I've got gym access twice a week and rings at home for the rest. Realistically the only time both fit is Tuesday and Thursday evening, back to back, around 75 minutes total. Right now I do squats and rows first because they feel more important, then whatever's left goes into ring work and I'm too fried to hold anything decent. Is same-session workable at all or should I split it?
Agreeing on the order and adding the number that actually matters: total weekly volume, not what shares a session.
When I combined I was doing rows, pull-ups, ring rows and face pulls across two days and hit something like 22 pulling sets a week without noticing. My elbows told me before my logbook did. Count sets per movement pattern across the whole week and cap them before you worry about session structure.
Here's my version of doing it wrong. Heavy pull day plus ring work the same evening for about four months, roughly what you're describing. Got golfer's elbow — inside of the elbow, hurt to open jars, hurt worse on chin-ups — and it took eleven weeks of no pulling at all to settle.
The kicker is that nothing in a single session caused it. It was the same tendon getting hammered twice on Tuesday and twice on Thursday for months. If you combine, drop something. Don't just stack them and hope.
This is the answer I was quietly afraid of. I'm doing rows heavy and then ring rows and pull-ups after. So that's three pulling exercises in one evening, twice a week.
Yeah, cut the ring rows on gym days. You will lose nothing. I promise the version of you in three months would happily trade those sets for working elbows.
Mild disagreement with everyone saying combine. Seventy-five minutes for both is thin, and what actually happens is the second half gets rushed and eventually skipped.
I'd do gym twice a week as pure lower body plus one press, and keep the rings on the days between. Same weekly volume, nothing competing for the tail end of a session, and no evening where you're deciding what to drop while tired.
One practical note nobody mentions: warm-up cost. Two disciplines in one session means two warm-ups if you do it properly, and that's fifteen minutes of your seventy-five.
Sequencing them so the barbell work warms you for the ring work — press before dips, rows before pull-ups — bought me back about ten usable minutes a session.
Skill first, heavy second, conditioning last. Count weekly pulling sets. That's the whole answer.
@pullup_pilgrim · 6mo ago · 3 replies
Same session is fine. Your order is backwards.
Skill work goes first, always — front lever, muscle-up progressions, handstand, anything where the limiting factor is control rather than fatigue. Ten to fifteen minutes of that while you're fresh, then the barbell work, then any high-rep bodyweight finisher. Strength grinding after skill work costs you almost nothing; skill work after squats is just practising the wrong pattern with a tired body.
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@deadbug_wiring · 6mo ago
Skill first makes obvious sense now it's written down. I've been doing my best ring work in the most tired twenty minutes of the week and then wondering why the holds never improve.
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@crashloop_cara · 6mo ago
And you get the added benefit that skill work is a decent warm-up for the heavy pulling that follows. Costs you nothing to reorder.
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