Muscle up is one truly unique exercise – everyone has seen it but not many people even know how it is called. For many it is one of the first skills they want to learn because it looks cool and shows to others that you know what you are doing.
But unlocking muscle up is not as easy as just increasing your pull up reps. And due to this struggle we have noticed that many people are looking for answers about what they are missing. That’s why we are writing this article – to answer questions you might have, to give you tips on how you should be training and to let you know that there is full training plan in Caliverse app that will ease the road to your first ring muscle up in just 8 weeks.
What is muscle up?
Ring Muscle Up
Muscle up is an advanced calisthenics strength exercise that is a combination of a pull up followed by dip. It can be done on both – bar and gymnastic rings. But notice that rings make it more difficult because of their movement – there is no option to use movement momentum.
Exercise is started in a dead hang position and continued by an explosive pull up. Once your chest reaches the bar, you transition into dip position and push yourself up until your arms are straight. When moving back to starting position, try to keep the momentum going by having a little swing on bar to make it easier to complete the next repetition.
False grip
False grip is probably one of the most under-utilized grips in fitness. It is usually used in gymnastics where the wrist is placed over the rings but can be also used on the bar. In contrast to the neutral grip where your knuckles are pointing sideways when you are hanging in the bar or rings, when performing false grip your wrap your palm around the bar so your wrist is on top of it and knuckles pointing to the ceiling.
It gives you certain benefits that are crucial for training muscle up – easier transition from pull up to dip, shortens the range of motion to make it easier for you to get the chest up to the bar and it increases your forearm strength.
Tips on how to unlock your first muscle up
Build your strength
Muscle up requires both pulling and pushing strength. You need to be able to do at least 5-8 pull ups and at least 8 straight bar dips. If you are struggling with pull ups, Caliverse has a 30 day challenge focused on increasing pull up reps.
Swing on the bar
If you are starting with a muscle up on the bar, it is important to create a swing. You are aiming on getting around the bar and swing helps to create the momentum to move up diagonally rather than vertically. So go ahead and practice some swings but remember to always keep your hands straight.
False grip hang and pull ups
You need to be able to hold false grip and keep it while pulling yourself up thus it needs to be trained. Start with false grip hang and continue with false grip pull ups to learn the movement and get used to it.
Focus on transition
Muscle Up Transition
Being able to do pull ups and dips separately doesn’t really help much if you cannot transition from one move to another. That’s why we suggest to work specifically on this transition from pull up to dip by assisting yourself with legs. Muscle up transition and muscle up row are the right exercises to do when training this.
Ring muscle up
We love training using gymnastic rings as you can read here in our previous post. And in Caliverse we promote unlocking your first ring muscle up by having Road To Ring Muscle Up training plan recently launched by our coach Alistair. It might be a bit more difficult that muscle up on the bar but as long as you are willing to work hard and can do 5 ring pull ups and 5 ring dips, you will be able to unlock your first ring muscle up in just 8 weeks.
Show your muscle up progress by tagging @caliverseapp on social networks!
About the author : Daniels
