I’m excited to post this video on the Gymnastic Rings version of the Archer Pull-Up. It’s a great variation of the straight bar Archer and is another exercise you can add to your suspension training.

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are a few ways to progress into single limb training. We can position the body to where you are taking a smaller percentage of your own body weight, shorten the lever arm, add assistance with bands, and recruit the opposite limb to assist in the movement. The latter is the case with the Archer Pull Up.

This exercise has multiple benefits (including making for a unique style of muscle up) and is a great way to start conditioning for a Single Arm Pull-Up. The Single Arm Pull-Up, of course, is a jaw dropping feat of strength that requires specific training time to achieve. While this can be attacked from many different angles, one training method is to progressively take more and more of your bodyweight on a single arm. This is where the archer pull up comes in.

It’s the movement of flexing one arm (as in a Single Arm Pull-Up) coupled with the elbow extension and internal rotation of the opposite arm that helps pull the body up to the bar. This helps mimic a Single Arm Pull-Up, with the assistance of the opposite limb making up the difference in strength.

Using the Gymnastic Rings adds a whole new element to the equation. Since the arms are now pulling from two different structures that can move through all planes of motion the exercise becomes more complex and challenging. This can help with shoulder stability as well as overall trunk recruitment. Training with the rings will make your carryover to the bar version that much easier and get you one step closer to the Single Arm Pull-Up.

If you don’t have a set of gymnastic rings yet, I would highly recommend it. They are highly versatile tools that can be used as an entire gym almost anywhere. You can purchase excellent Gymnastics Rings here.





To see another great video tutorial using gymnastics rings, check out:

• Single-Arm Ring Push-Up