The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Posted
Mar 13, 2009 - 16:03

Tagged
Fitness

Elite Rings

The other day, I ordered a new piece of equipment, a pair of Elite Rings. They arrived today, two days after I ordered them. Each ring comes with a strap, about 20 feet long, with a slip-proof buckle.

After I unboxed the rings, I set them up in my doorway, hanging from a Door Gym pullup bar. Then, I attempted an L sit, although I’m still not solid enough in that exercise to execute it perfectly. I have been practicing that skill on parallel bars and between chairs. I had no idea how much more difficult it is on rings.

I also attempted a few dips on the rings, thinking that, since I can do 15 or 20 in a row on parallel bars, they’d be a little more difficult on rings. Wow. What a difference. I can do two dips on the rings. When you do weight bearing exercises like that, the rings move around infinitely and you have to call into bearing more of your stabilizer muscles.

I should have bought these a year ago. After trying a few dips and L sits, I set up my camera and got a couple of shots. The tricky part about self-photography while doing an exercise like this is setting the timer, racing back over to the rings, and getting into position before the camera goes off.

The fruits of my photographic labor:

• Apollo Does a Dip
• Apollo’s Half-Assed L Sit (5th attempt to get a picture).

Yeah, I smacked my elbows into the doorway a lot. I need to find a nice location with a much higher anchor point.

Posted by
Eric P
Mar 21, 2009 - 10:03

Sweet, man. Question: Can you do kipping pull-ups on your door gym? I’ve never tried it but I always thought the jerk and swaying motion would knock it off track, ending in an epic home-workout fail.

Posted by
Kai
Mar 23, 2009 - 17:03

I have GOT to try those.

Posted by
Apollo
Apr 14, 2009 - 13:04

@Eric P: I can, but the problem I’ve run into with the door gym is that the padding on the bar rips your calluses off after 80 or so pullups, even if you’ve been careful to keep them trimmed down. I think that’s because the squishiness naturally makes folds in your hands that a plain metal bar wouldn’t.

Leave a Comment

Name

Email

Website

Elsewhere

• Profile: Yelp
• Profile: Flickr
• Profile: Twitter
• Profile: LinkedIn
• Profile: Reddit

Random Friends

Recent Archives

• January 2015
• September 2014
• July 2014
• March 2014
• November 2012
• September 2012
• August 2012

View All Archives

About Apollo

• About Apollo

Other Projects

• ApolloLee.com
• Digeum