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Started by B1214N, July 15, 2013 · 23 Replies · 4,888 Views
I'm quite impressed that a heavy bodybuilder can perform a MU in less than a day's training. Form is not perfect, but it's still very impressive and he is not shaking that much on the long rings. I think he already has all the strength necessary to perform a strict one, just not the technique and muscle coordination.
I've taught several people the muscle up without them having any previous experience. Generally those people who do a good number of pull-ups and have decent dipping strength get it failey quickly.
Not all of them have been that large of course but a lot of body builders are pretty strong.
it is a common misconception that bodybuilders are not strong.
They typically don't have the same relative strength that a powerlifter or gymnast of a similar weight will have, and they certainly don't have anything even remotely approaching the neuromuscular coordination of a gymnast, but physiological cross-sectional area is directly, and by directly I mean nearly linearly, correlated with force production capacity.
You can see that this guy, despite being a lean 92 kilos, and virtually the same height as the gymnast, with much larger upper body muscles, was not able to perform a slow muscle up... he required that explosive start to carry him through the transition.
Chances are that the internal rotation required through the transition is something he has not developed, since nothing in bodybuilding or powerlifting trains this motion. Based on other very strong people I have trained, I'd say that he'd have to work for about 8 weeks to get his first slow muscle up.
Even so, very nice for a single day.
I like to see those movies.
These were filmed on a site where I go for open sessions and I've seen couple of other sessions these guys had there.
Alex took Ty through some flexibility drills as well and it was interesting to see not only how that sort of power translates to gymnastics, but also what is the level of flexibility he (bodybuilder) had - which wasn't terrible, probably also thanks to the fact that Ty sounded like a very smart guy, with open mind to different training.
To achieve something like a muscle up ,without prior training, in one training session is amazing.
SuperBru said:To achieve something like a muscle up ,without prior training, in one training session is amazing.
You do realize that it was much more of a power-up than an actual muscle up, right?
SuperBru said:To achieve something like a muscle up ,without prior training, in one training session is amazing.
Not really. A muscle up is a very basic skill. So basic that it's not even listed in the code of points. Plenty of people can do it on day one.
Im impressed, to pick it up that fast is pretty remarkeable.
Joshua Slocum said:Not really. A muscle up is a very basic skill. So basic that it's not even listed in the code of points. Plenty of people can do it on day one.
I must be unbelievably weak then.
I also did it with a slight kip my third time trying.
SuperBru said:I must be unbelievably weak then.
You're not unbelievably weak, you're just a beginner. Compared to how strong you could potentially get, a muscle up is not much strength at all.
A beginner I am.
The bodybuilder was above average in mobility compared to many other his sized bodybuilders. His dips looked better than majority of dips I have seen other heavy weight bodybuilders performing, also, I guess he has performed pull-ups instead of lat pulldowns which helped with the muscle up as well.
When you look at bodybuilders, their athletic prowess is often determined either whether they perform many of the exercises full ROM(bodybuilders often try to isolate muscles even with dips, pull-ups, lat pulldowns by doing only ½ ROM) or choose free weights/BW movements over machines. Powerbuilders(bodybuilders who focus on powerlifting exercises) and the guys who perform full ROM movements tend to be very athletic. And even the average bodybuilders are significantly more athletic than average joes, despite the efforts of low level people trying to shame their efforts by saying they lack functionality or that they can hardly run couple of meters without getting out of breath.
I showed a good friend of mine how to muscle up and he literally did one on his very first attempt. If someone is relatively strong, the biggest thing for them is learning a false grip, and they can do one from a bent arm hang pretty easily. Straightening the arm in a false grip hang is what took me a little while to get the wrist strength/flexibility for. But, I got a kipping muscle up on rings on the 3rd try like Daniel as well.
After looking at the video again, I must say that I miscalculated/overlooked the amount of kip he used. That amount of kip certainly helped him a lot and made it much easier than even a fast MU without kipping. I have to agree that if someone can do non-kipping fast or kipping pull-ups and dips then they can easily learn how to bypass the transition with momentum from the explosive pull-up. He just needs to learn the technique which isn't really that hard even though he didn't master the technique yet. It's still pretty nice that he did it though.
