The ring muscle up. It’s one of those movements that everyone in the gym looks at with awe and aspires to get. It’s a beautiful display of strength, skill and technique. It requires all three of those in order to execute. There are all kinds of drills out there to help you build the strength and/or awareness of being on the rings in order to work towards the end result.
One of the best things for getting comfortable on the rings and developing the awareness and “feel” for the movement are toes to rings. Just as they sound; fairly straight forward. We are hanging on a pair of rings, initiate an active swing and bring our toes up to touch either ring. I often use this as a substitute for toes to bar as the rings allow for some movement making them easier on the shoulder and requiring a little less strength to execute than a fixed bar on the rig.
When performing any kind of movement on the rig, specifically toes to bar in this example, we want to keep an “active swing”. This is difficult to describe in text but essentially we are pulling down on the bar setting our shoulders, then moving through range of motion from the hollow to arch positions (hips and heels on opposite vertical planes of the pull up bar). An “inactive” swing happens when we start swinging like a swing on the swing set. Our hips and heels are on the same plane of the pull up bar and we swing like a pendulum. If we take this example to the rings, which are hanging at the end of a length of strap, we would can understand the swing that would be created. Now, instead of “swinging around the bar” from our hands, we are swinging around the gym from the attachment point at the top of the straps. The straps just became extensions of our arms. Obviously not good (although a lot of fun!) and we better clear some space around us.
Being able to control the rings in a toes to ring is far easier than trying to learn to control them doing a muscle up. We have to be able to stay “pulling down” on the rings while maintaining our hollow and arch positions. The creates our kip, which is amplified by the straps and we are able to bring our toes up to the rings. This builds a lot of core strength in the athlete for sure. It also builds a lot of awareness and “feel” for the rings. Being able to generate power through tension with our body positions and transfer that through the rings. The toes to ring will teach us to feel the kip which will eventually lead to other drills like a “hips to ring”. All of which are great progressions for building towards the ever elusive muscle up.
So the next time you see “toes to bar” or “muscle ups” in the WOD at 306, don’t be afraid to try out a pair of rings. Your coach will be able to help you decide if you have the prerequisite strength for the toes to ring and then you can build some familiarity with the positions and movements required. It might a new tool for the tool box and heck, swinging from the rings is a whole lot of fun!