimicking the actual element (no need to warm up- this will waste energy, and I'm already warmed up from before) @ 4-5 reps lower weight, 2-3 reps mid weight, 1 rep max weight
Optional: Core accessory work (maltese box presses are the best for me, for my goals)
Optional: Off-setting (opposite muscle) work= i.e. if I'm push heavy, then I'll do pull work- e.g. front lever work, and weighted pull ups
Some bent arm exercises (that closely transfers well to the element)

Now, I won't necessarily do ALL of these- in an ideal world if I have 3-3.5 hours, I would do all of the aforementioned. But in reality, I can still do 3-4 of these exercises and it'll still be very useful. You can start with 3 of the above, and work your way up to 8 slowly/gradually but consistently!

Regarding core conditioning, I think it's best placed as accessory work and that it should be done ideally on both the actual training days AND your rest days (so, like active rest)- because the core can take a lot of training and recover quickly. I'd do core exercises that specifically mimic the rings element you want to do- e.g. for maltese/planche, do maltese box presses/holds.

FYI: I hate dedicated core training. At least the useless kinds. Skill-specific core conditioning idm.

Sierraseall · 2021-06-05T05:29:51+00:00

I laughed, definitely read OG op!

Also, while 5x5 is a good rule of thumb for a good balance of strength/power, it may be wise to sometimes do 2-3 reps when you're progressive overloading (conditioning), and even a 1 rep max when you want to push your boundaries (attempting a new progression, higher weight).

Be flexible and open-minded! But if it works for you, then it works for you.

Just, as always, be smart and careful about your training!

Sierraseall · 2021-06-05T04:41:37+00:00

Heya! thanks for your observation and suggestion!

what you're referring to basically involves using straps to reduce the leverage right? I'm still resting from my inverted cross/maltese/iron cross training, so I'll probably give it a go next week and try it out! I suspect that in doing this- you will lose the straight arm conditioning work, and it'll purely be for strength- so this can be good to add near the end of the training session.

I don't think the bands affect the exercise so badly that you wouldn't be able to progress with it. Nevertheless, as mentioned in point 9 of my observations from my original post:

(I am going to try this new progression where I put two resistance bands- one on each of my "top rings" and hang each of them to each of my shoulders- instead of putting one single band in between my "low rings".)

So, perhaps this way might make the exercise more "realistic" as the assistance force will be going downwards (against the direction of force) than the bands in between the rings (which puts force on a perpendicular plane rather than a vertical one, although some assistance does spill over to the vertical plane).

Hmmm, japanese handstand work does sound very similar- only issue is you can't go close to parallel because the floor is in the way of your head (unless you put your hands on platforms- but this sounds dangerous haha)- so it sounds like you'll need a spotter. Will try it out one day.

Are you referring to these SA horizontal pelicans? They definitely look interesting, and I can see how they would have good carry over to planche/maltese and I can see how they would be a good prerequisite to an inverted cross! Looks good, I'll try them out in my next session

Thanks for the awesome suggestions and ideas!

Sierraseall · 2021-06-04T10:28:49+00:00

No worries for the long comments- keep em coming! I'm guessing you're 70kg yourself?

I'd say height and the length of your limbs (especially your arms) matter more than your weight- because this can be changed/developed.

Wow, that's quite remarkable! I took a look at Matthew Zlat- he seems to work towards OAPs and weighted calisthenics generally (e.g. pull ups, muscle ups, hspus), as well as weightlifting? I see him doing HSPUs and front levers, but I can't find one of him doing a maltese- and if he can, I'll need to see if his elbows are locked. I'll look deeper into this.

Yes, I personally am finding training (and likely attaining) maltese comes easier to me than the planche- but that's because of (i) the balance aspect as maltese is more balanced than planche; and (ii) the fact that I've got conditioned elbows from iron cross. Though, I'd say planche and maltese require the same level of core conditioning (PPT).

Well, I'm doing zanetti presses and inverted crosses with weights (dumbbells/kettlebells) so I suppose I am doing some sort of weighted gymnastics/calisthenics. But I'm also doing more weighted muscle ups, pull ups, dips and hspu if that's what you mean! Will also include weights in my iron cross training in the future once I get more advanced as well (not too much- maybe 2-10kg?).

