Which Muscle-up is harder?

Assume everything else is kept constant.

1) no piking at the hips

2) piking at the hips

3) L-sit

I always strive to keep my legs perfectly vertical, but then I see people saying "legs went forward, but provided no assistance to the rep", implying that piking at the hips is acceptable. I thought legs going forward made it easier. But then also I hear that L-sit muscle-ups are harder. I'm really confused.

If anyone could care to explain the facts then please do. Thanks.

During a perfect L-sit muscle up, you never bend your hips less than 90 degrees (The typical example is Andreas Aguilar 

A regular muscle up with piking at the hips is the easiest one, because it changes your center of mass to make it possible for you to lean over the rings with your shoulders.

A slow muscle up with completely straight body, would be the hardest one. you would basically go into a "victorianlean" (Assumed you're doing the transition from behind the rings). This would require superhuman tricep strength...

Correct me if I'm wrong!

sse94 said:

During a perfect L-sit muscle up, you never bend your hips less than 90 degrees (The typical example is Andreas Aguilar 

0:15). This requires tremendous tricep strength.

 

A regular muscle up with piking at the hips is the easiest one, because it changes your center of mass to make it possible for you to lean over the rings with your shoulders.

 

A slow muscle up with completely straight body, would be the hardest one. you would basically go into a "victorianlean" (Assumed you're doing the transition from behind the rings). This would require superhuman tricep strength...

 

Correct me if I'm wrong!

The L-sit explanation makes a lot of sense now! Thanks. So if I was to do a muscle-up with what looked like an L-sit (legs parallel to ground), yet my hip angle was about 60 degrees, it'd essentially be a forward lean with a huge pike.

Exactly!

sse94 said:

A regular muscle up with piking at the hips is the easiest one, because it changes your center of mass to make it possible for you to lean over the rings with your shoulders.

 

A slow muscle up with completely straight body, would be the hardest one. you would basically go into a "victorianlean" (Assumed you're doing the transition from behind the rings). This would require superhuman tricep strength...

 

Correct me if I'm wrong!

I believe L-sit MUs are harder than straight body MUs since your body will be further displaced behind the bar/rings which adds torque at the shoulders. I also fail to see how a straight body MU would put you in a victorian lean. Moreover, a no lean wide MU wouldn't require a lot of triceps strength unless it is a narrow grip one.

As I said. "Assuming you're doing the transition from behind the rings (I actually meant narrow grip by that, but it was not clear enough, my bad)

If you would have a completely straight body, and were only allowed to move your arms (again, assuming your doing the transition from behind the rings, narrow grip) I can't see how it wouldn't be a "victorianlean". If you're not allowed to bend your body, something has to be done to compensate your center of mass, for you to be able to get over the rings. So instead of and Lsit, you would have to sort of a 45degree front lever, during the transition.

I'm sorry if my posts are hard to understand, English isn't my first language

Now I'm unsure which is harder... 

sse94 said:

As I said. "Assuming you're doing the transition from behind the rings (I actually meant narrow grip by that, but it was not clear enough, my bad)

If you would have a completely straight body, and were only allowed to move your arms (again, assuming your doing the transition from behind the rings, narrow grip) I can't see how it wouldn't be a "victorianlean". If you're not allowed to bend your body, something has to be done to compensate your center of mass, for you to be able to get over the rings. So instead of and Lsit, you would have to sort of a 45degree front lever, during the transition.

I'm sorry if my posts are hard to understand, English isn't my first language

Even with a straight body you won't be leaning so far back and not even close to 45 degrees. I've done straight body bar MUs before which puts your body even further back than on rings and I remember being almost upright in the middle of the transition. Keep in mind that you can also lean forward with straight body (it does not require piking to lean forward). You lean back in a straight body MU as much as in a regular straight body pull-up which isn't much lean at all. Besides, a victorian lean would have to have straight arms at the sides of the body so any MU would not remotely even resemble one.

The Andreas Aguilar MU you mentioned earlier was actually done wide so it doesn't require tremendous triceps strength.

B1214N said:

Even with a straight body you won't be leaning so far back and not even close to 45 degrees. I've done straight body bar MUs before which puts your body even further back than on rings and I remember being almost upright in the middle of the transition. Keep in mind that you can also lean forward with straight body (it does not require piking to lean forward). You lean back in a straight body MU as much as in a regular straight body pull-up which isn't much lean at all. Besides, a victorian lean would have to have straight arms at the sides of the body so any MU would not remotely even resemble one.

Forward lean but with no pike is better than forward lean with pike, correct? That former is the stage that I'm at.

I believe so since it's harder than with piking, but if you are talking about L-sit MU all the way then the L-sit one is harder.

What is defined as an L-sit and not a pike?

Do you mean a MU with forward lean with an L-sit is harder than a MU with forward lean with no pike?

Or is an L-sit with a forward lean simply a huge pike, and not defined as an L-sit?

Yes, an L-sit MU with forward lean is harder than a straight body MU with forward lean. It also has an active flexibility requirement.

I somehow doubt that. although I guess there is a fine line between piking at the hips and L-sit.