What impressed me the most was that he wasn't even wobbling that much on the ring supports. I assume that was his first time on the rings. I remember I was wobbling like crazy my first time on the rings and that was with 3 feet straps too which is nothing compared to the long rings he was on.
I think you guys are contradicting youself.
Instability is what make the rings challeging. people new to the rings quickly realize how much harder even the most basic moves become. If this guy never trained on rings, this is pretty awesome. He was stable and seemed very contrilled in the lead up exercises.
To say that a muscleup isnt in the code, and he kipped etc, is really discounting the principal here and really not fair or relevant. He isnt a gymnast.
kudos to him and i was impressed by his open mind as well.
Indeed Jwalker497; I also found this interview interesting, and I did like the guy's open mind to try and learn, and be on record for it. 
The critics of his form and performance are a little bit out of place IMHO! 
jwalker497 said:I think you guys are contradicting youself.
Instability is what make the rings challeging. people new to the rings quickly realize how much harder even the most basic moves become. If this guy never trained on rings, this is pretty awesome. He was stable and seemed very contrilled in the lead up exercises.
To say that a muscleup isnt in the code, and he kipped etc, is really discounting the principal here and really not fair or relevant. He isnt a gymnast.
kudos to him and i was impressed by his open mind as well.
I agree, kudos to him for sure! That was awesome for a big guy like that and he has a great attitude. I definitely didn't mean to come off as this not being impressive. I think most of us simply meant that bodybuilders are stronger than you think and when you teach the muscle up to strong people they blow through it pretty quickly.
Like jwalker says, it's impressive! Not much shaking too. For a large person to do with 1 day's training (for me) is what's impressive - rather than someone generically getting down muscle ups in a single day.
I just found I could do slow muscle ups once I'd got the neuromuscular control down, by working on a scaled version with my legs on a stool.
Joshua Naterman said:Chances are that the internal rotation required through the transition is something he has not developed, since nothing in bodybuilding or powerlifting trains this motion. Based on other very strong people I have trained, I'd say that he'd have to work for about 8 weeks to get his first slow muscle up.
That sounds about right to me. Overall, he's already going to have strong internal rotators, so even though that motion is new to him, he's going to stand a better chance of getting through it than most people.
i don't believe he is for first time on rings. u just can't train stabilizers needed for ring stability only with lifting weights.
Samui said:The bodybuilder was above average in mobility compared to many other his sized bodybuilders.
That's kind of scary, it looks like in a dead hang his arms don't straighten much more than 90 degrees! 
But the fact that he's branching out from his normal gym routine and challenging himself to do new things is awesome. Kudos to him!
And in case you guys haven't seen this:
quick question. on the forum i've often came across the term rto (rings turned out) dips.
i don't really know what a rto dip is.
in the second video at 1:00 is this a rto dip?
EDIT: ok i found the answer myself. a rto dip is more like a korean dip.
anyways. are the dips shown in the second video at 1:00 correkt form for a normal xr dip? or should
the arms be parralell at the bottom of the movement and the rings be pararllel to eachother.
are the dips shown in the video bulgarian dips?. I'm confused because i always thought at the bottom
of a bulgarian dip the ellbows should point to the sides. in the video it seams like the ellbows point in a
45 degree angle.
FredInChina said:Indeed Jwalker497; I also found this interview interesting, and I did like the guy's open mind to try and learn, and be on record for it.
The critics of his form and performance are a little bit out of place IMHO!
Let's throw out standards because someone's big. Brilliant.
You can teach just about anyone who can do good pull ups and good, deep dips how to do a swinging or kipping "muscle up," which looks cool but doesn't even begin to mimic the physical stress of something like a 5 second muscle up. It gets you on top of the rings, and looks cool, and is something to be proud of achieving in a day, but it's not a real MUSCLE up. The term "muscle" in "muscle up" refers to the use of steadily applied force, not an explosive rise past the transition. That's what kips are.
He was very steady on the rings, that was really impressive. I will say I was surprised at how steady my friend Andy was on the rings his first time (only 5 foot straps) as he was a bodybuilder. He had earned his pro card about a year before, so he was pretty advanced in terms of muscular development.
Joshua Naterman said:Let's throw out standards because someone's big. Brilliant.
This is not what I said: a condescending and patronizing tone does no favors to BtGB; I am mildly surprised that you condone it.