Lat Raises and the Rings?

I’ve been training lateral raises with some 20 lb dumb bells at home.

I do them for high repetitions and try to hold them at parallel to my shoulders.

The purpose, is I’d like to build a gymnastics style physique, ie, once I’m finished cutting, I will go on to the rings.

However, I’ve found difficult in this.

I can do almost endless reps with the 20 lbers, yet when I go to the gym and try 30 lbs, it feels like a TON.

I currently weight 220 lbs, I estimate, that I can safely get down to 180 without losing much muscle mass.

Just cut out all the fat.

However, my difficulty is, if it is this difficult just to get up to 30 lbs at 220lbs, how the hell will I ever, get up to 90 lbs at 180.

Since I could be wrong, but I feel as if, 90 lbs will be the only way to do true ring maneuvres.

What do you all think, please, If I’m entirely mislead, correct me?

I know a 90 lb lateral raise seems extreme, but, wouldn’t the be equivalent to the rings?

When you’re doing the rings you aren’t really pushing your arms upwards are you? You push downwards in order to support your weight. If you want to do rings you should be practicing the maneuvers, that alone should strengthen the movements.

I’m too heavy right now, when I get down to 170, I’ll be able to practice just on the maneuvers.

Do a google search for ‘iron cross trainer’, it is a gymnast implement specifically for training up to the iron cross. It has multiple attachment points, so you can start off with the fulcrum near the elbow, and then gradually work out to your hands.

[quote]laxccm wrote:
When you’re doing the rings you aren’t really pushing your arms upwards are you? You push downwards in order to support your weight. If you want to do rings you should be practicing the maneuvers, that alone should strengthen the movements.[/quote]

you need insane multidirectional support and static strength

I don’t think many gymnasts have improved their proficiency on the rings with isolation weight training. You’d be better off doing bw exercises and learning to hold progressively difficult positions.

Things like planche pushups are considered easier than the iron cross, you might wanna set your target lower for a while. But I’m no gymnast and use gymnasts sparingly in my strength training, so maybe one of the couple on this board will give you a more helpful response

Also not you, any gymnast, or possibly anyone on this planet, will ever do a strict lateral raise with 90 dumbbells. Not once, not for one rep, not ever in your life. So reconsider your priorities =) lol

I’ve seen 50 lb db raises by a guy who weighs 150 ish, so I don’t know if it is entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Dang dude pic up a book man! your lateral raising strenth has les than 5% to do with what your discribing as an iron cross! get on dragon door.com and look for the body weight strength training! T-Nation is great for those of us with to much iron in our diets but i think your askin the wrong peopl about this!

Dude, lateral raises are a complete waste of time if your goal is to build strength that will help you with the rings.

You need to focus on weighted chins and pull ups with all different grips, but especially weighted towel chins. Multiple sets, low reps, always more weight. Upper body GPP like sledgehammer swings and sand bag work for the grip is useful too.

In addition you should pick up a set of blast straps, which are a tremendous tool. Use the blast straps for push ups and rows but more importantly for dips. Once you are strong with blast strap dips (they’re pretty tough to do for reps at first) its time to do muscle ups on the blast straps with your feet on the floor, then with your feet elevated on a box.

I’ve always been told that 3 muscle ups with feet elevated on a box equals one hanging, and in my experience that’s about right. Get to where you’re doing muscle ups from a dead hang on the rings and you’ll have the gymnast build you want.
good luck.

Get some rings and work on pull-ups, dips and muscle ups. Progress to more difficult manuevers.

[quote]wrath wrote:
Dang dude pic up a book man! your lateral raising strenth has les than 5% to do with what your discribing as an iron cross! get on dragon door.com and look for the body weight strength training! T-Nation is great for those of us with to much iron in our diets but i think your askin the wrong peopl about this![/quote]

Diddio.

And think about this. The heaviest weights I’ve ever seen anyone use on a no-cheat lateral raise has been like 65lbs…by a 250lb pro-bodybuilder. And he’s defiantly too big to be doing gymnastics. Layne Norton (a Natural Bodybuilder) benches the 150lb dumbbells and front squats 405 for reps but he says he never uses dumbbells heavier than 35lbs for lateral raises.

If you’re really interested in gymnastics, I would imagine that you’d need to get some instruction from real gymnasts. They probably know some progressive drills to help you learn the rings.

It’s like pole-vaulting. It’s really hard, requires a lot of strength, and is something that looks impossible. But how do you get to the point where you can even do that maneuver? You can’t just get strong as hell in the gym and then walk out on the runway or jump on the rings.

Instead you should spend your time with the people who can do these events and take their approach.
Dave Tate is always saying that if you want to get where someone is, you should do what they did to get there.

Just focus on getting leaner and stronger. Don’t worry about your Lateral Raise poundages. Worry about your dips and chins - some of the best indicators of relative body strength.

But don’t let being heavy hold you back from just jumping into gymnastics. John Belushi could do like 20 handsprings (that really wasn’t a stunt double) in The Blues Brothers. He was fat as hell and drank a ton.

Besides, when you start off with gymnastics, it’ll probably take you pretty long to progress through the different skills and at first it probably won’t matter that much if you’re heavy or slim (cause it’ll be hard no matter what).

Well… It doesn’t matter how any lat raises u do, even if you do them with 90lbs dumbells. A lat raise IS NOT an iron cross. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Ur making the same mistake I did when I used to do rows on the machines to “improve” my pull ups. Never happened, instead they got weaker.

Like Scrotus, smokey, and wrath said. Start hanging like a monkey. And it VERY often.

lol um

not what you need to be doing, but you did make me actually l.o.l so thanks.

buy some rings and that^

post again in like a year when you can do an iron cross.

I agree with what the other guys said. I used to do quite a bit of gymnastics exercises (planche, front lever, cross, muscle-ups, etc…) and the best thing you can do is actually start getting used to handling your own bodyweight.

Also, the movement pattern during lateral raises isn’t even close to that of a cross. No human can do a bodyweight lateral raise.

If you want some accessory exercises that can be done with dumbbells that will help you build strength specific for a cross, check out this article.

http://www.T-Nation.com/article/bodybuilding/the_iron_cross_for_bodybuilders&cr=

It’s by Coach Christopher Sommer, one of the leading junior gymnastics coaches in the states. He also has a couple good articles over at dragondoor.com as someone else already mentioned.

Good luck.

you realize that lateral RAISES are the opposite contraction of an iron cross right. Maybe there would be a SLIGHT benifit for a Maltese or something.

Maybe he wants to do upside down iron crosses.

[quote]FightingScott wrote:

Diddio.

And think about this. The heaviest weights I’ve ever seen anyone use on a no-cheat lateral raise has been like 65lbs…by a 250lb pro-bodybuilder

[/quote]

seriously, for a strict lateral raise? both arms? That’s absolutely amazing! who was the guy anyway?

What book would that be?

That’s impressive, but I really do think it is possible to do something heavier than that.

[quote]Scrotus wrote:
Maybe he wants to do upside down iron crosses.[/quote]

do they do that?