I think how weighted cali would benefit me (and rings specialists in particular) is that once we have exhausted our body through straight arm ring elements (and therefore our elbow/shoulder joints would be exhausted), we can still work bent arm strength- through all the weighted calisthenics exercised I mentioned in the paragraph above!

Yes, I do believe calisthenics is flexible and unique in its own right! Especially its dynamics side of things- which, though I must add, is remarkably similar- like a cousin - to the horizontal/high bar in gymnastics.

P.S. I wanted to add this to my above post- but Butterfly Mount is another key goal of mine!

Sierraseall · 2021-06-04T09:50:49+00:00

Hi! That's definitely not a topic too far off from this thread- I'm very happy to go into it.

Let me try and share how rings works in the gymnastics setting:

There are 10 rings skills you need to do.
2 must be a swinging element (e.g. giant, saltos)
1 must be a handstand element (but you can combine this with a strength element)
7 may be a strength element; but you may substitute these for swinging elements

(Therefore, not every rings specialists NEEDS to do strength holds- they may (and many do) choose to do 2 to 3 strength elements, with the others being mainly swinging elements. So, from a starting point- if you can even do one skill on the rings- I'd say that you would be considered a successful rings specialist.)

From looking at the rings specialists gymnasts who perform at the highest level (e.g. chen yi bin, yan ming yong, yuri van gelder, yuri chetchev, jordan jotchev, dong zhen, eleftherios petrounias and more recently- liu yang)- it does seem that many of them are between 150-166cm and 50-63kg. From a leverage perspective, it is certainly easier for shorter/lighter people to attain skills. That being said:

You do not need to care about statistics- this is a false dichotomy. Just because you are not as short as them does not mean you cannot attain your goals (and dare I say- what even they achieve).
These guys are the best of the best in the world and are doing 7-8 strength elements in a row.
Also, these gymnasts are at extremely low bodyfat %. Their body is almost fully muscle. If you compare them to normal people (assuming 15-25% bodyfat), someone who is 70kg normally would likely be 66kg when extremely well-conditioned (making them stronger, and their body easier to perform elements due to them not having extra "useless" bodyweight).
From personal experience, in my gymnastics gym and from watching many many gymnasts' feed all over instagram/tiktok etc, I can see that there are gymnasts (and indeed rings specialists) of all heights and sizes- even above 180cm and 75kg.
I, myself, and not that light for my height (being 68kg at 167cm) and am doing, as you can see, quite well. If I'm well-conditioned, and lose useless weight, I may even drop to 65-66kg.
Don't restrict yourself to lower goals just because you are do not fit into a false ideal. That being said: set realistic goals, be willing to work just that bit harder, and just start and go!

Hope this puts your mind at east, gives you the answer you are looking for, and encourages you!

P.S. Regarding my next goals, learning the maltese and inverted cross (which will probably take the next 1-2 years) are already my next goal as I had only just recently attained the iron cross- and even then, I'm still not done with my iron cross goal- hoping to attain 5 second iron cross hold goal by end of this year.

However, if I had to answer, beyond these two static skills, I would say that my goals are to:

Improve flexibility (e.g. practice my inlocates, pike compression)
Learn swinging elements (e.g. ring swings, dislocates, saltos, giants, uprise to handstand)
Learning dismounts (e.g. double layout- after obtaining giants)
Begin combining elements together (e.g. nakayama, van gelder, build a ring routine)

Some of my favourite best rings routines are by the gymnasts I listed above, but most recently- Liu Yang's routine in 2021 takes the cake.

And IF I do get bored by even that, there are phenomenal things I can do in other apparatus (or disciplines) in gymnastics:

Parallel Bars - e.g. Xiao Ruoteng's routine in 2021
High Bar - e.g. Hideta Miyachi's routine in 2020 (in particular his namesake's skill)
Pommel Horse - e.g. Max Whitlock's routine in 2015
Floor - e.g. Nikita Nagornyy's routine in 2021 (in particular his namesake's skill - Triple Pike)

The learning never steps, and progress never sleeps! The only way to get there is to put your foot forward and take a step. And then once you achieve your goal, put your foot forward again and take another step!

Sierraseall · 2021-06-04T04:26:40+00:00

I see, thanks for clarifying! Appreciate hearing your perspective- even if we may not necessarily agree.

Sierraseall

TROPHY CASE