Beginner Muscle Up Tips

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Toronto Waterfront

I was out for a run down the Toronto waterfront on a couple weekends ago and I stumbled upon a group of about 20 dudes working out in the park. To give you a mental picture, they were mostly black guys, a couple of white guys, and I was the only Asian.

It was like I was walking into those videos of a bunch of brothers doing crazy things on the bars:

So I hung around, started talking witih some of the guys and jumped in.

One of the guys, Dwayne, runs a personal training business called Body by Chosen that operates in Toronto. A bunch of the other guys are trainers too.

I’d actually never tried a Muscleup before. A few of the guys made it look easy, so I watched their mechanics to see what they were doing and jumped in… I gave it a shot, but didn’t get it. Wuss. But I knew I’d get it sooner or later.

Since then, I’d been meaning to get out to the park to practice them, but just didn’t get around to it until this past Friday. I gave it a shot and lo and behold, I’ve just done my first Muscleup. It feels pretty cool and I think it’s as much a display of skill as it is of strength.

I wasn’t able to do it right off the bat. In fact, I spent about 45 minutes at the park by myself “practicing”. I got my first one by jumping up on the bar and going into the Muscleup from there. It was an awesome feeling.

Now, I want YOU to get the same feeling I got.

That’s why I put this video together for you. Check it:

Some more basic exercises that will help you do your first muscle up:

Dips
Straight-arm Pulldowns
Standing Tricep Extensions with a Cable Machine
Hanging Leg Raises

But if you can bang out 10 Pullups to your sternum already, you’ve probably got the strength to do a muscle up, now it’s all about PRACTICE.

So get out there. Get some sun. Do your first muscle up. And feel like a beast.

Hope you enjoyed. Help me out by hitting ‘Like’ below. And if you have any questions or Comments hit me up. Come on, you know the drill by now. 🙂

Comments

6 responses to “Beginner Muscle Up Tips”

August 18, 2012

Josemm

Yeah Toronto is ver nice at summer i still remembre those colours at the trees etc i lived there for few months good memories 🙂

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May 14, 2012

richie

so funny you posted this now, my training buddy and i have been hitting the park the past few weeks trying to get the muscle up down. seems its the in thing at the moment haha.

nailed my first one just over a week ago now, after nearly three weeks of trying. the big tip as you say is being able to do pullups up to the sternum, its that top of the range of the movement that i am the weakest in and is so hard to train unless you’re fresh.

goal now is to buildup to a set of five, at the moment i only get just under 50% of my attempts.

things i think helped me:

– doing dips on a single bar, just isolating the top part of the movement, as i progressed trying to get lower on the dip and the chest further away from the bar
– doing negative muscle ups so starting on the up position over the bar and controlling the movement all the way down (eccentric movement??)

some technique points im thinking about:
– on tthe bottom of the muscle up you got to end up at a kind of angle under the bar (look at the begining of erics second rep in the video) so for the first rep i stand a bit behind the bar and jump on to it with arms straight to get a bit of swing. at the peak of the swing when i’m on that angle, just before i start swinging back is when i use that leg kick to pop up over the bar
– another key point is the transition between the pull up and the dip, at the peak of the pull up a lot of times i don’t switch the grip from under the bar to over the bar fast enough and get stuck. my feeling is that i’m just not explosive/strong enough through the top of the movement or maybe my timings a bit off… maybe both haha

be good to hear other ppls experiences, particularly regarding the technique and the grip transition

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1. May 15, 2012
  
  Eric
  
  Those are awesome tips Richie, thanks for sharing!
  
  Reply
May 14, 2012

Tyler

Do you know who the asian guy is in the top video? Or where to see more of his work outs?

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May 14, 2012

Patrick

Awesome. This kind of stuff is great. Functional (show-off) strength!

You might want to check out the false grip. Basically you’re holding the bar not with your fingers, but sort of with the heel of your thumb, just locking your wrist at 90 degrees. Makes the transition a lot easier. I havn’t been able to get one myself yet, but a friend of mine is really good at them, and he told me to start with a false grip.

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May 14, 2012

Danny

What is the name of this park and what street is it on?

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