Checklist For The Road To Your First Muscle Up
I’ve had the honour of having clients who are so passionate about constantly improving themselves.
Many of them reach out to me & tell me about their goals of achieving higher skills in CrossFit – one of which is to get their first muscle up.
Truth is the road to first muscle up can be quite tough. After all they are called HIGH-Skill Gymnastics for a reason.
This can take a while for a novice crossfitter but in this blog post I am going to break it down into smaller edible pieces for you. So you can start trusting in the process by working on each component, step by step ticking things off the list until you get YOUR FIRST MUSCLE UP.
DISCLAIMER: There’s no one-month nor one-year guarantee. It’ll always depend on how effective a training is whilst not developing injuries or getting sidetracked along the way..
What Is A Ring Muscle Up?
This 3 part movement looks really cool, and for many people is a demonstration of great control and mastery of a bodyweight movement.
A ring muscle-up is an advanced bodyweight exercise performed on gymnastic rings hanging high of the ground.
The exercise consists of three parts: a ring pull up, a muscle-up transition where you go from below the rings to on top of the rings, and finishes with a ring dip.
When we look at the demands of the movement, you need to achieve above average:
1. Mobility in your shoulders, upper back, wrist and elbows. For a full hang, transition through the rings, achieving a full dip position.
2. Stability in upperbody and core strength to stabilise your body on the rings in support position.
3. You also need above average pulling and pushing strength to be able to pull yourself high enough and perform the dip,
4. And last but not least way above average close body strength and skill to master the transition through the rings.
But please Don’t get discouraged, if it wasn’t challenging it would be as cool - so let’s break this down further into a Checklist Of Things You Can Start Working On RIGHT NOW.
So You can achieve your first Muscle Up.
The Muscle Up Checklist
Dead Hang (mobility)
Table Top Position Without Pain Or Discomfort (mobility)
30 Sec Hollow Rock/Hold (Positional Strength/stability)
False Grip On Rings (mobility)
Hang With False Grip (Positional Strength)
10 Ring Rows With False Grip (positional strength)
30 sec Top Of Ring Row Hold, Touching Chest (positional strength / stability)
30 sec Top Of Ring Dip Hold (positional strength / stability)
20 Sec Bottom Of Ring Dip Hold (positional strength / stability)
3-5 Smooth Transitions on low rings (SKILL)
6+ Strict Dips On Rings (strength)
6+ Strict Pull Ups On Rings (strength)
There are of course some exceptions of people who can do muscle ups that are missing 1 or 2 of these items. But the general rule is even for those people, working on improving the above will help them be more efficient and do them even better. So make sure to master the basics before throwing yourself up there!!
Where to go from here?
To make it simple, go through the check list, let me know where you are getting stuck!
If you can do all the mobility requirements but get stuck on the stability, start working on that. If you pass through the stability requirement start working on your strength so you can do AT LEAST 6 Strict Pull Ups and 6 Strict Ring Dips. Once that is completed, you can start attempting and working on your SKILL for muscle ups. In this way, you are able to do your drills more effectively and safely.
This is also where my help comes in. As a coach I help you break any skill down like this and provide you with the remote coaching or 1:1 In Person sessions to help you be successful. With my clients I embark on a long term journey to help them build the foundational mobility, stability and strength to make learning any skill both easier and faster.
Let me know if you would like to achieve this goal. I’ll be more than happy to coach you through this journey.
Cheers,
Eik
