First Muscle Up... yay!

[Eric Kamhi]

Today is the day I did my first muscle up. I can't explain how giddy and happy I was for the rest of the training session. It is a great feeling of accomplishment. Thought I'd post about what I learned, in hopes that it might eventually help someone that is struggling with muscle ups.

Most important lesson I learned first: What had been holding me back was my false grip. I suspected I had a weak false grip, but I did not think it was THE thing keeping me from getting this MU done.

I was able to do ring dips, ful rom, steady, in hollow position, and I was able to do hollow pullups, full rom, slow and steady. But for the life of me I could not get the transition down. I thought I don't have enough triceps strength. It feels like I should be pulling on the rings like a very deep row, I should practice full rom tuck front lever rows to get stronger in my back, maybe thats what I need. Etc. etc. Granted all those exercises did help build more upper body strength. But after I got the first muscle up done felt like slapping myself in the forehead. I was doing the transition, and it wasn't my back, shoulders or triceps that were hurting, it was my elbows and wrists.

After months of frustration and trying auxiliary work to build more strength, I came across a video while searching for muscle up videos, that gave me a new idea for an exercise to work on. Basically the video was talking about pulling up with a false grip and slowly rocking back and forth until you could bring the hands back into a lower dip position. Keeping things tight and rocking seemed like it would be easier than trying to kip or kick like a madman.

Unfortunately my first attempt to pull myself up and rock back and forth until I was over the transition was not successful. Frustrated, I thought damn I am not even strong enough to do this. And went back to doing negative muscle ups. Lowering from ring dips, to doing a slow, in control, full rom, negative muscle up. I'd been doing this for the last months on and off and built a few very nice slow and controlled negative muscle ups.

As I was doing the negatives I thought hey I'll try rocking back and forth from a negative, maybe that will help. Lowered to a dip, did the slow transition in negative, stopped as soon as my hands were in front of my chest and tried rocking forward and bam, first try, no need for extra momentum, I was back in the lower dip. Did a slow negative again and rocked forward again and bam, two for two.

What I realized right there was that when I was lowering myself and doing a negative muscle up, wrists were really STRONGLY on top of the rings. It was much easier to have this strong, false-grip position when lowering down than pulling up. And as long as I kept this strong wrist position when my arms were in front of my chest, I was able to come back and through the transition without a problem.

After doing a few more negative to rock back up reps, I decided to try the full pullup to dip version but really focused on keeping the same strong false grip as in my negatives. I was able to do one muscle up per set, and on the second one my wrists would slip out of position.

So now it is clear for me. I need to strengthen my false grip. I do not have the technique or strength yet to be able to have a correct false grip on high rings. If I get on a bench, place my wrists in the rings in the false grip and then lower myself so my arms are not fully extended but bent a little, I can do my muscle ups fine. But if the rings are at the height where I would do normal pullups and I try to false grip with fully extended arms, my grip will not be strong and solid enough to do the muscle up yet.

Theres probably a lot of transitional strength building left in there for me to do and a lot of false grip work waiting for me. But at least now I can practice doing MORE muscle ups and build the necessary strength.

Well there it is. Maybe this will help someone struggling as I was. Negative muscle up, to rocking forward back into the dip was what I needed I guess. And it showed me the weakness in my grip.

Please let me know what you think, or if I'm totally missing the bat on this one. Cheers

[Brian Li]

Congrats! Based on my experience, doing MU transition negatives and isometric holds at the middle of the transition (where forearms are parallel to the ground) works really well especially without using a false grip and having an upright torso at the middle of the transition. You can flare your elbows more out to the sides and move the forearms away from the upper arms to make it more difficult which helps both wide and narrow MUs. It's essentially a bent arm iron cross when you have your elbows flared out to the max. After being good at those, both wide and narrow MUs will be a breeze when done with a false grip.

One way to make ring MUs easier is to lean forward right at the beginning of the transition before the middle portion. This is one of the reasons why ring MUs are easier than bar Mus because in bar MUs, you can't start leaning forward before the middle of the transition due to the bar being in the way.

From your post, it sounded like you were trying to finish the transition to the bottom of a regular dip without leaning forward after passing the middle of the transition and learning to rock back and forth meant that you figured out to lean forward once you pass mid-transition. I think trying to transition to the bottom of a regular dip without leaning forward is impossible probably due to the human anatomy (?). I've never seen anyone do a transition to the bottom of a regular dip without leaning forward and have never seen the bottom of a regular dip with a completely upright torso. The only MUs I've seen without any forward lean are when they extend their elbows at mid-transition without having to reach the bottom of a regular dip. Aguilar's MU is an example of this.

[Andrew Lim]

Hi,

Congratulations.

My recommendation from here is to be very careful with your volume and how you train this. I injured my forearm about a month after my first MU. Just take it easy.

Good luck.

[Eric Kamhi]

Thanks for the pointers B1214N. The false grip is really hurting my wrists. I'll try to work on those no false grip negatives you mentioned.

I hear you edna. I already have a very old hernia in my right wrist (back from 20 years ago or so), and Last friday I went a little overboard and felt my forearms throb in pain for the next few days. Definitely something to watch out for! I'll definitely be spacing myself out.

I'm still having some problems with the false grip. If I grab high hanging rings, my false grip will not be solid enough (wrists not solid and on top of rings) to do the muscle up. But If I grab the rings form above a bench or dumbbell, I can place my wrists well on the rings. Extending my arms out fully while going down with this false grip is near impossible though, my wrists slip under the rings.

It's a little annoying. If I dont grab the rings, and just pull with my wrist while my hands hang off (open or closed fist hanging off the rings), I can pull the rings down to where they should be quite comfortably. Grabbing the rings places the center of weight off from the middle of the wrist to the side of the wrist, and that just feels weak. I feel I have the strength to pull myself up by my wrists no problem, but that semi sideways angle in the false grip is killing me. My wrists just slip off.

Is there maybe something I'm doing wrong or do I just have to tough it out and build the strength.