New Rings Muscle Up?

Hello forum members,

I am I suppose what you would call a fitness enthusiast and I use bodyweight exercises almost exclusively. I have been visiting this website daily for a long time now but only just created a profile. I was really stoked about becoming a member for a number of reasons. One of them was because of my idea for this first post.

I have had a conjecture for an exercise for several months now that I have seen neither hide nor hair of absolutely anywhere. Simply because of the fact that I have never seen anyone on this forum discuss this movement, or any videos on youtube, or any description of such an exercise anywhere, for awhile I was convinced that I created this exercise. Since discovering this movement, I received my BTgB book and was exposed to movements like reverse muscle ups and Ians. Now I am convinced that other people have done the movement I thought I created, and have been very curious as to whether or not any of Coach Sommer's students use this movement.

In a nutshell, this is how I discovered this exercise...I have a pair of iron cross trainers, the ones that have notches to increase or decrease leverage up and down your forearms. One day when I was playing around with various movements, (and obviously with the notches closest to my elbow) I did a form of a muscle up far more intense than the standard one, in fact even doing it with the cross trainers it felt like 10 muscle ups put together. Basically, when I was fooling around with various movements I slowly lowered myself into a German Hang and then without thinking curled myself through with the biceps, while maintaining the body form of a german hang, to a bent arm support and then pressed all the way through to support. I was really intrigued by this new form of muscle up I had discovered and did not know what made it so difficult. Basically it is very similar to a regular muscle up but the entire time, your hands are behind your back, so at first I called it a "behind-the-back Muscle Up". Now I simply address it as a German Hang Muscle Up.

Now while I know that this movement is an incredibly challenging one, requiring brute pulling strength, I do not believe it is as difficult as something like an Ian or a Pelican Planche, the latter of which I have seen done. So I am almost certain that this movement is possible but I would love some input from any forum members, particularly to find out if any of Coach's students perform this movement.

I forgot about this exercise for awhile but have reconstituted it into my training heavily over the last couple months and progress has been steady. I can now complete this German Hang Muscle Up with my trainers being set to the 7th out of 10 notches of leverage. Also I train this movement with my lower forearms and wrists through the straps on the rings themselves. However I have noticed that it is definitely an exercise that requires considerable care and prehab/rehab to do successfully--pulling through the german hang to a bent arm support, but forcing your body to stay beneath you the entire time, is really challenging and provides the deepest, fullest stretch in my shoulders and chest that I have ever personally experienced. So that is my word of caution to the wise, because training this exercise has caused some mild strains in both my shoulder joints, particularly in my rotator cuffs I believe, as well as a very sore but thoroughly worked shoulder girdle.

I believe the German Hang Muscle Up in terms of difficulty is somewhere between an advanced tuck back lever curl and a full back lever curl, because in the tuck back lever version, your core is assisting you in the lift whereas lifting out of a German Hang, but keeping your feet towards the ground, requires you to pull more of your own weight with your arms it seems. Pulling your body up out of a locked arm German Hang seems to require an almost ludicrous amount of biceps strength in the disadvantaged leverage position. I would love to achieve this movement on the rings! Something I'm hoping will happen over the next half a year.

So once again any input would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you've tried this beast of an exercise too!

mirroredrain

Well, you can only really do these in trainers because of the fact they attach between the elbow and wrist.

It sounds a bit like the back lever dip that is done using a false grip and spot in the book.

Hey so do you have to be in a german hang before you get to support in this new muscle-up? No transition to a back lever throughout the movement? What type of grip do you have to use? Sounds very hard, I can't even do a pull/chin-up from a german hang. I think Steve Low or Braindx once said in this forum that a muscle-up from a german hang was possible or theoretically possible.

Thank you for your speedy responses! Blairbob, I definitely do not doubt that you are correct the movement is only possible with support on the forearms or wrists.

Also, in case the movement is theoretically possible, yes the idea is not to pull through a back lever, but to keep your feet towards the ground and your body in a German Hang position. This adds a great deal of stress it seems, as the body strives naturally to lift into a back lever. Also, if you try the movement, youll find that as you curl towards a bent arm hang, in order to arrive at it you sort of need to 'scoop' with your shoulders and arms to achieve the proper height. This seems to require a high degree of shoulder and chest strength. Perhaps I will post a video of myself doing one supported.

Interesting post. That movement sounds at the very least massively intense. Even doing a negative of your new muscle up sounds painful. I'll try it out and see how it feels when i get in the gym later. Recently Coach had us doing MU to back lever as a cruel practical joke to remind us how we aren't even close to ready for advanced conditioning :twisted: This seems like it could be in the same family. You have to push your shoulders forward to leverage yourself into the right position. Lifting yourself out of german hang tho sounds monumental. You are already at the maximum flexability that your shoulders will let you attain. Then you are asking them to pull you out of that disadvantaged position. It doesn't sound particularly shoulder friendly.... but at the least it is an expanded movement.

mirroredrain, Video please

Okay I'm really not much for exhibition but here is a video of the muscle up (more or less, today was a rest day) that I uploaded today, with assistance from the ring straps. Like I mentioned in my first post I also have a pair of iron cross trainers that I use to train this movement. Otherwise I am just doing full negatives unassisted as well as about half ROM's unassisted from the top of the bent arm hang.

