#50The Muscle Up
By Chris 'Blane' Rowat | posted on 15 May 2009 | 15 comments
Instead of bashing these keys before me about present times or my plans for the near future, I'm going to use them to take a step in to the past and talk about an old friend of mine...
The muscle up.
Today it's as common and well known to Parkour practitioners as a pushup or a squat, but there was a time not too long ago when nobody in this country had even heard of the muscle up in Parkour circles.
I was first introduced to the technique in 2005 by a friend of mine from Austria, when he sent me a video of himself performing one, quite cleanly too I remember. Never in my life had I seen anything like it and I have to admit, it looked quite simple and easy to do. He was amused by my response and asked me to try one, so the very next day I found myself a bar and rolled up my sleeves.
In less than a second I knew. In less than the time that it takes for you to read this sentence, I knew. As soon as I had pulled and hit that invisible wall with only my chin higher than my hands, I realised that this was something that deserved a little more respect than I had first granted it.
Fast forward three years and it's still highly regarded and deservedly considered a benchmark in upper body development but the old muscle up has been gathering some dust of late. My aim with this blog entry is to plunge the muscle up in to a pool and bring it out gleaming once again, to the forefront of your attention.
Now there are plenty of people who can hang from a bar, pull themselves up and struggle and fight their way to the top position using elbows, forearms and momentum generated from flailing legs, but not many can make the muscle up seem effortless - the way it should be.
The thought of being able to move quickly and precisely across a diverse and unknown terrain before me, only to have to stop and wrestle with a horizontal bar to continue on my path is something that makes little sense to me and this would immediately bring my attention to the weak link in the chain, so why don't people spend more time improving their muscle ups to the same standard as the rest of their game?
Unlike the pushup or the squat or many other exercises you're likely to discover in Parkour, the muscle up is not just an excellent exercise, it's a highly effective and diverse technical skill. And like all other techniques, it must be trained to a high level if you are to avoid gaps in your ability to move quickly in any direction. I find it unfortunate that many people are satisfied with merely being able to get to the top position of the technique, whereas they will spend hundreds of hours repeating rail precisions or certain vaults to try to master them.
Regardless of your current level of ability there is a place for the muscle up in your training. In the beginning it will be an elusive power and strength feat for you but with time and training it can become an endurance based exercise as you become more and more comfortable with it.
I recommend spending plenty of time training climbups to the stage where you don't need to use your elbows or forearms, as a prerequisite for muscle up training. If you can perform 8-10 climbups on a wall with good form then I'd say it's time to begin moving to the bar.
Dynamic pullups and negative repetitions (starting at the top position with the bar at waist and lowering down to hanging) will help you develop the strength and power needed for the muscle up, and dips are important too.. since you will need to be able to dip from a low position when you come to try the muscle up itself.
Once you can perform one muscle up using whatever means necessary - elbows, forearms, one arm before the other, leaning forward with chest or stomach on the bar - your work is far from over. The next goal should be to continue training until just your hands are needed. Usually at this stage one arm leads before the other and this is fine for a while as you continue to build strength, but your next goal should be to complete a repetition with both arms at the same time.
When one perfect repetition is achievable it's time to begin building on that until you can perform around 8-10 in a row, with perfect form. If the last few reps cause you to lead with one arm then there is still some work to do at this stage.
Next up is the slow, controlled muscle up.. which is very difficult in comparison with the dynamic one. Slow negatives will help you work towards this and the hardest part is of course the transition from the pullup to the dip, and you must be careful to avoid tendonitis or elbow/wrist problems if you plan to train for this. Listen to your body, only train when you're fresh and get plenty of rest between training sessions.
Finally the muscle up will be yours and its benefits to you will be obvious. If you wish to continue using the exercise to build strength you will need to add weight in the form of a vest or a dip belt or something similar.. but we still have a long way to go.
The next stage is training the muscle up as a muscular endurance exercise. Being able to complete 20+ repetitions is a remarkable achievement and when you look back at all of the stages you progressed through to reach this stage you will better appreciate just how much respect this exercise deserves.
The final stages? Weighted muscle ups will allow you to continue building strength with the exercise, muscle ups to failure can be a brutal and mentally challenging experience and if you fancy something a little different, there are whispers floating around these parts that would urge you to try 300 in less than 2.5 hours - quite a challenge!
Other variations worth training include a muscle up on a flat surface instead of a rail, a muscle up with a supinated (underhand, palms facing you) grip and also one with a semi-supinated (hands face in different directions) grip.
