Assisted chin/dip machines and the muscle-up

Hi guys,

I have a question for any muscle-up experts on the forum. My gym has an assisted chin/dip machine: the type that lets you kneel on a pad which takes weight off you in 5kg increments. (5kgs is the minimum amount of assistance the machine can offer). I figured this machine would be a good way to learn the MU without developing a kipping habit - i.e., strict form all the way because your knees won't leave the pad. I set the machine to the minimum assistance (5kg), hung my rings from the chin bar, and knocked out 3 sets of 5 MUs. Over the past month I've built up to adding weight to myself (a 15kg disk tied to my waist) while still using the machine to hold my legs for me with minimum assistance(5kg). I figured that's the same as me doing strict-form MUs with 15kgs(weight disk) minus 5kgs(machine assistance)=10kgs total added to my bodyweight. Pretty impressive, I thought. Tried to do an unassisted MU today for the first time - I stopped dead at the top of the chin-up portion. What do you think? Is my machine-based plan to develop a strict MU fundamentally flawed or am I just missing something small?

Hi Colm,

Personally i'm not a huge fan of the idea of using the machine to help with the muscle ups, because especially initially you will need speed to get through the transition point. Can u do a kipping muscle up? If u can i think u would be better off doing these as it is all about developing the transition. I don't think it matters too much if ur first muscle ups aren't too pretty, because once you get one they get so much easier. At the start get them out anyway u can, after that u can focus on strict no kip muscle ups. Work on the speed and power first, then go fopr strict muscle ups.

Hope this helps

Demus

Physics tells us that all things accelerate at the same rate under gravity, about 9.8m/s^2. This is because force=mass * acceleration, and therefore acceleration = force/mass. In most situations, as the mass increases, the force (gravity) increases proportionally, so the acceleration remains constant. However, in this case you are increasing your mass (you + the weight belt) by a greater proportion than you are increasing the force (you + the weight belt - 5kg). This means that when you do force/mass, you get a smaller answer than you previously would have done before you added any other factors (as force would be [you + weight belt/[you = weight belt]). So you free fall at a slower rate when on the assisting machine with added weight then you would normally. Presumably this is making the transition from pullup position to ring dip position harder.

PS. some of the physics there is slightly inaccurate, but the general idea is correct.

I would think assisting muscle-ups using a band would a better solution than a gravitron or self spotting using a block ( it works, but seems too much weight is taken off compared to other methods ).

I use to do cable work at the gym getting closer and closer to BW, then I used it for cross work.