10 Gym Ring Exercises For at Home (Not Just Ring Dips)
So, you’ve hung some gym rings in your home gym.
Now what?
If you’re looking for exercises you can do with your gym rings other than just the usual Ring Dips, Ring Pull-ups and Muscle-Ups, then you are in the right place.
I’m going to go through 10 exercises that you can do with your gym rings at home to help add some variety to your workouts.
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At Home Exercises with Gym Rings
Feet Elevated Pushups
Gym rings can be a little more limiting than a TRX-type strap because you typically can’t get your entire foot into the ring. However, some exercises that only need the front half of your foot supported can still work.
Brace yourself on the floor on your hands and then, one at a time, place your feet into your rings. Having your feet in the rings will create an unstable environment while you do push-ups – perfect for getting maximum engagement from your core.
Knees to Elbows
I love hanging ab exercises. They’re challenging, work the often-neglected lower abs and strengthen your grip. Movements that can provide multiple benefits make the most of your time in the gym.
Using gym rings instead of a pull-up bar to hanging ab exercises like Knees to Elbows makes them even more difficult than they already are. They will demand even more coordination and stability than the bar and will challenge even advanced lifters.
Ring Flys
Ring Push-ups are also a very popular, well-known, ring exercise like the other exercises I mentioned at the start of this guide.
Less known, however, are Ring Flys. This exercise simulates chest flys that you normally see with either dumbbells or a machine. You’ll need to raise your rings to adjust the angle. This will make the movement easier to do – much like grabbing lighter dumbbells to do flys versus bench press.
I love Ring Flys because of the crazy deep stretch you can get at the bottom of the movement and, if you’ve dialed in your ring height, they will light your chest on fire.
Stir the Pot
Stir the Pot is a deceptively hard core exercise that is generally done with a stability ball, but you can use rings for this movement as well.
Lower the rings down and start in push-up position with your hands on the rings. Now, with both hands at the same time make small controlled circles with your hands. This small movement will cause you to have to constantly focus on maintaining your balance as your weight shifts and will challenge your core to the max.
Inverted Rows
Inverted Rows with Rings are also a pretty popular exercise and one you may already be aware of. However, I couldn’t not mention them because they are one of the best exercises you can do at home with gym rings.
Not only are they extremely effective, but they’re also highly versatile. You can adjust the height of the rings and you can also easily move your feet forward and backward. Both will change your angles and modify the difficulty of the movement.
You can even elevate your feet, just as you would with regular inverted rows, to give yourself an extra challenge as well.
Inverted Rows are also one of my favorite muscle-up alternatives if you’re still trying to improve your pulling strength and progressing toward your first muscle-up.
Inverted Curls
Once you’re done with Inverted Rows, change your angle to make yourself more upright and go right into Inverted Curls.
They’re basically done just like rows, but with a curling motion instead. For the life of me, I don’t know why I don’t see more people using gym rings for curls.
They work great and you get the added benefit and your core having to brace and stabilize while you’re leaned back at an angle. That’s right, you can do biceps and abs – at the same time.
Ring Skull Crushers
You can’t have a good biceps exercise without a triceps exercise to go with it, right? Don’t worry, I got you covered.
After your set of Ring Inverted Curls, turn around and switch to Ring Skull Crushers. They’re going to look just like DB Skull Crushers (or with the bar), but using rings instead of dumbbells.
Ring Rollouts
You’re probably familiar with Ab Wheels, but did you know you can also do the same movement with a pair of gym rings?
Start in a standing position with the rings adjusted down so they’re roughly at the level of your hands with your arms down by your side. Now, begin leaning forward, bracing yourself with the rings and allowing them to travel forward and then into an overhead position as you continue your forward lean.
RFE Lunge
In a list of predominantly upper body and core exercises, I had to sneak at least one lower body exercise into the mix.
Like Feet Elevated Pushups, this is another ring movement that can be done by just sliding half a foot into the ring. Once your foot is set up, these will look very similar to RFE Lunges done with a foot up on a bench.
The difference being the ring will create more instability, forcing the lifter to focus more on balance and stabilization.
Mountain Climbers
This is the third and final exercise on the list that involves placing your feet inside the rings.
Get into a push-up position with both feet inside the rings. To start, drive one knee up to the chest. Now, simultaneously drive one knee into the chest while pushing the other back to the starting position.
Don’t underestimate this simple exercise that you probably did a version of in junior high gym class. It will absolutely torch your core.
Final Thoughts
Gym rings are an extremely versatile gym accessory that can help you add a ton of variety to your workouts. There is also versatility in the different ways you can hang gym rings at home, they don’t just have to be drilled into your ceiling.
They’re also relatively cheap, especially when compared to other pieces of gym equipment that can be very pricey.
Bottom line, if you haven’t already, get some gym rings and then utilize them to add some unique wrinkles to your training program.
