Victorian Cross Hold, New (Bar Barians Video)

[Brian Li]

Check out the hold at 1:11 in the following video. It's like a victorian, but with the arms close to the sides. It's done on PB with only the hands and possibly the wrists supported. I thought it would be impossible to do this without support on most of your arms and that it would require the COG to be past the hips which would require inhuman strength. Is it because he is torquing the hands like in a CTI?

[ngoachoi]

Hi guys my name is Sai Ngo im a "Bar Barian" and been training calisthenics for 16 months now.

This website is a awesome find!

Here's my new video (victorian cross on P Bar at 1:11)

[Jon Douglas]

Incomparably easier on bars vs. rings, although still impressive. I seem to remember John Sapinosa talking about progressively developing a maltese by working PB holds like that (facing the other way obviously)

[Joseph Fradelakis]

bent arms vs straight arm also exponential difference i imagine

Hey Sai. Welcome. Strong stuff btw

[Brian Li]

Hi Sai, welcome to the GB forums! You are very strong and I look forward to your stuff! How did you manage to do your victorian with arms so close to the body? It looks like something that would be even harder than the standard victorian with arms wide out to the sides. Could you also do a victorian with the arms wide out and also on rings? Did you work up to this by doing it supported on the arms?

[Joshua Naterman]

Hi Sai, welcome to the GB forums! You are very strong and I look forward to your stuff! How did you manage to do your victorian with arms so close to the body? It looks like something that would be even harder than the standard victorian with arms wide out to the sides. Could you also do a victorian with the arms wide out and also on rings? Did you work up to this by doing it supported on the arms?

End of PB is where his center of mass is in this case. A strong hold, and with this amount of strength a false grip victorian may not be very far out of reach for this guy on rings. Perhaps a year or two away, in terms of brute strength.

No way to predict what he can do on other apparatus, but the end of the bar is percentage wise quite a bit away from the point of false grip loading. He won't be able to progress much further on those bars because he can't make them wider to accommodate his center of mass while continuing to move towards just a false grip.

If I had to estimate, he's within 20-30% of the strength he needs. That means he needs to get stronger by 25% to 43%, depending on which side of that scale he's on.

That's almost certainly not going to happen in less than a year. Not if everything is legit.

[ngoachoi]

End of PB is where his center of mass is in this case. A strong hold, and with this amount of strength a false grip victorian may not be very far out of reach for this guy on rings. Perhaps a year or two away, in terms of brute strength.

No way to predict what he can do on other apparatus, but the end of the bar is percentage wise quite a bit away from the point of false grip loading. He won't be able to progress much further on those bars because he can't make them wider to accommodate his center of mass while continuing to move towards just a false grip.

If I had to estimate, he's within 20-30% of the strength he needs. That means he needs to get stronger by 25% to 43%, depending on which side of that scale he's on.

That's almost certainly not going to happen in less than a year. Not if everything is legit.

Thanks Joshua for your in-depth view on this, i intend to progress by using a weighted vest and doing the same move on the P bar before i start on the rings.

B1214N I - think i mainly progressed from doing weighted front lever pullups (managed to do 71KG added weight), When i first tried the VC (probably at the time i was doing 40kg weighted front lever pull ups by this time) my attempt wasnt much off the one on the video. I've only had a few sessions on rings because i dont own one myself, I am sure it will be much much harder tho.

Ps. this forum is amazing! its like a crazy amount of knowledge in one site, how comes i havent come accross it earlier

[Jon Douglas]

(probably at the time i was doing 40kg weighted front lever pull ups by this time)

Damn, that is sincerely impressive.

[Brian Li]

B1214N I - think i mainly progressed from doing weighted front lever pullups (managed to do 71KG added weight), When i first tried the VC (probably at the time i was doing 40kg weighted front lever pull ups by this time) my attempt wasnt much off the one on the video. I've only had a few sessions on rings because i dont own one myself, I am sure it will be much much harder tho.

That's UNREAL! I look forward to seeing your progress.

[Yaad Mohammad]

16 months only? Amazing man!

[Jordi Van Gelder]

16 months of training and can do planche and a unseen victorian on Pb bars? wtf......

[ngoachoi]

16 months of training and can do planche and a unseen victorian on Pb bars? wtf......

Thanks man! although the planche on this video wasnt completly full planche. i do have a FP on another video tho. The editor released the wrong footage of me but still a excellent edit.

Im hoping to improve much more and start to tap into flexibility moves like manna or moves like oahs which i still have alot of trouble doing. But from what im reading in this forum i believe i will get it with the correct guidence and hard work.