The actual set that I recorded was not my finest hour with this movement haha I've definitely had higher quality assisted german hang muscle ups before but like I said today was a rest day.

Questions, comments, critiques and criticisms are welcome!

i thought to this type of MU about 3-4 months ago, i'm not kidding you..

at the beginning i was fallen in this movement during the backward roll to support on the rings..i tried it slowly and i wasn't able to keep my hips high so usually my hips fallen down and i found my self in a sort of german hang but with the arms opened at 140-145° ad i force myself up against the gravity...so i simple found that it was very similar to a deep korean dips where the body is straigth but not parallel to the ground...i was pushing and curling maintaining the rings behind the shoulders..

so i have never tried it from relaxed german hang because i don't have the necessary strength in the biceps...but i did it with arms at 140-145° as a pure error!

That looks so cool and hard. Do you think its possible on bars? It seems like there is no transition from hang to support just like in the inverted muscle-up.

inverted MU and this type seems to be very similar in the beginning but only here..at the start you have to use only biceps in boths

but as your biceps make the arms shorter, in the inverted MU you have to continue to curl until you are in shoulder stand, in this new type of MU there is a point where you don't need to do a full bicep curl because the dip is coming inside the skill, so you are doing dip before curl's end...so the exercise are more similar but the inv MU is harder..

i think you have to use a exagerate false grip

Cool MU!

Looks a Korean dips on rings,also seems a little bit for backward rolls (at 270º aprox). Have you tried?

With the shoulder strength you are developing with this MU,you could do easily back roll to support...or,back roll to skin the cat to yyyiiiaaaggggrrr..support!

Hey thanks for relating this exercise to the back roll to support guys! I never probably would have used the two together but will start to fool around with ideas there...I think this MU would indeed be possible on bars, and besides the very strong false grip required for the transition, probably a fair deal easier too. I've tried the curl portion on bars and that at least was easier.

Alex87, I respectfully disagree about the reverse muscle up being harder, or at least the curl portion (obviously the top half would be harder in reverse MU than german hang MU), from personal experience. I can do a reverse MU half with my feet on the straps for stabalization but am nowhere near as close to getting a strict curl from the german hang position. I think its harder simply because of the angles involved and the disadvantaged leverage position of the german hang compared to that of the inverted hang in the reverse MU.

Keep training hard guys and I'll post a vid if I ever managed an unassisted german hang MU!

by the way in inverted MU you need full BW curl, in german hang you need only a portion of it...yess the start position are different, in the germ hang you have the biceps in pre-elongation, but i think that if you have a great deep korean dip you can have less trouble...

for the rest depending of your current level of strength...i think with more probability you can have more dip strength that full BW curl strength

I also just started doing this movement one day. I found the best way to train it if you're already somewhat close to doing it is to do negatives as slowly as possible starting in support position, then lowering as far as possible before you have to decide whether to go to a regular hang or a german hang. Just be careful not to drop through the last part of the movement and snag or bounce in german hang.

It's definitely a challenging movement very demanding of bicep and false grip strength. I would personally say having a decent back lever to muscle up and full back lever pulls would be good per-requisite movements to already be strong.

It seems like a good strength building exercise, but I wonder if it has any reasonable carryover effect for professional gymnasts or if it is simply more practical to focus on a similar movements for the same strength gains? I haven't actually seen a video or a demonstration of this movement either.

Elitelifter, I agree with just about everything you said! And I doubt this movement would be of much use to a pro gymnast. They would likely opt for the pelican and back lever curls to challenge the core as well. There are definitely far more versatile exercises out there, this was a mere conjecture of mine

This is basically a bent arm pull from GH to bent arm BL, moving through a BL curl into a RTO dip. It's kind of like a BL curl that starts from a German Hang.

Thank you Joshua, I think that basically sums it up! It's kind of like a back lever curl, without the lever position of the body, and then into a transition of a korean dip of sorts.

So it's been about two months since my posting this topic and I've worked on the element on and off since then, and I am proud to say that I have officially completed my muscle up! It ended up being what is essentially a tucked ian, for those of you familiar with coach's BtGB, although my form is not really entirely tucked so it resembles something of a german hang at the bottom. You could also just call it a behind-the-back muscle up. I am proud and pretty ecstatic that I have finally completed this exercise that I thought up nearly a year ago!

Anyway the final move ended up looking a little silly because in order to complete the curl portion, I had to extend one leg behind me and "pump" the other in order to attain the bent arm hang and complete the muscle up. As silly as my first unassisted one looked I am still proud of the element and will have stricter form in the future. As I become stronger, I'm hoping not to use my legs for momentum at all.

Here is the link:

Comments, questions and criticisms appreciated.

Keep training and keep dreaming guys!

Nice job there and you got some strong biceps, but I think yours seem to be more of a tucked Ian since you actually started at a tucked back lever rather than a German hang when you started curling at 0.11 in the video. The Ian does pass through a bent arm German Hang just before the Korean dip, since the back lever curl is multiplanar, but good job nonetheless.

Thank you! Yea After I posted this vid I tried an advanced tuck Ian and can do it. If I have my foot pressing against a wall or something I can do a one legged Ian.

It surprises me how rough the Ian progressions are on your connective tissues. I have a Cross and it doesn't stress my arms as much as the behind the back muscle up or Ian progressions. My bicep tendons literally feel like wet noodles after a set of these!