Dynamic Strength training too soon, Muscle Up

[Aushion Chatman]

I am a Crossfitter and train in a Crossfit gym. In Crossfit most trainees never move beyond a kipping Muscle Up. In my eyes that is very unfortunate as no strength through the ROM is ever attained. However for Crossfit's purposes in the end it was fine. (I harp on my people to work on strength).

The issue is that lately there have been videos of ex-gymnasts/current gymnasts, and Games competitors performing either a basic swing into MU (this is so they can easily use no false-grip so they can move faster) or what equates to a bent-arm uprise.

I am also fine with that, for THAT population of superior and well prepared athlete. Unfortunately it has a trickle down effect and I've seen quite a few of people in my gym trying to perform the bent-arm uprise version. My concern is more with how they drop back into the bottom to string repititions together.

My initial reaction is to have these trainees cease working on that dynamic movment until they have properly prepared the joints. I would assume being able to perform strict MUs would be sufficient to begin work on these more demanding dynamic variations. but I wanted to see what you all think. Is this okay? I've attempted just a basic ring swing and had to put that on hold as I felt my shoulders weren't ready. I'm afraid in some of our athlete's zeal to get this new movement down they run the risk of serious injury.

Here is a video of someone who is obviously prepared through Gymnastic Strength Training™ to handle this load: I literally have athletes who can't do a false grip pull-up to their shoulders working this...

http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&s ... y-style%2F

[Nicholas Sortino]

I come from the crossfit world myself. I love it, but I find there is sometimes too much desire to become the best the fastest, and I see people injured all the time (myself included).

If you are the coach, or in a position to influence him, I would advise them to stop training these until they can do a strict muscle up. I am still working on mine, and the only time I do them kipping (not the giant butterfly) anymore is when I cannot just pull straight up into one because of fatigue. I wouldn't dream of doing these until I had much more control.

I understand crossfit is all about the amount of work done in a time period, but too many people sacrifice one of the primary modalities of crossfit, strength, for a time... I see bad form on cleans and snatches, kipping muscle ups and pull ups, and even kipping HeSPUs. That is fine if you are trying to set a benchmark, but you should try to explain to them how doing everything with better form in practice will still work their metcon, but lead to greater strength gains, and in turn likely faster times when they try to set a PR.

That is just my opinion though, and I sure some high level crossfitters may disagree. But in the end I would rather be strong and fast than just fast. For example, I am doing the Barbells for Boobs in oct and while I am sure many of the competitors will be doing power cleans, I will squat clean every rep. That is just my way, and in the end, I think I will be a more well rounded athlete for it.

[Aushion Chatman]

Aww let me further specify, I understand completely that this is out of order, Maximal strength should come before Dynamic not the other way around. I am specifically asking for a benchmark. That is, is one strict MU sufficient to begin working first a tap swing, and then the "bent arm" uprise?

The other side of this is that we Crossfitters do a ton of kipping pull ups already. Is it possible that the shoulder girdle is nearly prepared for this movement without going through the basic tap swing first, just from kipping pull-ups?

[Blairbob]

Well, virtually all gymnasts learn to swing on High Bar and Rings before they can muscle-up.

The basic kipping action of the CF kipping PU; that hollow>arch transition or snap is the first step of a tap swing. Granted, many young gymnasts start out swinging with small swings relatively that build up over a period of time in relation to their grip, shoulder, and core strength. To note though, that transition could be more powerful than a non giant tap swing on HB/UB in some cases. Let's face it, compulsory tap swings are generally pretty weak with a weak tap. Then of course, the fact that many of the girls don't use a good tap swing for a long time in their dismounts. But I'm diverging. The power of that CF kip transition sort of depends on the CF per say. I can probably bend and snap the bar like crazy in a chinese kipping PU which is probably why I connect them so poorly. But most CFers don't do that, I think.

The swing on rings is more powerful than the swing on HB, especially from just a basic swing to horizontal. I think. This changes in later stages of men's gymnastics as the ring swing tends to get killed a bit on giant swings on rings so you don't overswing through the HS. However, as for some of the in-ring flipping moves, they probably exhibit some insane forces, especially the amount of G-forces in an elite ring dismount.

However, with an advanced elite high bar dismount, momentum is generally built up through a few giant swings into a chinese tap swing which then creates an uber amount of force for a huge dismount. I have not seen figures on how much G-force a High Bar dismount generates but I would not be surprised if it eclipses a ring dismount. And I thought I heard that ring swing can hit 17g's.

Getting back to it. It's definitely a good idea to be able to do a strict MU before doing a kipping MU. Tucker is of the same opinion. If you're gonna use that butterfly kipping MU, you'll want to be able to bail out of a ring support without crying. I generally teach this on PB first, then HB, then rings.