Muscle Up - am i doing it right?

[newguy5000]

Hi guys i tried a muscle up on rings for the first time today and managed to perform a very ugly one with a kip. I just wanted to make sure i was doing it properly in terms of my hands. From the pull up portion i have my hands in a false grip going from the outside of the ring to the inside. Then as i pull over my hands i rotate the rings so my hands are no on the 'inside' of the rings. Does that make sense?

The transition part did not seem that hard to me, but that is probably because it is very similar to dymanic movements i am used to doing in rock climbing where you might train on the bouldering wall or an overhang and kip explosively over from a two arm or one arm dead hang.

On a side not i notice some red patches on my arms afterwards. Perhaps burst blood vessels? so i am going to train it slowly.

any advice on this hand placement is appreciated.

[Joshua Naterman]

Congratulations on your kipping muscle up! The transition wasn't hard because your kip carried you through it, if you try and do one without the kip you'll see what I mean. The transition simply won't happen until the internal muscles of your shoulder are very strong.

The false grip will have the pinkie side of your wrist or the bottom of the palm on the pinkie side (depending on what you like) on the ring, with the ring also running between the thumb and index finger. Your hand should be tight on the ring with full wrist flexion and supination. This is very, very hard to do with the tight hand at first, so don't freak out if you can't do it perfectly! That will come with time.

My suggestion to build your muscle up is to watch my video "quest for the muscle up" and follow that. If you can't do false grip pull ups you can start with rows or even just hangs with your feet on the floor. Eventually you'll be able to do the false grip pull ups. That's half the battle. Russian dips are the other half. If you don't have the book, you'll want to get it.

[newguy5000]

Thanks for the reply dude. Yeah i have the book, it's what started me on this quest to tool around with gymnastic training which i am totally loving so far.

I found your video after i posted this and went and practised a couple of moves. I can kip up into a muscle up but its all explosion not really any strength. I tried a strict MU and yeah - not even close to happening And the false grip is killing me if i hold it for more than 5 seconds.

I am going to change my rows and pull ups to false grip and factor in some false grip dead hangs into my normal warm up statics. My regime is pretty simple and short and i mostly focuses on trying to get a good L sit and Handstand before i develop other things.

Thanks for the advice. Love the vids.

[Joshua Naterman]

Nice! Yea, you've got the right idea then. That means success is guaranteed for you as long as you stick to the plan.

If I can suggest one thing, and this goes for everyone but I'm here on your thread so this is for you:

Place your #1 focus on all aspects of trap work, serratus work, and external rotators. That means your handstand work, shrugs in all different directions with different leans, cable work for traps and external rotators, dumbbell work, just do SOMETHING each day and do it differently each day. The constant change of stimulus is really working well for me, and I an regaining strength and function more rapidly than I thought I could. Those muscles will ultimately limit your long term strength gain AND make you vulnurable to training injuries if you don't keep them as strong and active as you can. Forget about rest, just do what feels right each day. Some days that might be one set of each motion for like 5 reps and others it may be 3-4 sets of 15 reps with the same load. You will find out each day what your body wants.

I know, that's rather nonspecific but when you get in there you'll see what I mean. I'm seeing crazy strength and growth in my rotators which is very good, my stability is increased and my handstand feels about as solid as standing on my feet. I just found that out yesterday, it's the first time I did handstands since the end of May at the seminar, which in turn was the first time in forever due to my own personal recovery journey.

I am sharing this because as I keep going I am realizing just how much strength I robbed myself of by not doing things this way from the start! I highly suggest that you consider this approach. Your shoulders are the core of upper body strength and this approach will make them about as bullet proof as possible.

I would absolutely use Coach's wall slides as well, they will help with range of motion and control.

In short: There is no such thing as spending too much time on the muscles that control the position of the shoulder socket OR the position of the upper arm IN the socket! I'm doing them every day and seeing results that far surpass what I got with 3-4 days per week. Keep in mind that some days are very brief and others are 20-30 minutes of nearly constant work, but I am always doing SOMETHING. Just keeping the muscles active every day is a large part of the success of this type of work. The other part is using different movements.

Science still doesn't know quite what to make of this because in theory a muscle is just a muscle and if it has to work then it should be the same work no matter what the movement is. However, this does not appear to be the case. My money is on neural mapping, meaning that there really are different patterns being used for different movements even with the same muscles involved. Obviously this is true since a given pattern can only cause one movement, but I also think this sort of wires the body to USE the muscles in a more integrated manner. The different nerve patterns seem to avoid a buildup of CNS fatigue. Of course, I'm also not using anywhere NEAR enough intensity to tax the CNS. Whatever the case may be, it works incredibly well. I highly recommend you try this, your long-term and short-term shoulder strength and stability will go through the roof.

[newguy5000]

Its really interesting to hear you say that. I have been rehabbing an old rotator cuff rock climbing injury from years ago that reflared up recently. I have been doing 7 days a week light work on it and have noticed a tremendous change in both my posture and shoulder strength. I'd be interested to know what other movements you do besides the ones i am currently doing or the ones you have found most beneficial. I have become paranoid about building strength in this area.

The current work i do daily on rotator area is:

1) IDO's two videos on shoulder exercises with the band.

2 ) Cuban Press 1 x 10

The other area of daily work is strengthening my middle to lower traps to help correct my posture / pull shoulders back to place my back and proper alignment - which takes stress off rotators. These are:

1) Shoulder Blade pinches

2) Can Openers (pinch shoulder blades and move hand out and back with light weight in them)

3) OH Squat with stick (i also OH SQuat with a weight later in the week once a week but only up to an empty O Bar so far)

4) Behind the back Shrug (i do this once a week the rest is daily)

Aside from these i do a lot of basic statics in my warm up that seem to have helped my shoulder stability - these are the basically the newbie suggested list from this forum:

x 60 sec

PB hold dip lockout position

Deadhang (with arms in sockets)

Inverted hang

Plank

Reverse Plank

Side Plank

Hollow Hold

Leg Circles

Arch Hold

Swimming (arch hold then paddling arms and legs gently)

So far this is feeling fantastic on my shoulder. Particularly i think from IDO's routines they just make everything feel good afterward. After another month of this would you suggest spending a day a week perhaps on a more focused shoudler girdle workout? I am interested in how you progressed your strength in this area.