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Hi! I’ve been frequenting the gymnastic bodies forums for quite some time now and just recently decided to take the plunge and try the free trial. Im having some trouble deciding where to start. Part of me wants to start at the complete beginning and move through all of the progressions first 2 reasons. First of all I want to go back through and smooth out any weak points I might have and give my body the proper time to adjust. Secondly, I am a strength coach and I feel it would be extremely beneficial for me to go through the learning process from beginning to end as a student so I have a better understanding of how to implement gymnastics strength with my athletes/clients. A little bit about where I’m at right now: 1-2 one arm chin ups on rings and on a bar 15 freestanding HSPU 5-6 freestanding HSPU full ROM on bars 2 stalder presses in a row 6ish second straddle planche front lever is pretty weak, I can control a full eccentric but have no more than a 3 second hold can’t really hold a bent arm planche on the floor but I can do a few straddle hollow body presses full middle and front splits but they are not that comfortable yet. will include some videos and pictures for proof

edit: title, and a better video

I saw athlete Chen Yibing perform iron cross on the Olympics of 2008 and this raised a few questions: 1. Are his elbows bent and pointing DOWN, or are they pointing UP and hyper-extended (bent the wrong way)? 2. Is the correct form to have elbows pointing up or elbows pointing down? 3. Is the false grip he uses allowed for iron cross or is it considered cheating? Will doing iron cross without false grip give you more points and higher scores in the competition? 4. Where does iron cross stand in terms of difficulty rating compared to the other straight arm still rings static positions? For example is it considered harder than planche? In order to make sure we are speaking the same language I've added pictures of the possible positions. The the pictures are elbows down, elbows back, elbows up, in that specific order from top to bottom: EDIT: added athlete's name and event EDIT: added pictures of possible arm positions