Did you still acquire results after 5-10 years of consistency? Current data appears to indicate one may be nearly maxed out after say a decade of seriously consistent, rigorously structured training.
Wouldn’t you be grinding for six months to increase your squat 1RM from 500 lbs to… 502.5lbs
As I get older, I hear horror stories of people having hernias from squatting and dead-lifting. It makes me want to make body-weight training my main source of strength training and use gym equipment for accessory stuff. As I still enjoy lifting, I pretty much try to keep both body weight training and weight training equally focused.
I’m twenty… and I’ve got a hernia now alongside a bad back, bad shoulders etc. There’s a genetic component, but I’d argue perhaps heavy, high volume weightlifting may not be the most sustainable pastime.
Going to see my GP, see what he/she says. Until then (few days from now) I’ll keep irresponsibly lifting and hope to god I don’t end up with a strangulated hernia.
Did someone say squat PR tomorrow??? #responsibleandnotindenial
Anyhow, back to rings/BW training
Should be noted BW training isn’t without risk of injury. If you take an intelligent approach like Brickhead appears to have done you can mitigate risk. Imbalaces leading to postural abnormalities, generalised myalgia and worst case scenario shoulder impingement, rotator cuff tears and whatnot can be precipitated from repetitive movement patterns and exercising certain muscle groups without adequate counterbalance.
Ring dips have been known to wreck havoc on the shoulders/elbows of those predisposed and/or have mobility issues. I suppose no form of physical activity is without risk, though the benefits of regular exercise far outweigh the abysmal chance of say… falling in the middle of a handstand pushup, tearing a pec during ring dips, acquiring swimmers shoulder, stress fractures from running yadayadayada
Its occured to me I should clarify my posts above: The idea that @BrickHead physique was entirely built on squats and milk was definitely tongue in cheek. I was in no way being sarcastic about his accomplishments.
Be nice, I’m tired.
I knew that. 
GOMAD!
That is correct. I’m in my early forties and I started lifting at 16. Although I’ve been fortunate to be injury free from weightligting (BJJ was another matter) whenever I unrack a bar for squatting I can feel all those years in my body.
In my twenties I couldn’t envision even doing something else besides heavy compound lifts, but I’ve training almost exclusively bodyweight/band for the last five years or so, with the only exception being occasional front squats. I’ve experienced no discernible loss in muscle mass.
Very few of my friends with 25+ years of lifting can either bench or deadlift pain-free.
While ring dips for me are way harder, I actually have to support my feet on a bench like w/ a rack chin despite being able to do many regular dips, I’ve found them to be easier on the actual shoulder joint. Being able to freely rotate the rings allows me to into arm positions that are easier on my shoulder.
A little more internally rotated at the bottom so it’s not a truly neutral grip but slightly pronated and then I can externally rotate as I rise which helps me keep my shoulders down so both parts of the dip that are kinda sketch for me are a lot better for my shoulder.
Agreed, I’ve always found ring dips superior, not only regarding pectoral activation but also shoulder health. I attributed this due to the free/fluid movements of the rings and my shoulder hypermobility. I can go reeeeaaalllly far down and get a good stretch.
As a matter of fact… you know what, I’ll do some ring dips today! 3-4x10 it’ll be at the end of my workout. Was going to do legs today but my workout partner is doing chest/shoulders/triceps, so I’ll do legs tomorrow.
@brickhead might be interested to hear ths. I seriously believe the best lat development I’ve ever had (and this was before I was put on TRT, I was hypogonadal here) was during my bout of frequent rings/bar training. I have amazing genetics for back growth, shitty genetics for everything else. It was totally disproportionate, I was virtually one giant lat. Got a few comments during that phase like “you look like an upside down Dorito”. Ended up stopping due to chronic pain/illess and costochondritis. Skills wise I got to
Keep in mind I was only around 135 lbs at the time. Never had a good genetic base, started at like… 75 lbs at 5 foot 1 or so, now around 5’5 (I’m tall!), a tad below 160. What’s interesting is my metabolism chucked a 180 growing up. Used to have trouble putting on weight, now I find it incredibly difficult to keep fat off.
