Muscle up forward lean

[mikelmarion]

How much is acceptable? The book shows leaning in the demonstrating gymnast. But i also heard/read that forward lean is not desirable?

[Cole Dano]

It's a process. There will be lean at first, just keep it in mind you want to lessen it over time.

[haui]

the goal should be to to it with NO leaning forward

[Joshua Naterman]

the goal should be to to it with NO leaning forward

Sort of... this is actually a different movement because it is a tricep press directly out of a pull up, no dipping motion. Unlike a muscle up, this is probably a 4-10 year goal. There may be body sizes at which it is not possible, I don't know. What I do know is that it is maddeningly difficult.

[Coach Sommer]

Actually rather than being similar to a triceps extension, the attempted no-lean or wide grip MU will feel more and more more like a bent-arm butterfly (straight arm pullup to iron cross) as your strength increases and the arms move wider and wider out to the sides.

Eventually you will reach the point where a false grip is not necessary and the knuckles of the hands will be facing sideways. Of course by the time you reach this point, the necessity of using a MU for your strength work is something that will be far far behind you. 8)

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Joshua Naterman]

Actually rather than being similar to a triceps extension, the attempted no-lean or wide grip MU will feel more and more more like a bent-arm butterfly (straight arm pullup to iron cross) as your strength increases and the arms move wider and wider out to the sides.

Eventually you will reach the point where a false grip is not necessary and the knuckles of the hands will be facing sideways. Of course by the time you reach this point, the necessity of using a MU for your strength work is something that will be far far behind you. 8)

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Interesting... that makes sense. Thank you for the correction!

[seiyafan]

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Check out 0:28, a lot more "cool" than MU.

[Joshua Naterman]

Butterfly cross. Awesome

[seiyafan]

yep, beasts already existed in the 20th century.

[mikelmarion]

Actually rather than being similar to a triceps extension, the attempted no-lean or wide grip MU will feel more and more more like a bent-arm butterfly (straight arm pullup to iron cross) as your strength increases and the arms move wider and wider out to the sides.

Eventually you will reach the point where a false grip is not necessary and the knuckles of the hands will be facing sideways. Of course by the time you reach this point, the necessity of using a MU for your strength work is something that will be far far behind you. 8)

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

So coach, should one be trying to lean less, or move the rings out further? I was finally able to do my muscleup, and did 12 in a row varying degrees of lean

[Joshua Naterman]

I'm pretty sure that as you get stronger with your muscle ups you will want to start working on a wider muscle up. This is a process that is most likely best performed one inch at a time, though I am not quite sure at what point the forward lean completely disappears. When I watch Andreas Aguilar's MU now I can see what Coach is saying. The angle makes it difficult to see, but his arms stay almost completely abducted, pretty much just like a butterfly cross but with bent arms and internal rotation once the upper arms are in iron cross position. Pretty crazy. Looks different to me after Coach's comment, the angle and lack of personal experience with the movement was messing with my perception of what was going on.

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[seiyafan]

0:47 is pretty impressive too, is that a kipping MU?

[Brian Li]

I'm pretty sure that as you get stronger with your muscle ups you will want to start working on a wider muscle up. This is a process that is most likely best performed one inch at a time, though I am not quite sure at what point the forward lean completely disappears. When I watch Andreas Aguilar's MU now I can see what Coach is saying. The angle makes it difficult to see, but his arms stay almost completely abducted, pretty much just like a butterfly cross but with bent arms and internal rotation once the upper arms are in iron cross position. Pretty crazy. Looks different to me after Coach's comment, the angle and lack of personal experience with the movement was messing with my perception of what was going on.

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Hey Joshua, were you referring to this as the triceps press directly out of pull-up? If you were then I don't think he was extending his triceps just right after the pull-up because you can see he was sort of transitioning as evident from his forearms becoming horizontal while his upper arms were moving behind his body at the same time and then pressing out to support. A real 100% triceps press or extension would be when he presses while his upper arms would be in line with his torso. Although, Aguilar's muscle-up contains a dip (I call it a dip because it still uses some front delts) with heavy emphasis on the triceps (like probably 80%-90%) when he presses from mid-transition. I talked about this type of "muscle-up" on the basic strength sub-forums and I still don't know if this is possible. What are your thoughts on this?

