Muscle Up Transition

I really need some help with the MUP. First video are some non-kip MUP attempts and the second are some FG pullups. I really need some advice for how to get past the sticking point. Incant lean fwd and get my shoulders over my hands. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit - Hopefully vids areattached now.  

IMG_1216 (1).MOV

IMG_1213.MOV

You forgot to attach the videos! 

Just keep working on the height of your slow FG pull-ups. Once you can pull to your lower chest you'll be good to go.

Also, work on being able to hold the FG in a dead hang. I would recommend you pull from dead hang, or at least start the pull without an accidental swing. In the video, you drop down to near a hang and pull up, but it causes you to swing slightly and your legs go forward, which might even be throwing you off. Instead, try to keep your whole body straight/rigid/vertical and pull up smoothly.

Yup. Keep working the ROM on your pullups. If you can touch your hands to the lower half of your pecs, leaning forward into a dip position is easy. 

- Lower the rings so you can practise the transition with the help from your toes.

- Be sure to pull up from a deadhang and bring the rings ALL the way into your lower chest. Starting the transition from the lower part of your chest is key.

- Be able to do really low dips.

Im afraid I am never gonna get this thing.

I can do lots of pullups and dips but I cant go really deep with my pullups.   I never focused on deep pullups so its almost like starting from scratch even though I can do a pullup with 60-80 extra pounds. I also feel like I cant go fwd, Ive heard people say poke your head through the rings or do a situp, etc but I just cant I am stuck, there I can pull any deeper and I cant move any more fwd.  You can several times in the video where I'm just momentarily sitting there.  I could probably stay in that position for quite a while.  Im beginning to wonder if my lack of flexibility is hindering this or a lack of strength or both.

So what should I focus on FG ring Pullups?  Deep Bar pullups?  Ring Dips, Single Bar Dips, Russian Dips.  All of them?  How many sets?

jwalker497 said:

Im afraid I am never gonna get this thing.

 

I can do lots of pullups and dips but I cant go really deep with my pullups.

Sounds like that mobility stuff you were wanting to avoid.

Also, I would be very careful with training the MU until you can get your shoulder properly evaluated regarding hte pain you posted about elsewhere. It is possible that it wouldn't irritate things further, but it seems a minor thing to hold off on and error on the side of caution.

- Chris

Im waiting for the Dr now!

I did dips later in that workou and i felt the pain there as well. Its not severe but theres something there.

Maybe this is all happening coincidentally to steer me into the F1/H1.

jwalker497 said:

Im waiting for the Dr now!

I did dips later in that workou and i felt the pain there as well. Its not severe but theres something there.

Maybe this is all happening coincidentally to steer me into the F1/H1.

this is happening to put us in perspective of "some discomfort during exercise is normal because of effort being exerted" and not "no pain, no gain." 

yes, we do gain from stress, but an overload of stress is not going to give us an overload of good results and im not telling you because you don't know, im saying it because sometimes, we'll know what we have to do but it's as simple as investing in our time in what we want. 

we want to train like gymnasts? excellent, then we have a very good resource which is the Coach and his athletes/ moderators which are an extension of his work. 

a teacher is only as good as how transmittable his message can be so the ears who decide to listen, act upon it. 

he's a great teacher and no one here would recommend something that would be detrimental to your or others health, considering that we all here want to be better people at what we do.

mobility will be your greatest ally, now that im working on all the musculature in my entire body with H1 iM and F1 iM plus the PE's, my body is getting stronger and more mobile every workout.

you can quote me on that. 

edit: something i'll also want you notice is what level I am in my F1 and H1 progress. the journey has barely even started. 

So the Dr said it is most likely impingenment from tendonitis or bursitis - maybe even a small tear. Nhensaid he diubted it was a tear. He gave me a a shot of anesthetic to see if instill had the issues indescribed earlier. I did still have some but is was reduced. In the end, ill orobably need to do therapybflr a few weeks before insurance will approve an MRI. I want the mri just so i know. Nbutnhe said incan continuento work out just not avoid whatever aggrevates it which is not mich HSPUs.

He also spoke off a cortisone shot as another option down the road. So can indo H1/F1?

Sounds to me like you should be fine. Just make sure to follow the doctor's advice and avoid exercises that irritate the shoulder.

You have to learn how to pull your elbows back, when you are at the top of your pull up position (hands at your chest). For me the advice to "lean forward" was the wrong cue (like it seems to be for you). You can hang there till the end of the day trying to "lean forward" by sticking your head between the rings without anything happening. Apparently, pulling your elbows back (and using your anterior deltoids (?) to lift your weight a couple of inches to get past the sticking point into a very low dip) with your full weight pulling you down is not something we do naturally. In my case, in the beginning I needed support from my toes (like Mat Train advices) to develop the "feel"; I used a basket ball to create an instable platform. I also, in the beginning, made the move (elbow pull back) quickly and deliberately. Later on it became slower and more controlled.

The stretch that the transition created in my shoulders was quite painful (in the beginning).  So, if your injury is anywhere in the area where this stretching and loading from the transition occurs, don't do it. From your description of what your doctor told you, you need to give your shoulder time to heal. Having maybe a tear or maybe tendonitis or bursitis sounds serious enough. Just take your time to heal. Don't worry about your MU. You will get it. And, yes, F1 and H1 are heavily recommended, also because it will allow you to give your shoulder injury a rest while focusing on something different. Like Hari says don't do the exercises that aggravate your shoulder pain. There is plenty left for you to do.