No longer get upside down dorito comments. I was called “dense”, a “thickboi” and a “nugget” the other day at the gym, legitimately not sure if these are insults or compliments. My partner is younger than me, my height yet jacked as fuck (amazing genes and work ethic) yet I can outfit him on the deadlift and benchpress… funny how genetics work.
A lot of the stuff puts indirect stress on the lats and glutes I’ve noticed.
I still am sort of unfamiliar with programming to reach certain benchmarks. Like, I want to eventually be able to get a handstand and even handstand push-ups (before next ice age) and muscle-ups, front and back lever, and maybe human flag in this life time but I think like regular lifting one has to aim for two to four lifts and include exercises that strengthen them and their professions. So right now I’m just doing a generic upper-lower template.
Upper body today was:
Pullups to sternum (get as above bar as possible)
Elevated Pike push-ups
Inverted bar rows
Reverse grip push-ups (much harder than they seem)
L-sits
Inverted deadlift
Leg day two days ago was:
Counter weight Pistol squats 5 x 5
Weighted Single leg RDL’s 5 x 5
Weighted Cossack squats 5 x 5
My glutes have never been sorer. Not kidding.
Those are impressive lifts.
There are ways one can get started with handstand progressions. Provided you have the means to do this in a safe and controlled manner. Pike pushups (with progressive elevations in incline) help with the ROM aspect of the HSPU, but first you need to be able to do a handstand.
Thank you 
I have been practicing crow pose daily and will work on professions to handstand.
Fucking ripped @BrickHead. Superb my man
Shred Durst
Hey Brickhead,
What would be inverted deadlifts?
Ring exercise
I actually did some ring dips today, alongside regular bar dips.
Requires a decent amount of core strength. What I like and find unique about the still rings is the sheer amount of stabilisation required to pull off various feats. Someone can be able to do twenty dips on parallel bars but struggle to complete or even outright fail to perform one singular dip on still rings, esp if “completion” entails ending the rep in a support hold.
Support hold for reference
Should also be noted, ring training does’t inherently equate to big arms. It helps, but the big arms you see on gymnasts and whatnot are typically a byproduct of training + genetics. Those with suitable structures to perform various feats and compete at an elite level are probably predisposed to having big arms.
I have the shittest arm genetics and some pretty good back genetics. Ring training gave me wide lats, but did very little for my arms.
It’s awesome I can talk about gymnastics/specific moves and progressions on here. I was very interested in gymnastics for a while. I find the sport beautiful, cruel and fascinating.
With that being said, it’s rare to see someone who can perform an iron cross on still rings without decent shoulder/bicep/trciep development. I’d then argue “not everyone will be capable of performing this feat regardless of training stimuli”.
I have also been practicing that. It was one of the progressions in “Convict Conditioning”. I remember that when I first tried it, I almost face-planted in 2 seconds. I had to make sure I had padding in case it happened when I trained it. It was very worrisome. Now, I can go into a crow pose any point without fear. The crow pose has been a move that I haven’t stopped training.
It seems like you have to put 1 or 2 exercises that you are trying to get better at on the forefront. I don’t think it works well to try and get planche, human flag, L-sit, freestanding handstand, etc. all at one time. Maybe some sort of prioritization would help? I know this isn’t any new knowledge.
I also am doing just general training using the “Convict Conditioning” steps. My main goal is to focus on strength and muscle building. I don’t care quite as much about the “skill-based” calisthenics moves although it would be nice to get a human flag.
I think it’s awesome too! T-nation seems to mainly cater to weight training over gymnastics type stuff. Although I love weight training, it is nice to talk to others about calisthenics. It’s kind of a one-stop shop for those interested in calisthenics and weight training.