The Definitive Muscle-Up Tutorial

[Christopher Morris]

Muscle Up with Mango was pretty great! Better than 2 in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Christopher Morris

4) Transfer skill of hip drive to shoulder shoot-through.
Band assistance? (wfs)
on rings (wfs)
on a bar (wfs, a little chatty, but good info)

Fine tuning this tutorial a little:
The kip and the shoot-through are going to de-emphasize strength and emphasize momentum, efficiency, and more reps. The lower your strength, the greater your momentum will have to be to complete the movement. Momentum in the shoot-through puts the shoulders - specifically the rotator cuff - at risk. You have to stop that momentum to stay in the dip, and that can create some significant tension in the shoulders.

In favor of increasing strength and decreasing momentum in the transition, our favorite Canadian Frenchy presents the Russian dip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGK4...AYgZ1Mcl3M1vng (wfs)

[Christopher Morris]

http://instagram.com/p/rLDrXMogYz/ (wfs)

This video shows a great skill for increasing strict muscle up strength. It is from Matt Chan's Instagram and shows Eric Clancy doing band resistance muscle ups. He sits on the ground with the rings hanging from resistance bands instead of straps. He pulls the rings toward his body without lifting himself off the ground, the bands increasing resistance as he goes through the full muscle up movement.

[Nico Corea]

On pages 4-6 in the article linked below, Coach Glassman describes a simple contraption consisting of a harness, pulley, and cable that can be used to provide assistance to bodyweight exercises, including strict muscle ups. After reading it, I went to the hardware store and got about 30 dollars worth of stuff and rigged up a similar contraption in my garage. After a couple of months of dedicated training using less and less assistance, I finally got my first unassisted MU.

http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf...dywt_Exerc.pdf

[Christopher Morris]

Originally Posted by Christopher Morris

This video shows band resistance muscle ups.

http://instagram.com/p/vGypG0s97y/ (wfs)

Same exercise, better video clarity.

Eric O'Connor mentions this method is a way to scale muscle ups. You can use band resistance to scale down or scale up. Can you do kipping muscle ups, but haven't mastered strict muscle ups yet? This exercise will get you there.

[Christopher Morris]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ_tSjwjGeV/ (wfs)

Here is another great banded exercise to do accessory work on muscle ups:

[Steven Wingo]

I would argue that, as a best practice, athletes should be encouraged to develop strict ring muscle ups before they do kipping ring muscle ups.

Can some athletes safely develop kipping ring muscle ups without being able to do them strict first? Yes.

However: Is developing a strict ring muscle up first, as a general practice, a way to get better results for athletes in the long run and also help prevent injuries that may occur in some athletes who develop the kip without the strength to catch the deep ring dip on a consistent basis (and when fatigued) without injuring their shoulders? I would argue yes, strict ring muscle ups should generally come first for safety and for better skill development in the long term.

I know lots of people may have differing viewpoints, and there may never be consensus, but in general I tend to think the CF gymnastics community believes in developing strict strength first then moving to kipping. It is a safer way to progress and it is a way to progress which builds a more solid foundation and better skill in the long run.

There are many athletes out there who can kip ring muscle ups, with a big gymnastics swing sans false grip, who are nowhere close to getting a strict muscle up because they haven't developed the false grip. To me, that is backwards. The most efficient kipping ring muscle ups appear to be done by those who also first develop the false grip and can more efficiently kip them and safely catch the deep ring dip because they are using at least a partial false grip even when kipping.

[Christopher Morris]

Props, Steve.

"We fail at the margins of our experience."

If you've got strict muscle ups, then kipping is not the margin of your experience, and there is less possibility of failure. Injury is one form of failure.