[Coach Sommer]

Gentlemen,

You are losing sight of the forest for the trees and are over analyzing this element. There is no "triceps press" occurring here; he is simply strong enough that he has transitioned to a wide grip MU.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Nic Branson]

I think Josh clarified his statement regarding it.

Analyzing this it seems like something easy to misinterpret if you're not used to observing athletes with this level of strength. The mechanics the athlete is capable of does not always register quickly when you're not used to looking at it.

[Brian Li]

Gentlemen,

You are losing sight of the forest for the trees and are over analyzing this element. There is no "triceps press" occurring here; he is simply strong enough that he has transitioned to a wide grip MU.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

No disrespect to Coach, but technically there was elbow extension in the video of Aguilar's MU and more prominent on his because he had his elbows bent at slightly below 90 degrees from the wide internally rotating pull-up and after his bent-arm iron cross he starts extending to support or L-sit at the end otherwise it would have been a bent-arm support. That's only from a technical viewpoint though and I would say that I completely agree and see that it is a bent-arm butterfly cross to support because there is lateral shoulder adduction and internal rotation of the shoulders throughout the movement and that the straight arm butterfly cross would have the knuckles facing out to the sides rather than forward for bent-arms like what you said earlier.

My original question to Josh was if Andreas Aguilar's MU was his example or idea of the triceps press directly out of a pull-up and I said that it was different from Aguilar's MU and I just asked for his thoughts and opinions on a real triceps press MU like if it would be possible to do.

[Joshua Naterman]

Hey Joshua, were you referring to this as the triceps press directly out of pull-up? If you were then I don't think he was extending his triceps just right after the pull-up because you can see he was sort of transitioning as evident from his forearms becoming horizontal while his upper arms were moving behind his body at the same time and then pressing out to support. A real 100% triceps press or extension would be when he presses while his upper arms would be in line with his torso. Although, Aguilar's muscle-up contains a dip (I call it a dip because it still uses some front delts) with heavy emphasis on the triceps (like probably 80%-90%) when he presses from mid-transition. I talked about this type of "muscle-up" on the basic strength sub-forums and I still don't know if this is possible. What are your thoughts on this?

This is the last comment I'm going to make on this movement, because Coach is right. This is starting to get off track.

You are wrong in your assessment, and so was I at first. Aguilar's upper arms stay in iron cross position throughout the transition, and that is simply not a triceps-dominant position. The lats are doing an enormous amount of work, as are the pecs, elbow flexors (eccentrically) and the other adductors and internal rotators.

I have been practicing butterflies on freemotion machines and I can tell you right now that wide muscle ups are, as Coach is saying, much more similar to the butterfly than to any dip or triceps press. There just isn't very much triceps involved in either one.

I can understand how this error in perception can occur because I made the same one, but watch the upper arms very closely, then mimic the position and the travel of the forearm during the transition. It's all internal rotation and adduction, very little triceps. This is, in many ways, an easier version of a butterfly.

That's all I have to say. If you can't see what I am saying, you just don't have enough experience with the movement yet. Go try it on a freemotion with maybe 10-15 lbs, keeping upper arms in IC position (80-90 degrees of horizontal abduction) the whole time and moving directly from the pull up to support, not going out towards IC and not letting the elbows move forward or backwards. That will tell you what you need to know.

[Brian Li]

Hey Joshua, were you referring to this as the triceps press directly out of pull-up? If you were then I don't think he was extending his triceps just right after the pull-up because you can see he was sort of transitioning as evident from his forearms becoming horizontal while his upper arms were moving behind his body at the same time and then pressing out to support. A real 100% triceps press or extension would be when he presses while his upper arms would be in line with his torso. Although, Aguilar's muscle-up contains a dip (I call it a dip because it still uses some front delts) with heavy emphasis on the triceps (like probably 80%-90%) when he presses from mid-transition. I talked about this type of "muscle-up" on the basic strength sub-forums and I still don't know if this is possible. What are your thoughts on this?

This is the last comment I'm going to make on this movement, because Coach is right. This is starting to get off track.

