Muscle up training - scapula position?

I'm working my muscle-up training by splitting the movement into three parts: the pull-up, the transition, and the dip. Regarding the pull-up phase, I notice that when I retract my scapula, I'm really only able to get the rings (or bar) to a level just barely under my chin. There is no way I'll ever get my transition strong enough that I'm starting from chin level.

Now if I protract my scapula, I find two things: (1) if I keep my scapula forward and depressed, My range of motion increases and the rings can get below my chest, (2) I'm so weak in this bottom position thy I can't even hold a static position there with full bodyweight (yet).

For kicks last night I worked the pullups with the protracted and depressed scapula. Because I lack strength, I resorted to holding a static position with elbows at 90 degrees and shoulders forward/down and did negative reps from there. I'm sure in time the strength will come, but am I on the right track for my MU development?

Hmm that was a tricky one But I THINK you need to keep your shoulders protracted. During the muscle up it is easiest if your elbows stay close into your sides. If your scapula is retracted then that is pulling your elbows wider which is not what we want.

Try not to overthink it though. You just need a good pull up, good transition strength and a good dip on rings. You don't really need to think about every little position every joint needs to be in. But the way you have broken it down is correct. Keep up the hard work and remember to rest as well

Good luck!!

Almost everyone does the with scapulae forward. But the ideal muscleup is scapulae retracted and depressed.

Jman,

I wouldn't even worry about the transition until you can easily do full range of motion pullups/dips. I don't allow my students to even attempt muscle-ups until they can do pull-ups to their nipples. You can continue to strengthen the transition if you want but it should not be a focus. Get pullups to your nipples, and dips with your shoulders at ring height and muscle-ups will come very quickly.

Dillon

definitely, I've never trained the transition. After months of 5*5 PU and dips I once tried a MU just to see if I was getting closer and found myself able to complete a decent one.

Aha! That makes more sense to me. Thanks for the explanations about getting full ROM on the pullups. My question now is "how?". Right now I can do 7 or 8 pullups from a deadhang, but none of them go all the way to chest level. I cant even do ONE at chest level. There is a very wide gap betwen my lat/bicep strength vs my scaular retractors. Do I now:

A) continue working chin-to-bar pullups at current intensity, knowing that the strength will eventually come? Or

B) modify the pull-up progression to start doing all pull-ups at chest-to-bar (or chest-to-rings)?

If the answer is B, I will likely have to come down a progression or two. I can't even hold the top of a pullup as an FSP with the rings at nipples. Any recommendations? I can definitely hold that position with feet-assisting and then as I continue through the Range of Motion I can lift the feet and just do a normal eccentric-only negative rep until the scapulae retractors catch up?

Dillon Zrike said:

Jman,

I wouldn't even worry about the transition until you can easily do full range of motion pullups/dips. I don't allow my students to even attempt muscle-ups until they can do pull-ups to their nipples. You can continue to strengthen the transition if you want but it should not be a focus. Get pullups to your nipples, and dips with your shoulders at ring height and muscle-ups will come very quickly.

Dillon

I can easly do 15 chin ups, or 10 pull ups, and 20 dips on Pbars or 6+ on rings with decent form. But I have absolutely no chance of doing a muscle up due to lack of strenght in the transition. My elbows simply can't handle the amount of pressure in that position. Any other tips? I've been training teh transition with assistance of elastics and I notice I'm getting closer.

Was curios about the subject and did a little research. Here's what I found out:

According to this site, a protracted shoulder is a common postural deficiency.

According to

movie, a protracted scapulae is a problem which people who are dealing with are trying to fix.

According to this article, "a protracted scapula causes shoulder pain, narrows the space in the shoulder joint needed for movement, puts strain on the ligaments of the shoulder and decreases the shoulder strength".

Whatever you do, take care.

Leandro,

Remember it is not about how many reps you can perform. I have seen many people who were capable of doing 20+ pullups but could not do one below their chest. A way to tell if you have good ROM in your dip is if you can touch your shoulders with your thumbs.

