🔥 THE MUSCLE UP: UNDERSTANDING THE MOVEMENT
🚨 As you approach this “new” movement, you’ll first need to understand how to transition from each step to the next one. While the “perfect”/”mastered” muscle up will start from a dead hang, a beginner will definitely benefit to use some momentum & swinging to their advantage, in order to learn the exercise.
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1️⃣The Swing: it’s not a back and forth swing, you’re not hanging and swinging back and forth like a spghetti noodle (typical kipping muscle uppers) until you’re mentally ready to pull yourself up.
You literally jump onto the bar, let your body swing forward while you keep your whole body tight, and that’s it. Your body should be aligned as you do it. It’s VERY important to pull your body along a curved motion, and this takes me to the next step. –
2️⃣ The pull: it’s important to understand WHEN to pull up, through the correct timing. The pull has to be performed once you’ve gained the most momentum created by the small swing, which is the point in which your body is at the front of your arms. Pull up explosively as you swing forward and do NOT wait for your body do swing backwards in return. –
Keep your arm angle small and don’t let your arms straight as you pull yourself up: if you’re too far from the barbell you won’t be able to get over it and you’ll simply fall down.
💡A trick you can use to help yourself lift up above the bar is to bring your knees to your chest AS you’re pulling up with your upper body. This helped me massively to get my first ones nailed down. You can always progressively make it harder by keeping your legs straight as you continue getting better at the movement, but it’s very important to get familiar with the whole movement.
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3️⃣ If you’ve made it to step 3, you’re now ready to dip yourself over the bar: your grip will change from a hanging to a supportive one. At this point you’ll simply have to rely on your upper body and core muscles to control the movement and successfully come ontop of the bar.
Next up I’ll cover some strategies & progressions you can use to start training the movement, to finally nail it down!
