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Quest for the muscle up: False Grip Pull-ups and Russian Dip


Joshua Naterman
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How is your pullup ROM short? Do you only reach your eyebrows, chin or neck or close to your chest? Are you arching your chest out or leaning back?

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Joshua Naterman

You are retracting your shoulderblades and shoulders. You can not do a muscle up that way! :) There are two ways to move the shoulders in a pull up. Pull ups are pretty much all the same until after your upper arms are parallel with the ground. At that point, there are two things you can do with your shoulders:

1) You can pull your shoulders together behind you. This is what bodybuilders like to do, and it helps develop the rhomboids and lower trapezius muscles. However, due to the angle of the upper arm and shoulder, it is not possible to move higher than collarbones/upper chest touching the bar without doing the second type of shoulder motion.

2)You can start rolling your shoulders forward, kind of like you're arm wrestling. This should happen slowly over the last third of the rep as your head starts to pass the bar. The shoulder roll puts your upper arms and shoulders in a position where your center of gravity is in line with the shoulder socket instead of in front of it. This, combined with the position of the upper arm bone in the shoulder socket, allows you to pull all the way to where your nipples are pretty much at the bar. This is actually the beginning of the muscle up transition, and the further up you can go the better.

It sounds like you are not doing #2, if you'll pardon the pun! ^_^ You need to start practicing that way, because rolling your shoulders forward is the only way to do a muscle up. That's just how our bodies work! Hopefully this has helped clarify some issues you may be having.

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hi Slizzadrman, thanks a lot for your input :)

yesterday I tried to make 2nd pull up variation rolling my shoulders forward...

I find myself achieving less ROM than first variation (just about reaching my chin) & my chin is a bit away from bar

I suppose I shall be able to touch bar with my chest when I progress to achieve a complete ROM ... Is that right?

Also do you think that making pull ups behind neck helps in building active flexibility needed for being able to roll shoulders forward ... also and adapting joints to extra stress ...

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Joshua Naterman

I'll have to examine how I do behind the neck pull ups before I say anything on them, but I don't remember ever rolling my shoulders forward. If you haven't practiced that, you ARE going to be weaker on it for a little while. Give it time and do half your work sets that way and half the old way until you are getting at least as high. THEN start weaning yourself over to around 70% work with type 2. The first type is still good for your shoulders so don't just completely stop doing them, ever.

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  • 4 months later...

I don't want to do anything stupid but I just can't seem to figure out that False Grip.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you have to make a fist and hang with your wrists(and it's higher than the bar) on the bar? So you don't have a grip at all? I saw the video but I wan to make sure it's right because I just started out with the false grip and it's so hard to even hold on to the bar for 15 seconds let alone do pullups :)

Thanks in advance!

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Erik Sjolin

I have a similar problem, except mine is that my hand keeps slipping off of the rings. I don't know if this is because of sweat or crappy grip or what, but I thought a way I could build up my forearm strength is to do the "no hand" pull ups that Jim from Beastskills outlines, in which case I just put my closed fists over the rings and do the pull ups like that (I can almost get a full ROM like that).

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I don't want to do anything stupid but I just can't seem to figure out that False Grip.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you have to make a fist and hang with your wrists(and it's higher than the bar) on the bar? So you don't have a grip at all? I saw the video but I wan to make sure it's right because I just started out with the false grip and it's so hard to even hold on to the bar for 15 seconds let alone do pullups :)

Thanks in advance!

You do have a grip, because you somehow awkwardly twist your wrist. It does take some time to get used to and at the beggining you do slip off quite oftenly unless using chalk or tape on the rings. Here's a nice picture:

false-grip.gif

What you are talking about people sometimes do on bars.

no%20hands.jpg

A few more pictures of the false grip from Beastskills:

falsegripfront.jpg

falsegrip.jpg

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  • 1 month later...
Joshua Naterman

The false grip is, quite simply, a grip that keeps the outside portion of your wrist on top of the ring or bar. With the pictures Ivan posted you should be able to figure this out with some trial and error. It is not comfortable and not easy at first, but eventually you will be fine.

At first even hanging with your fist on top of the bar will be quite a challenge, but that is a good way to start developing your strength. I don't know what Coach's preferred methods are, but this was how I figured it out. From that start I just figured out how to hold my hands around the bar. Good luck!

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Hey on the quest for the MU I found this crossfit video that explains some ideas for training the false grip & transition. I figure this would be an appropriate place to show it:

Link to video

On a side note how do you embed videos on this site?

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