A way to strengthen the transition is to work Russian Dips. Breaks has an example of those in this video. He performs the Russian Dip at 9:20

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Dillon Zrike said:

Leandro,

Remember it is not about how many reps you can perform. I have seen many people who were capable of doing 20+ pullups but could not do one below their chest. A way to tell if you have good ROM in your dip is if you can touch your shoulders with your thumbs.

Leandro, like you, I can do multiple pull-ups and dips without problems. (Though my numbers are only about 75% of yours). The problem for me really is the range. It intuitively makes sense, as per Dillon Zrike, that you must be able to pull-up with rings at chest level and then dip so deep that you can touch your shoulders. If you can do both of those things -- and I can't do either -- your pull-up range and your dip range overlap each other, and the transition should take almost no effort if you're kipping/using momentum, and not too much effort if you're doing it slow. Of course, the goal is to do without momentum, but I'm just making a point.

Do you have full ROM on the pull-ups and dips? If so, then it really is just about transition strength, and you should be able to work up to a full muscle-up by starting with an easier progression, such as doing a muscle-up with your legs being supported by a platform or the floor.

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To continue where I left off earlier in the thread, I tried to hold the top of a chest-level pull-up for 5s, and I just don't have the strength. Tried it again with feet supported on a platform. Not enough strength. So then I went to the gym and tried it on an assisted pull-up machine...I needed 150lbs. of assistance before I could hold at the top with the bar at chest level, and it took me retracting my scapula and depressing my shoulders with all my effort.

So for now, I'm going to add chest-level chin-up holds to my FSPs...doing 30s x 2 with assistance and gradually working my way until I can do them with my feet supported. It's incredible that I can rep out 10 pull-ups, but I can't even hold at the top for 1 second with the bar all the way down to my chest!

Yes, I don't have the full rom in pull ups too. I can even do them weighted, but not above neck. I do have on dips though, I can even balance a little back as if I would start a russian dip. I also do upper arm swings and uprises at the gym. But I can't do a russian dip in strenght alone, yet.

I just think it's more productive to work all the rom of the transition with elastics on the rings, than trying to pull higher on the pull up in a bar. I have 90kg and when I force the rom in the pull up my elbows hurt...

If I can train in the rings themselves AND I can graduate the assistance with the elastics, I can exercise the entire rom of the transition safely and keep track of progress by lessening the assistance in time, as I'm doing right now. I started with a lot of assistance. Now I see that I can do a MU with something like 30% of help only, I'm almost there. You also learn the technique this way.

But this was all my idea. Am I doing something wrong, or should I quit this and try to increase the rom in pull ups only??

Leandro,

If the transition is your main problem, pullups and dips are not going to help you with that, and also going through the full ROM MU is not exactly neccessary. Now, because you are also having trouble with the full ROM pullups, you definitely need to work on this as Dillon described. But for the transition you need to train this specifically, doing the pullup and the dip is taking away effort you could be putting towards transition strengthening. You will get more quality work on the transition if you train russian dips (like Dillon said ). Russian Dips are probably the most effective assistance exercise for a muscle up transition. I would take Dillon's advice and get to work on them. But, be aware of the strain on your elbows, take it slow. Try starting out with your feet on the ground (if bars are low enough, if not put a bench under you), slowly work towards accomplishing the downward movement and then standing back up and repeating. As you get stronger add more to your ROM, try going down without feet and back up with 1 foot, stuff like that until you get it. When you can do a Russian dip you should be able to do a muscle up IF your pullups are where they need to be (what Dillon said, to the nips) and IF you have the shoulders to hands ring dip.

Working the band assisted MU is definitely good practice for learning the fluid motion of the MU, but you need some specific work on what you are weak at and that is not addressing it. 30% help is alot more than you think and it's not doing a whole lot for your transition strength. I would warmup with the band assisted MUs and then work your full ROM pullup and your russian dips. Also, the false grip is essential when learning so make sure you are working on it too.