I recently saw someone doing MUs on the rings and their legs literally flew into an horizontal L as they struggled to get through the transition. I find it hard to believe that it can be harder if their legs went like that by accident.

---

So the conclusion I've made so far is that...

forward lean + straight body = hard

forward lean + piking at the hips = easier than above

forward lean + L-sit = harder than both

so there is some point where enough hip pike makes the exercise become harder than all of them? forgetting the difficulty of the level of flexibility required, i don't see how it becomes harder

That's because the person you saw lifted his/her legs up fast which generates upward momentum that can assist the transition. That would not be an L-sit MU. An L-sit MU should already have their legs parallel throughout the whole transition preferably starting and ending in an L-sit from hang to support so there would be no momentum generated by the legs.

It was a fairly slow MU, and his legs came to an L at the transition. But I just realised where I was thinking incorrectly. He didn't stay in the L  throughout the whole transition up until support, which is what would've made it harder.   

So if you go up in an L-sit, and then it drops low, is that easier than just regular piking at the hips?

Jono said:

It was a fairly slow MU, and his legs came to an L at the transition. But I just realised where I was thinking incorrectly. He didn't stay in the L  throughout the whole transition up until support, which is what would've made it harder.   

 

So if you go up in an L-sit, and then it drops low, is that easier than just regular piking at the hips?

Probably. Many people when first learning the L-sit muscle up will drop the legs to help the transition. 

B1214N said:

Even with a straight body you won't be leaning so far back and not even close to 45 degrees. I've done straight body bar MUs before which puts your body even further back than on rings and I remember being almost upright in the middle of the transition. Keep in mind that you can also lean forward with straight body (it does not require piking to lean forward). You lean back in a straight body MU as much as in a regular straight body pull-up which isn't much lean at all. Besides, a victorian lean would have to have straight arms at the sides of the body so any MU would not remotely even resemble one.

 

The Andreas Aguilar MU you mentioned earlier was actually done wide so it doesn't require tremendous triceps strength.

first of all, the andreas aguliar does require tremendous tricepstrength. "Posted (by JOshua Naterman) 26 March 2011 - 07:28 PM

sse94 said:

During a perfect L-sit muscle up, you never bend your hips less than 90 degrees (The typical example is Andreas Aguilar 

0:15). This requires tremendous tricep strength.

 

A regular muscle up with piking at the hips is the easiest one, because it changes your center of mass to make it possible for you to lean over the rings with your shoulders.

 

A slow muscle up with completely straight body, would be the hardest one. you would basically go into a "victorianlean" (Assumed you're doing the transition from behind the rings). This would require superhuman tricep strength...

 

Correct me if I'm wrong!

LOL the belly flop dismount!

sse94 said:

first of all, the andreas aguliar does require tremendous tricepstrength. "Posted (by JOshua Naterman) 26 March 2011 - 07:28 PM

It's all about building extremely strong scapular depressors and triceps, for the most part. Those are what I notice working the hardest when I do muscle ups without hardly any forward bend. As my lower traps slowly get used to working again I am noticing a steady improvement in muscle ups. Obviously you need to be fairly strong everywhere, but if you can do a false grip pull up with the bar to your lower chest and you can do a Russian dip with a perfectly straight and vertical body then you should be able to do a muscle up just like the one in Andreas' video. The triceps are the limiting factor for the dip portion and the scapular depressors and protractors are the limiting factors in getting your lower chest to or above the bar during a muscle up."  (he was talking about the andreas aguliar one)

 

I believe we've misunderstood each other. When I said straight body, I meant with a complete straight body and no forward lean or pike (I assumed we all had the andreas aguliar no-lean-muscle-up in mind). And you're right, 45 degrees is way exaggerated, but I just wanted to get across the fact that you're in a "lean". Keep in mind that I said ""victorian lean"", because that was the simplest way for me to describe it, but you're right, it's not a real victorianlean in that way.

 

A straight body (no lean or pike) bar muscle up, is not possible because somthing has to go past the bar, so your center of gravity can be put over/under the bar. You would not be able to perform the transition otherwise. (assuming you're doing a slow, controlled muscle up)

 

I believe we've just misunderstood each other, hope this clears it out

That post of Josh's was outdated and inaccurate. Josh and I as well as many others erroneously analyzed Aguilar's MU at first.

Read Coach's posts in this thread: https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/7694-muscle-up-forward-lean/

It's clear now! I've always thought that he did a tricepextension during the Muscle up, glad you cleared that up. As for the bar Muscle up, my statement was correct?

Do you guys think doing russian dips with the bars set up really wide would supplement the no lean feat? I thought of the idea a few days ago

Yes, you're correct that there will have to be some leaning for the bar muscle-up. It would have to lean backwards as much as a regular pull-up and it would have to lean forward again to some extent during the transition. L-sit muscle-ups would have to lean too, but not exactly as much as straight body of course. Theoretically, it should be possible to do a bar muscle-up without any forward lean pass vertical if one does a triceps dip press during the mid-transition and pinning the bar to the body the whole time.