So which stage are you at with the muscle up and are you satisfied there? Is it a weak link in your chain of techniques or a well honed and natural movement for you? Have you paid it enough attention or just accepted your current ability as good enough..?
As the popular saying goes, 'anything worth doing is worth doing well' and although it is not an easy journey, it is ultimately a rewarding one to reach a good standard as it becomes an increasingly effective, functional and diverse weapon in both your technical and physical arsenals.
Labels: Training
About the Author : Chris 'Blane' Rowat15 Comments:
nice blog now im going to do some muscle ups gotta work on getting two armed quicker ha toodles! james
By 
, at
4:03 pm, May 15, 2009
Nice post mate.
By 
James, at
5:05 pm, May 15, 2009
Unfortunately, I had falsely accepted the muscle-up merely as a strength-building exercise. I had completely forgotten that it is a technique that must be drilled to perfection, as with any other movement. Thank you very much Blane.
By , at
6:04 pm, May 15, 2009
I also remember my first touch with muscle ups. Friend of mine did one and i was just blown away something this hard could be done. After a few months i did my first aswell.
I've never been able to do more than 8 reps but i have never really trained them. Maybe i should.
Muscle up is definitely something not to be forgotten.
By , at
6:05 pm, May 15, 2009
Ah, the 300 challenge... I think we should make that a regular part of training, to make sure the shirt stays owned!
By Dan, at
6:21 pm, May 15, 2009
Personally I would recommend learning a muscle up before a climb up because if done correctly it should teach you the technique and give you the strength needed to do a climb up, minimizing the risk of unnecessary elbow and wrist problems that come from trying to improve or learn a climb up simply by practising a climb up.
I think that if you can do 5 dips and 5 pullups with correct form, i.e no swinging or kipping, then you can begin learning a muscle up. Because the essence of the movement is neither the pulling nor dipping motion, but the transition stage between the two, and if you fail to focus on it you may as well be practising dips or pullups on their own.
Having a more explosive pullup will help in the same way that kipping allows you to reach a higher position above the bar, but it means that as long as you continue to use speed to get through the transition you are avoiding building strength in that area. I think this is one reason why it can take ages to learn a good climb up because people tend to focus on speed prematurely.
Negatives into the transition phase and then pressing back out, combined with pullups into the transition phase and then lowering slowly out should be the primary focus.
I think this is difficult to learn on a wall in the climbup position because the wall forces your centre of gravity further away from your hands, meaning that in order to train the transition it would require more strength than it would on a single bar.
Ideally I'd recommend learning them on the rings if you have access to them.
By definition a muscle up requires strength, and doesn't involve kipping of any kind.
For those that haven't seen this video yet or could do with a reminder, this is a good example of a muscle up as the transition is virtually seemless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q8KMnWUsvg
That's just my opinion.
By , at
6:36 pm, May 15, 2009
This post is an amazing coincidence as last night my friends and I performed our first muscle ups. This was at the end of my 6-week challenge to the group that we will be able to do them by that time. They were dirty, they were inefficient but they were done. Thanks for reminding us that that was just a stepping stone.
By fearnot, at
6:40 pm, May 15, 2009
I've been recently starting to train constant muscle ups creating endurance and stamina. Eventhough I am not 100% able to make a two hand muscle up I'm really feeling the progress and I think soon I'll arrive to he phase where I start doing two hand muscle ups well to start the 2mups repetion.
Thanks Blane this post has cheered me up to continue training hard this ability
Agh the muscle-up, my nemesis! Currently 75% of my training is gear towards acheiving this goal. I certainly agree about it's worth. Good to read training tips on this from a guy who makes them seem effortless. Props!
A :)
By Aaron, at
9:57 pm, May 15, 2009
Its bizarre that you wrote this article now--for me at least. I am at the stage of completing two or three when using a combination of forearm and chest. I am training toward progression and this is just the inspiration I need.
Thanks Blane!
You've done it again B.
Nice work, well worth a read! +10
By , at
12:20 pm, May 16, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxbOFKvszY
By Muhammad, at
5:12 am, May 17, 2009
hahaha i love mango, my first introduction to the muscle-up.
Hsad
By , at
9:59 pm, May 20, 2009
We should get Mango to provide a tutorial on every conditioning drill. The man's a living legend.
By Dan, at
8:36 pm, May 21, 2009
I agree, Mango is the man... LOL, I love it!
By Cheyne, at
5:21 am, August 12, 2010
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