[Joseph Fradelakis]

Hey Sai. I see you created the youtube account in 2006.

What was your training like before the 16 months of gymnastics?

In addition, what guidance did you follow for those 16 months of training?

I think the answers might help other members of the forum

[ngoachoi]

Hey Joey the youtube account was made in 2006 but not for calisthenics type video’s, and I haven’t done any gymnastic training yet, but I’d hope to take it up soon.

Ok here’s my short story , I used to smoke and drink a lot. So I made it my new years resolution in Jan 2011 to stop smoking, join the gym and drink less.

On the first 14 days I went every day and just did cardio for a hour or so, after that decided to go onto weights. 6 months after I stumbled across all these street calisthenics video’s on youtube. I was very motivated and inspired from what I was seeing.

I saw this group “bar Barians†which had this set of requirements to join. 5Mu, 45 Dips, 25 PU, 55 Press ups and 5 mu in 6 minutes. I thought to myself that’s easy.. and how wrong was I when I tried it(you can see my first attempt on my youtube channel).

Anyway since then I read up a lot more on this team. I found that they was one of the strongest teams around yet very humble about their skills. I decided I had to complete these requirements and get into the team. I have a training log I did which can be found on the bar barians website. http://bar-barians.forumotions.com/t3581-training-log-road-to-bbr-edit-completed-with-video

Since that day I completed the reqs have just been training to get stronger, I quit the gym and just did body weight (or weighted vest) exercises. My main goal when I first started was to get the front lever which took roughly 4 weeks for a 3 sec hold ish. Then a further 3 months for a 12+ sec hold. Then after that I went on to front lever pullups. And then weighted front lever pullups. In the type of calisthenics im in gymnastic moves are pretty alien to us so I never ever trained to do a Victorian cross. But I guess the front lever pullups must have helped in some way.

Planche I started training march this year. I got a lot of tips just from youtube videos.

I hope this helps. Any questions fire away

[Craig Mallett]

Hey dude,

How strong were you before you started body weight specific exercises? Seems you made a lot of progress in a short period of time, but you started straight into being able to do some "beginner-intermediate" exercises, rather than right at the start.

Thanks!

Cheers,

[Joshua Naterman]

Thanks Joshua for your in-depth view on this, i intend to progress by using a weighted vest and doing the same move on the P bar before i start on the rings.

B1214N I - think i mainly progressed from doing weighted front lever pullups (managed to do 71KG added weight), When i first tried the VC (probably at the time i was doing 40kg weighted front lever pull ups by this time) my attempt wasnt much off the one on the video. I've only had a few sessions on rings because i dont own one myself, I am sure it will be much much harder tho.

Ps. this forum is amazing! its like a crazy amount of knowledge in one site, how comes i havent come accross it earlier

Rings will be both harder and easier. You'll be able to spread your arms, which will engage some muscles to a greater degree than you currently are which will make things harder (that, and the fact that there's no friction but after 2 months that won't matter much since your CNS will have adjusted) but will also enable you to move towards a proper victorian. With a false grip you may even be able to hold a tuck or flat tuck, which would be absolutely outrageous in my opinion.

The PB will be a journey of diminishing returns at this point in your development I think, because of the center of mass issue but who knows? Besides, when they're all you've got at the moment keep on using them

Do you have video of the weighted pulls and holds you mention? That would be fun to watch!

[ngoachoi]

Rings will be both harder and easier. You'll be able to spread your arms, which will engage some muscles to a greater degree than you currently are which will make things harder (that, and the fact that there's no friction but after 2 months that won't matter much since your CNS will have adjusted) but will also enable you to move towards a proper victorian. With a false grip you may even be able to hold a tuck or flat tuck, which would be absolutely outrageous in my opinion.

The PB will be a journey of diminishing returns at this point in your development I think, because of the center of mass issue but who knows? Besides, when they're all you've got at the moment keep on using them

Do you have video of the weighted pulls and holds you mention? That would be fun to watch!

I ordered a pair of rings today so i guess i get to test it out once it arrives , my weighted front lever pullups i only have one of + 71 kgs in the link i will post below. i have videos of myself with a few weighted vest on but not yet published.

Anyway here is my video with weighted front lever pull up. (its close to the end, but by all means watch the whole video )

[Joshua Naterman]

I ordered a pair of rings today so i guess i get to test it out once it arrives , my weighted front lever pullups i only have one of + 71 kgs in the link i will post below. i have videos of myself with a few weighted vest on but not yet published.

