4 Easy Gymnastic Ring Exercises for Bboys and Bgirls
A few weeks ago, I posted an Instagram reel doing Ring Muscle Ups (RMU) and explained why I decided to utilize gymnastic rings. People have asked me throughout the years how did I get bigger, stronger, and leaner from gymnastic rings alone.
First off, I ain’t that big, strong, or lean. I honestly drink a little too much to get the “dream” physique I subconsciously desire. But I believe I know a thing or two on how gymnastic rings can help you out — especially if you're a b-boy or b-girl.
If you are looking to build up a more impressive physique or improve your bodyweight strength without applying for an expensive a** annual gym membership, gymnastics rings might be the solution for you.
As for breakers, gymnastic rings might also be the missing piece to executing the crazy ideas you came up with when you were taking a sh*t in the toilet. I know it did for me.
Here are my 4 easy gymnastic rings exercises for you to try out.
Quick Disclaimer:
I’m in no way a professional fitness trainer. All the information that I will be sharing is from my personal experience, the countless YouTube videos I’ve watched, and fitness advice I heard from professional b-boys and personal trainers in real life.
Please try these exercises at your own risk.
1. Ring Push-Ups
If you’re a b-boy or b-girl, you know that we push up to a tremendous amount of moves from our hands. Baby freezes to headstands, stab switches, airflares, and the list goes on. So how can we strengthen this “pushing motion?”
You’ve guessed it.
Push-ups, but on the rings.
Keep in mind that the first crucial step to mastering gymnastic rings is knowing how to use your core. In any position you do, your core has to stay tight in order to keep the rings stable. That’s why rings are perfect to build up your bodyweight strength as pretty much every exercise is a core workout too.
Ring push-ups are also a great tool to aesthetically build up your chest, shoulder, and tricep muscles. What I like about the rings is that you can adjust the straps to fix your strength level.
For example, the lower the straps are, the harder it is to stabilize them while you’re doing the push-up. The higher the straps, the easier it is as it won’t be so wobbly when you’re doing the push-up.
Lower straps = harder stabilization = more gains
Higher straps = easy stabilization = not as much gains
However, just like in Breakin, having proper form is the first step to mastery. So take it easy first and work your way down to lowering the straps as the ring push-up gets easier over time.
Rings are just so versatile that you can’t hate them, you actually can’t.
2. Ring Support Hold
The ring support hold is one of the fundamentals of gymnastic rings. You can say this is pretty much the baby freeze of rings. Without this move, you can’t progress to other “fancy” moves you want to attempt in the future.
As we all know, once we’ve unlocked that baby freeze, there’s pretty much no going back. The same situation applies here. That’s why I’ve added the ring support hold to this list. This will help you unlock other basic moves such as the ring dip, one of my favorite exercises to not only build a better upper body — but further enhance the “pushing motion” mentioned in the ring push-up.
By the way, this article is not a tutorial. This is just for me to recommend exercises for y’all and how they helped me. But don’t worry, I’ll be adding video tutorials here so you don’t need to search them up on YouTube and give you my free basic ring workout program at the end of this article.
You’re f*cking welcome.
3. Ring Rows
I’m pretty sure we all know what’s a pull-up. But in case you don’t, here’s a little video demo.
So why the ring pull-up? Actually, if you read the title correctly, it says the ring row. Initially, I wanted to add the ring pull-up but it’s pretty hard to execute it if you never had a background in fitness.
Or let me rephrase this better:
Execute pull-ups in proper form.
I’ve seen a tremendous amount of b-boys and b-girls doing pull-ups with an incorrect form. They’re thinking that this “form” will elevate their Breakin game to new physical heights.
Honestly, y’all just wasting your f*cking time. If you ask me. Someone’s got to say it. It’s the equivalent of saying that you’ve mastered flares but you keep scrapping your legs on the floor – every time.
I say let’s take it a step back.
Start with mastering the ring row.
So why the ring row? Well, the rows and pull-ups fall into the category of “pulling” which helps develop your back, shoulders, and arm – especially on the biceps (depending on which pulling variation).
Also, b-boys and b-girls use too much “pushing” motion in their movements. So we need to balance this out by adding more “pulling” exercises such as the ring row, and eventually the ring pull-up in the future.
Balance is everything.
So add in those pulling movements if you want to stay in shape in this last-man-standing game, especially if you’re aiming for the Olympics or professional Breakin.
4. False Grip Holds
I was pretty hesitant to put in this one since it’s kind of difficult to execute. But if you want to have healthy wrists in the long run and kill it in the Breakin game — this was a game changer for me.
Long story short, I always injured my wrists for countless of years as my style relies heavily on floats such as UFOs and turtles. I knew I had to strengthen them in a different way or else it would be an endless vicious cycle of injuries and recovery every few months.
I stumbled upon a video that explained how to strengthen your wrists by practicing the false grip hold on the gymnastic rings. It’s been 2 years since I’ve been incorporating exercises with the false grip and I can honestly say with no b*llshit — I’ve never got a serious wrist injury ever again.
Sometimes I overuse it from “floating” too much or other DirtE stuff (wink wink) but overall, I never got a serious wrist injury again.
What I love about the false grip hold is that it’s also a crucial step to learn if you want to master the ring muscle-up. The ring muscle-up is an impressive exercise that not only looks good to show off to your friends but builds insane upper body strength that incorporates both the pulling and pushing motions.
But first things first, get that false grip hold, and then we can talk about the ring muscle-up later.
(The video will directly skip to the part about the false grip hold)
Summary
- Ring Push-Ups
- Ring Support Holds
- Ring Rows
- False Grip Holds
As promised, here's a little reward for you since you read all the way to the end. Just a reminder again that I’m not a professional fitness trainer whatsoever. This is just what has helped me with my dance style and my fitness goals.
However, I told these tips to a few of my friends and they have seen great results as well — which was the inspiration for me to create this article in the first place. Incorporate these workouts into your weekly routine on top of your dance training or whatever the f*ck you do.
Definitely better than an expensive a** gym membership, sorry gym lads.
Hope this article helped you somehow! Have you ever used gymnastic rings before? What did I miss? Let me know in the comments or send me a DM from one of my contact methods down below!
Peace!
Contact Me
- LinkedIn: Erryl Ho
- Instagram: @dirteeeee
- Website: https://www.errylclassicz.com/
- Email: sendtoerrylho@gmail.com
