Muscle-Up Help: Trouble with Bar Transition

Hello all. The title about says it all I think, as I'm having trouble completing muscle-ups on a straight bar due to not being able to make it past that pesky transition. Here's the thing though: I'm able to perform muscle-ups just fine on rings - at this point I can do them for reps, without a kip, with a shoulder-width grip (still working towards wide grip). On bar, I can actually do one without a kip if I goose-neck the bar (that is, flex my wrists so hard that I'm supporting my bodyweight by pure wrist flexion, not even gripping the bar), although it comes out as the poor-looking "one elbow over, then the other" variety of muscle-up. However, every time I try one on bar without a false grip I just can't get my body past the bar. This leads me to believe that something is wrong with my form (maybe not pulling the bar to my chest enough or something).

A related issue was that, for the life of me, I never really nailed down the kip. For rings I was kind of able to skirt my way past it since I first learned them on low rings, but for bar I feel that I probably have to nail that down first. Any good essays/articles that could help nail this technique down would likely help a lot as well.

Thanks again, guys!

I had the same problem, but I finally found a way to do them. You should use a false-grip, or a half false-grip which isn't exactly a false grip, but makes a MU easier. Anyway, you also have to lean forward when at the highest point. I recommend doing them with a small amount of swing and make it smaller each time. Good luck!

If you do Bar MUs without a false grip, then you must pull very explosively to be able to "flick" your wrist and get it on top of the bar. The fatter the bar, the harder this becomes.

However, if you want to complete one slowly, a False grip is vital.

A combination of both is what I would use. Even a slightly swing forward before each rep to gain more momentum.

Other than that, what helped me the most was pulling directly to my stomach and not the neck. Though I didn't truly get it to my stomach, the act of trying to pull a bit lower helped me reach the transition.

Good luck!