Anyway here is my video with weighted front lever pull up. (its close to the end, but by all means watch the whole video )

First off, that was a very fun video! By FAR The best part was the 1 arm FL with the bike as counter-weight, that is so my style!

I thought the weight would be at the shoulders. If you wear a vest with the weight at your center of mass (belly button-ish, ok to be slightly above) I think you will find two things:

1) You can't lift anywhere near as much extra weight

2) You will build strength that will help you more with your victorian endeavor.

[ngoachoi]

First off, that was a very fun video! By FAR The best part was the 1 arm FL with the bike as counter-weight, that is so my style!

I thought the weight would be at the shoulders. If you wear a vest with the weight at your center of mass (belly button-ish, ok to be slightly above) I think you will find two things:

1) You can't lift anywhere near as much extra weight

2) You will build strength that will help you more with your victorian endeavor.

Thanks mate, Dunno if i typed it or not above but i think i did mention i also do front lever pull ups with weighted vest? i have 2 vest at home total of 40kg and when my friend is not around to be a weight i use it to train.

Centre of gravity is different yes but as long as u can hold a front lever with the added weight its no problem to do a pull up.

[Blairbob]

Well, he also is using the width of the bars and his wrists on the bar besides the false grip to sort of squeeze between the bars.

Nonetheless, it's still very impressive.

[ngoachoi]

Hey dude,

How strong were you before you started body weight specific exercises? Seems you made a lot of progress in a short period of time, but you started straight into being able to do some "beginner-intermediate" exercises, rather than right at the start.

Thanks!

Cheers,

When i stopped gym in july/august 2011 ish i was able to do 200kg deadlift. 380kg leg press. 140kg bench press. I weighed at 74kg's. since then because of what i compete in. i do not train legs anymore and weigh 71kg but im hoping i can bring it down to 65kg ish its just crazy hard to lose weight, no idea how these ppl go on these crazy diets lol.

[Joshua Naterman]

Thanks mate, Dunno if i typed it or not above but i think i did mention i also do front lever pull ups with weighted vest? i have 2 vest at home total of 40kg and when my friend is not around to be a weight i use it to train.

Centre of gravity is different yes but as long as u can hold a front lever with the added weight its no problem to do a pull up.

What I mean is, adding weight to your shoulders or chest is a lot different than adding weight to your hips or waist in a front lever.

You'll see what I mean if you can try that out... the more you add around chest/shoulders the easier the pull up will be compared to the same weight being at the waist or hips. If that vest puts the weight centered on your belly button then that's awesome! If not, see if there is a way to make it so, because it will keep your center of mass where it is when you're unweighted.

Center of mass changes everything about the movement. Arm angle changes, which means that there are certain muscle groups that actually work less in the heavier shoulder-weighted row than in a lighter waist-weighted row, and those muscles that work harder when you're weighted at your waist are the ones you are going to need for Victorian Cross.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do what is shown on the video, I mean those are awesome! I simply think that you should try to keep your center of mass exactly where it is during unweighted work for a fair amount of FL training.

[ngoachoi]

What I mean is, adding weight to your shoulders or chest is a lot different than adding weight to your hips or waist in a front lever.

You'll see what I mean if you can try that out... the more you add around chest/shoulders the easier the pull up will be compared to the same weight being at the waist or hips. If that vest puts the weight centered on your belly button then that's awesome! If not, see if there is a way to make it so, because it will keep your center of mass where it is when you're unweighted.

Center of mass changes everything about the movement. Arm angle changes, which means that there are certain muscle groups that actually work less in the heavier shoulder-weighted row than in a lighter waist-weighted row, and those muscles that work harder when you're weighted at your waist are the ones you are going to need for Victorian Cross.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do what is shown on the video, I mean those are awesome! I simply think that you should try to keep your center of mass exactly where it is during unweighted work for a fair amount of FL training.

O right! Yea i agree totally, the more the added weight is on a lower part of the body the harder the exercise gets. I always found to hold a front lever with a 5kg ankle weights was just as hard as to hold it with a 30kg vest.

[Brian Li]

Hey Sai, could you also do a maltese on the parallel bars?

[ngoachoi]

Hey Sai, could you also do a maltese on the parallel bars?

B1214N i havent trained for maltese at all so i'd say no. Also because im fairly new to the gymnastic holds its very taxing on the joints, I think i need to have more prep before i do train it to be honest. the planche/back levers are starting to get my joints feeling it.