Does anyone know about exercises using the suspended 'rings' from gymnastics?

[Braden]

If anyone could point me towards a resource for exercises using the rings, or share any experiences they've had, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Cheers.

[Robinf]

I'm interested to see the responses myself.

From the chin bar, I do abs work--hanging leg raises and such. It breaks up the crunch-monotony. I imagine pull ups would be interesting because the rings aren't stable, so you'd have to work to stablize yourself along with pulling yourself up.

Robin

[shaolinboxer]

On the rings you can do many things.

Try lifting your bodyto an inverted position slowly, without swinging. Then lower youself over evn further so that you hang from your stretching shoulders....back and forth...

Also, you can use rubber tubing to practice iron crosses. take the tubing and hold it between your palms and the rings with hanging slack in the middle. then support youself on the rings, place your feet on the tubes, lower yourself to a cross postion and come back to a full support. This is very difficult and can be done with the aid of a partner supporting some of your weight from the legs. Beware of the tube snapping up at you...it leaves a nasty mark.

[IronFist]

Pavel recommends doing chins and one arm chins on rings. He says one armed chins on a ring is easier on your wrist or elbows than when performed on a bar. Makes sense, but I haven't tried it.

I really want to try an iron cross, though. I bet I could do it.

Iron

[tsb]

Something I've always wanted to try but don't have access to rings or ropes.

These are a combination of dips and pull-ups. Start by doing a pull-up. Continue to raise yourself by pressing with the triceps to bring your hands alongside your chest. From there, push yourself up completely as you would when doing a dip. Reverse the process in order to lower yourself slowly to the starting hanging position.

Anyone with personal experience with this exercise, feel free to correct this description and let me know how difficult these are.

[Brett Again]

Anyone with personal experience with this exercise, feel free to correct this description and let me know how difficult these are.

I've never done this exercise on the rings... its not practical, as all your weight is "behind" both rings, which would cause the rings to move away from you. It's possible... just not practical. We do do this exercise on the high bar. Our instructor calls it a "muscle up" as in "just muscle yourself up over the bar." It is freaking hard if you do it right... slowly and in control. To train for it you can do slow front lat pull downs on a universal machine with progressively higher weights.

On the rings you can do a wide variety of excericeses. Most upper body arm exercises and abdominal leg lifting type exercises can be adapted to the rings. You get added benefit from the stabilization needed to perform these.

The iron cross is extremely difficult unless you train specifically for it. It uses an odd combination of muscles that rarely gets exercised in such a fashion.

[fei]

Well I've trained gymnastics before and on the rings you can acutally do several different exercises that can build your muscles.
MUSCLE UP: One of the most effective ones, yet tough if you don't do it properly is called the muscle up. Much like what Brett Again described with the horizontal bar you basically use your muscle strength to get up.
It's pretty simple if you get someone to teach you. But it comes over time. I used to do at least 15/training day for conditioning.
DIPS: Another training method is doing dips. As stated before already I'll describe how I learned to do it.
Firstly you ahve to get above the rings meaning that if you were to stand straight your hands at your sides by your waist. That is where the rings are. So you are hanging upright and your weight is supported by your arms. Then bend the legs and bring your body down until your hands are at your chest. Once you get down far enough pull back up to the original position with your legs bent throughout the exercise.
L-SITS: like dips but instead of moving your arms, you are working your abdomen. Just lift your legs straight out till it is horizontal. Hold for as long as possible (mind you it is difficult at first, but once you develop the muscles and strenght you are ok.)

There are other ones but these are the basics. If you want to learn harder things for strength you can always find a gymnast to show you some spectacular strength moves. (ie. the body is horizontal above the rings supported by the arms at a 45 degree angle inward)

IRON CROSS: very very difficult to do. Takes a long time to get, I don't recommend even trying. do the basics then do harder things later. If your muscles aren't developed right then the Iron cross is difficult.

As for the universal machine, out of my own experience, I didn't like using it. I prefered using the rings solely. But if that is your only resource then use it.