Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Elite Rings Review - Gymnastic Fitness that's FUN for your workouts

Ok, gym rings, gymnastic rings, fitness rings, whatever you want to call them, they are a BLAST. If you haven't tried 'em - give 'em a go. You may smile during a workout for the first time in ages. This is a really lightweight review to say why you might enjoy 'em too.

Plus, great news: portable, super light Elite Rings are now available directly in the UK, so you can get FREE SHIPPING even in the UK (and canada too, holy cow).

The Secret Life of Kettlebells. If you want to know what a kettlebell feels like (channel that inner kettlebell), get on some rings. Heck, pull ups are all butch and fine and everything. Raw raw, but doing a pull up on rings is funner! You can move, swing about, swing upside down.

When i was at the 9S sustenance course, at every break over five days, the number of folks playing on the rings over a break grew progressively. Guys trying out their muscle ups. Everyone just having a go and a pull, or grabbing one ring and swinging about.

Rings Rule: They're FUN
And if it's FUN we tend to do it MORE. I was doing way more pull ups on those rings than i do at my office where there's even easier access to the pull up bar than i had on the course to the rings. Something about occaisionally turning upside down. Or about being able to adjust the height easily to try new stuff.

Elite Rings
I happen to like Tyler Hass's Elite Rings. Why? It's a great product by someone who loves this equipment, uses it himself, and is a great small business. There's a great chart for how to get going with basic exercises, free training programs on the web site, so you have all you need to get going. That is if just hanging and swinging and pulling and flipping isn't fun enough.

And if the free stuff just isn't enough, theRing Strength DVD is really awesome. And Fun and kinda inspiring.

That there is an olympian Jordan Jovtchev, demo'ing these rings and how-to moves is a pretty cool hook up between expert designer and expert practitioner to learn how these cool moves (yes, including the iron cross) are done.

I've had a link to Tyler's rings on this site for a long time, but i'm still buzzing from the memory of what a gas it was for us to have such easy access to these rings - not something that i can hook up where i live. So if you do have room to hang these from your rafters in a home or garage, or on some monkey bars or wherever, do! IF your gym doesn't have them, you may want to ask them to consider getting them in.

One of the biggest cool things about watching folks on the rings is the smiles. Not something one always sees at the pull up bar or for that matter swinging a heavy bell, or deadlifting.

Just hang off 'em once - let your body with feet on the ground - just move back and forth, and see how long before you're hooking your feet in those rings hanging upside down, swinging back and forth. "It's for spinal decompression." Sure! and that they're outrageously FUN is pretty good too.

Swinging is cool for your vestibular system too. Close your eyes. Open your eyes. Look Left. Look Right. Back and forth.

Swinging is cool for your visual system: near and far drills take on new dimensions for target acquisition and peripheral switching - all while working your grip, your upper body, your core. Rad. I really *hope* you can find a space to throw these up and have a go. The secret life of kettlebells exposed.

Here's to effortless happiness in each of your perfectly fun reps.

2 comments:

Doin the Math said...

I bought rings nearly a year ago, and have YET to use them. Can you believe it? I can't! Now you've motivated me. I'm going to take them to the gym with me on Friday.

dr. m.c. said...

awesome! let me know how it goes.

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