How to improve muscle up

[jayfaith]

Hi. I wanted to know if this would count as a strict muscle up (or at least a-not-so-terrible one).

It's been my best attempt so far without kipping after about 9 months in calisthenics.

To give you some context, the muscle up has always been the wall I hit my face with since I started. I'm a very light person so even without any training at all, I was still able to do about 7 chin ups/pull ups without any sort of training (probably with not the most perfect form, but still, 7 pull ups).

My numbers then started going up to 12/13 pull ups, but I wasn't able to even do a chicken wing muscle up with kipping. It was more or less by the beginning of 2024 that I realized that I wasn't gripping the bar with enough force and intention, which ended up affecting my overall force output. Once I realized that, I got the kipping muscle up easily and I'm able to do about 4 or 5. I probably had the strength to do them before Christmas, but that little mistake in my grip made it impossible.

I'm also looking for tips to improve it and be able to pull higher and more explosively, which I believe to be my weak point for this movement.

In case you wonder, I can currently do 12 pull ups with 17,5% extra bodyweight chin to bar, but I need to use a lot of explosiveness to barely touch the bar with my chest if that's what I'm trying to do (without any added weight), in which case I can only do 2 reps or so before losing power.

Thanks in advance.

 

[kcame38]

@jayfaith Yes it counts as a muscle up, you should think about getting some rings and if you use them regularly you will see huge strength improvements quickly which will carry over to your muscle ups.

 

[jayfaith]

@kcame38 Cool. I do have rings and have been using them for a while, initially to do rows but I never truly understood how to do them, so I jumped straight to tucked front lever rows and they were a lot better for my rear delt and mid traps (the technique I use is more focused to target those muscles instead of the lats).
How do I use the rings to train a muscle up though? The transition during the ring muscle up seems impossible. Russian dips feel impossible too.

 

[kcame38]

@jayfaith Start at the beginning with RTO support position once you are holding it with perfect form you can move on to dips.

 

[jayfaith]

@kcame38 Ok. I have already included those in my routine, but I use a resistance band for the ring dips. Regular dips on them cause pain in my chest, so I decided to use the band and avoid the pain.
I'll keep working on weighted pull ups and master the support hold. Thanks for your advice.

 

[luke2017]

@jayfaith Yes it counts as a muscle up, no it is not a strict muscle up.

Strict muscle ups are another beast all together. They start from dead hang, no swing at all and you get over the bar purely on wrist strength, not momentum. They're not really an exercise many people can do or train for. They're not explosive either.

Also, although kipping is not ideal, don't be afraid to do it a little in the beginning. You can get rid of it later as you build more explosiveness and can do some reps. You're better off doing 3 reps with kip at the start than just 1 rep without.

Don't do chicken wing muscle ups though, that's just bad.

 

[jayfaith]

@luke2017 I see. Thanks for the tips. I only included the chicken wing detail to emphasize how terrible I was at doing the muscle up, but I don't do it anymore.

 

[embajador]

@jayfaith Do muscle-up negatives. Use a lower bar and focus on slow negatives. Perform high pull-ups to chest then abs then hips. Increase the frequency of kipping muscle-ups for sets of 1 rep. You should have a lot more in the tank after completing that repetition.

 

[jaketd]

@jayfaith I read somewhere that to be able to do a strict muscle up, you need to be able to 1 RM at least 70% of your bodyweight weighted pullup, and that's after having the explosiveness as well. So for example you weigh 60kg, your max weighted pullup should be at least 42kg

 

[jayfaith]

@jaketd Yikes. I better start getting my numbers up then. Thanks for the tip!

 

[jaketd]

@jayfaith No problem, best of luck