FritsMB said:

 

 

 

You have to learn how to pull your elbows back, when you are at the top of your pull up position (hands at your chest). For me the advice to "lean forward" was the wrong cue (like it seems to be for you). You can hang there till the end of the day trying to "lean forward" by sticking your head between the rings without anything happening. Apparently, pulling your elbows back (and using your anterior deltoids (?) to lift your weight a couple of inches to get past the sticking point into a very low dip) with your full weight pulling you down is not something we do naturally. In my case, in the beginning I needed support from my toes (like Mat Train advices) to develop the "feel"; I used a basket ball to create an instable platform. I also, in the beginning, made the move (elbow pull back) quickly and deliberately. Later on it became slower and more controlled.

 

The stretch that the transition created in my shoulders was quite painful (in the beginning).  So, if your injury is anywhere in the area where this stretching and loading from the transition occurs, don't do it. From your description of what your doctor told you, you need to give your shoulder time to heal. Having maybe a tear or maybe tendonitis or bursitis sounds serious enough. Just take your time to heal. Don't worry about your MU. You will get it. And, yes, F1 and H1 are heavily recommended, also because it will allow you to give your shoulder injury a rest while focusing on something different. Like Hari says don't do the exercises that aggravate your shoulder pain. There is plenty left for you to do.

 

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Does anyone have a video of this?  I've heard this recommendation but not sure hot to execute it?

If you do the pull-up motion without the bar/rings and bring your hands down to your lower chest, your elbows automatically go down and back behind you. That's a full ROM pull-up, without a FG even. With a FG you will technically be able to pull even lower once you get strong enough.

jwalker497 said:

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Does anyone have a video of this?  I've heard this recommendation but not sure hot to execute it?

Here you go.

Great news that the doc didn't think it was anything major. Did he refer you to a PT so you can deal with the underlying cause or is the plan to do that after re-evaluating?

I would be extremely careful about loading this range as it seems likely to be one that you haven't trained previously. IIRC there are a bunch of trivial looking exercises in F1 addressing just that aspect.

Good chance I seem overly paranoid here, but the shoulder joint is one of those things where I know too many people that have had to try and recover from injuries - not fun from what I can see. Stay safe!

- Chris

Frits, Thanks!  I am going to try this.  How often did you do it? How many sets, reps etc?  

jwalker497 said:

So the Dr said it is most likely impingenment from tendonitis or bursitis - maybe even a small tear. Nhensaid he diubted it was a tear. He gave me a a shot of anesthetic to see if instill had the issues indescribed earlier. I did still have some but is was reduced. In the end, ill orobably need to do therapybflr a few weeks before insurance will approve an MRI. I want the mri just so i know. Nbutnhe said incan continuento work out just not avoid whatever aggrevates it which is not mich HSPUs.

He also spoke off a cortisone shot as another option down the road. So can indo H1/F1?

Do not accept the cortisone shot. You do not need it in your situation. Those things tend to cause more problems than they solve.

Ok thanks for the tip Josh.  He gave me a RX for an anti-inflammatory but I haven't even gotten it filled yet.  

I've taken this past week off and my shoulder feels better.  The issue is still there in a very specific movement but def improved. I am prob gonna start H1/F1 this week. 

jwalker497 said:

Frits, Thanks!  I am going to try this.  How often did you do it? How many sets, reps etc?  

Standing on the basket ball 8 weeks, 4 days/week, 5 sets of 4 reps per day. Then without the basket ball 2 weeks, 4 days/week, 5 sets of 3 reps per day.  Be carefull not to aggravate your shoulder injury. I found the stretch that the transition caused in my shoulder quite painfull in the beginning. Just watch my face in the video. So if you already have a tear in any of the shoulder ligaments that are put under load, you risk making it worse (same with a tendonitis or bursitis). Otherwise, have fun.

Agreed, when doing deep dips the pain was noticeable.  I've taken the past week off and it feels better but its still there a little, so I might not start this just yet.  

I searched all over youtube and couldn't find any videos on specific exercises to work the transition, so thanks for the video.  Did you do anything else to get the Muscleup?  What did the rest of your workout look like?    I think doing FG pullups would still be good and I cant figure out if I should be doing Russian dips or single bar dips or regular dips on rings.

Russian dips to help with transition, if you look at Joshua's videos you will find video essay including it.

I myself didn't do them (3 times maybe), rope climbing was what helped me and I needed to work a bit to transition technique, I usually say to guys trying to get it - think about moving your shoulders over the rings, don't try to do some pushing or other magic, just shift those shoulders, also take a note that I could do dip from a very low position (then I had shoulder injury where I couldn't go down more than a half way before pain was starting, it took me couple of months without dipping and some other stuff to be able to start it again and slowly increase ROM, now it is nearly fully cleared).

jwalker497 said:

Did you do anything else to get the Muscleup?  What did the rest of your workout look like?    I think doing FG pullups would still be good and I cant figure out if I should be doing Russian dips or single bar dips or regular dips on rings.

I did some very slow dips and pull ups on the rings (pu with false grip; for example 10 seconds up, 10 seconds down). I always warmed up hanging 20 to 30 seconds on the rings with a false grip in a pull up position with my hands chest high (under my clavicles). I did not do more than 5 pull ups or dips in a row and those not on a regular basis.  I think Russian dips are great for bar MU, which is quite different. And then, of course, much, much later when you are training for a muscle up on rings without forward lean into the dip position where great triceps strength is essential. 

So just deep FG Pullups and Deep Ring Dips.

Yeah. Master a full ROM pull-ups with and without a FG, and full ROM dips. Quality over quantity. That will get you a basic strict MU if you genuinely master them.