You are wrong in your assessment, and so was I at first. Aguilar's upper arms stay in iron cross position throughout the transition, and that is simply not a triceps-dominant position. The lats are doing an enormous amount of work, as are the pecs, elbow flexors (eccentrically) and the other adductors and internal rotators.

I have been practicing butterflies on freemotion machines and I can tell you right now that wide muscle ups are, as Coach is saying, much more similar to the butterfly than to any dip or triceps press. There just isn't very much triceps involved in either one.

I can understand how this error in perception can occur because I made the same one, but watch the upper arms very closely, then mimic the position and the travel of the forearm during the transition. It's all internal rotation and adduction, very little triceps. This is, in many ways, an easier version of a butterfly.

That's all I have to say. If you can't see what I am saying, you just don't have enough experience with the movement yet. Go try it on a freemotion with maybe 10-15 lbs, keeping upper arms in IC position (80-90 degrees of horizontal abduction) the whole time and moving directly from the pull up to support, not going out towards IC and not letting the elbows move forward or backwards. That will tell you what you need to know.

Yea I was wrong about Aguilar's MU having a triceps intensive press. I knew Aguilar's MU was not a triceps press directly out of a pull-up though (that is a completely different movement). I was originally trying to ask you if a triceps press/extension from the top of a pull-up without transition was possible.

I understood the mechanics of Aguilar's MU after re-analysing the movement and realized that the movement was basically a bent-arm butterfly cross when he reached the middle of the transition which was actually a bent-arm cross and then further adducted to a straight arm support. He did extend his elbows to get to the straight arm support after his butterfly cross, but I now see that extension hardly stresses the triceps at all because he was still adducting his arms. I have agreed with Coach that the wide MU or Aguilar's MU is more like a bent arm butterfly cross on my previous post.

[Joshua Naterman]

Ah.

As for the triceps extension... I have no idea. That would be a monstrous endeavor, quite possibly not possible from a material tensile strength limit for most people my size. The leverage is just that bad. Completely unknown. I can do it with half my bodyweight, and that's not TERRIBLY bad. Was doing 10 reps, but things start getting much harder when you are floating in the air and not kneeling on the ground.

[seiyafan]

For the "triceps extension" mentioned here, is it the feeling when you press the bar to your tight on a lat pull-down machine?

[Joshua Naterman]

For the "triceps extension" mentioned here, is it the feeling when you press the bar to your tight on a lat pull-down machine?

So... this doesn't actually make sense as typed in English!

I never lose my hollow, and I never allow my elbows to move behind the middle of my rib cage. They are always directly under the shoulder socket. This takes a lot of discipline.

[seiyafan]

Okay, let me try to rephrase it in English.

Well, you know the lats pull-down machine right? you grab the bar, sit down and pull the bar towards your chest. Now suppose you use a lighter weight and instead of touching the bar to your chest, you pull it all the down to your lower abs (or to on the top of your thighs), at somewhere in the middle you start to engage the triceps, hence the "triceps extension."

[Brian Li]

Okay, let me try to rephrase it in English.

Well, you know the lats pull-down machine right? you grab the bar, sit down and pull the bar towards your chest. Now suppose you use a lighter weight and instead of touching the bar to your chest, you pull it all the down to your lower abs (or to on the top of your thighs), at somewhere in the middle you start to engage the triceps, hence the "triceps extension."

Yes, I think Josh was talking about triceps pressdowns/extensions on a cable machine or lat pulldown machine. You start at the end ROM of a lat pulldown and use only your triceps to press down to straight arms so your elbows are directly below the shoulders throughout the whole movement.

My idea of the 'triceps press directly from a pull-up' is with that specific triceps movement executed from the top of a pull-up on bars or rings which is actually the complete reverse movement of the inverted MU (inverted bodyweight biceps curl and hspu). So if this type of MU is possible then it will be one of the very few MUs without any forward lean (Aguilar's wide MU and the butterfly cross pull to support are the known ones that don't require any forward lean at all).

By the way, I have seen full bodyweight bicep curls before, but have never seen full BW triceps extensions before. I thought the triceps are naturally stronger than the biceps or is it because there are two elbow flexors (biceps and brachialis) and their combined strength can be potentially stronger than the sole elbow extensors - triceps?