I'm sorry to disagree again. I don't want to be boring or anything, just to instigate a productive debate =)

Now, we are tired to hear that joints are weak links and you should take care with things that put too much strain on it. That being said, I had a lot of elbow problems, just like JmanDetroit, he who also helped me a lot back then (thanks JmanDetroit =D)

So, we need something to work our way to the muscle up that is safe. I say, with my 90kg, doing a pull up with more rom than neck, doing a BW russian dip or a muscle up will crush my elbows. Definetly. It's my whole body above my elbows in a disavantage position.

That being said, how can you say that a russian dip is better exercise to work the MU transition than......doing a XR MU itself!!

take a look at that:

(Dont need to watch whole video, just 3:50 to 5:26)

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If you see at 5:20, I do a muscle up with almost no asisstance, you can see almost no tension in the elastic when I get up on rings. The 30% was just a guessing, I don't know how much was that. The whole point is that you can do sets and reps IN YOUR level of conditioning, and not throw all your BW in your elbows, which will happen if you force more rom in the pull up and russian dip that you are capable.

I say all this because I think this will safely help JmanDetroit too as it is safely helping me to progress to the muscle up. I'm seeing results, it's getting easier and I'm capable of doing it with less and less assistance, and more important, I'm completely pain free.

Leandro,

First off that's a great idea! I've never thought of that before. That seems to be a great way to work the transition. However, you are incorrect in your initial assumptions. First off, if you say doing a full ROM pull-up hurts your elbows, how does working a muscle-up transition make sense? During a correct muscle-up you pass through full ROM pull-up. I understand that you think that you can start the transition early enough to skip the full pull-up. Essentially this makes sense as many people perform muscle-ups without doing a full ROM pull-up. The problem is you never address the weakness in your elbows at the top of the pull-up. This will lead to injury. Any weak link left alone will come back and bite you. I promise this is true. Why not use those bands to assist you in getting the full ROM pull-up first?

I suggest you work full ROM pull-ups, full ROM korean dips, and this prehab exercise . When you can do both of these easy then you can resume work with your band assisted muscle-ups or russian dips.

Eddie,

Spot on. Good advice in your last post.

Dillon

Dillon is absolutely right on this.

Since you have the band, you can use it many ways to help with the transition and elbow prehab.

Here are two additional assistance exercises that i work on all ring days to aid with the transition.

Hang the band off a bar and pull the band down as if doing a MU.

Hold the band overhead and keeping one arm straight, bring the other hand down as if doing a MU.

Thanks Dillon!

Leandro,

I have trained the MU in the same manner, and like I said, although effective in putting the pieces together you aren't addressing your weaknesses. Once again, Dillon's advice was what I was going to say. I explained ways to scale the russian dip in my last post, use that to build up. But, honestly your transition looks good! Ha, the only part you really used the band was through the pull up!! Another movement to help with the elbows on the transition is basically doing the russian dip on the rings, almost like you were doing in the video, but don't go lower than a bent arm hang. So the ROM is from bent arm (arms at 90 and hold that false grip very hard) to shoulders on top of rings and back down. This was easier than a russian dip for me and helped me increase my MU strength alot. My point with this is to break up the pieces just like Dillon is explaining, and when you break out the transition you just train that. I am speaking from experience, had a lot of guys at my gym coming to me for help with the strict MU. They were working it like you are and I told them to stop and do the ring drill I just explained. They were able to get 10-15 transitions total that day, much more volume than if they were doing full MU's. Once they got that down, I pushed them to start lowering towards a full hang, they are now doing strict MU's back to back. Break out the movements, work them like Dillon and I are explaing and strengthen your weaknesses along with your band assisted work.

Russian Dips on the Rings @ 1:28

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Dillion:

I though it made sense because I was doing the MU assisted. I didn't realize that you go more rom in the pull up than in the MU, leading to a "surplus" in strenght. I though it was the same rom. So my conclusion is that the full rom pull up is harder than the MU, but it's recomended to achieve first, just like GH first, then BL tucked.

Doing the assisted pull ups sounds great. I will try that later! Thanks!

Eddie:

Russian dips on rings sounds great! A good way to save strenght and put only in the weak part.

Alright I surrender! I will try these new moves for some time!