5 Reasons You Can't Do A Muscle Up
Have you unlocked the muscle up? If you have, is it clean, controlled and pain free? If the answer is no to any of these, read on.
There’s no feeling quite like your first muscle up--the exhilaration you get from clearing the bar, realizing that you’ve just hit a major milestone in your fitness journey. It’s pure joy but only a few actually get there.
Muscle ups are called the king of all exercises for a reason. It takes a lot of skill, willpower, and practice to nail your first one. Oh, and did we mention practice?
Here are some beginner workouts to get you up to speed.
Now, don’t even expect on getting it on your first try--or even your one hundredth. Okay...maybe you’ll nail it on your hundredth try, but the fact remains: a muscle up takes a lot of work and there are certain things you need to be able to do before you can even think of doing one.
Unless you can crank out 10 strict nipple-to-bar pullups and 10 deep ring dips, you probably aren’t ready for a muscle up...at least not yet. So the first order of business is to get those two exercises down to a T.
Breaking Down The Muscle Up
The muscle up can be broken down to 4 main steps:
Step 1
Hang from bar or rings with a false grip (thumbs should be on top of the bar, not around) or pronated (overhand) grip.
Step 2
Pull phase (chest to bar)
Step 3
Roll through/over
Step 4
Concentric dip phase
Easier said than done. Although those steps sum up what a muscle up is, there are so many moving parts to consider when you’re actually performing the movement. This article will take you through the different nuances of a muscle up, specifically the mistakes that keep people from doing one.
Ready to nail your first muscle up?
Here are 5 shortfalls you may want to pay attention to:
1. Your Lats Don’t Engage
Muscle ups require a lot of upper back strength and concentration. You need to make sure that your lats (the muscles that run from the bottom of your shoulder blade to your lower back) are fully engaged throughout the movement, especially when you explode up to clear the bar.
If you aren’t activating your lats, you won’t have enough power to get yourself over the bar or, worse, you may end up with an injury.
Strict Pull-ups
You can’t perform a muscle up without first performing a solid pull-up. And by solid, this means an actual strict pull-up--none of that jumping and kicking nonsense.
A proper pull-up requires proper body alignment. That is, keeping your neck, shoulders, back, and torso in one straight line throughout the entire movement.
How to do it:
Grab a bar with an pronated overhand grip (palms facing away from you) just a little over shoulder width apart. Hang so that your arms are completely locked out.
Retract your shoulder blades and brace your core. Pull yourself up until your chin goes over the bar. The force should come from your lats and not your arms.
Try to explode up and bring your chest over the bar once you've mastered a basic strict pull-up.
Repeat for 8-12 reps or perform as many reps as you can.
For added difficulty, throw in a weighted vest like this one I use. Or for regression, use resistance bands.
Lower yourself slowly and return to the starting position.
Ring Hinge Row
This is not your traditional ring row. But it’s really great for mastering lat engagement and strengthening your entire posterior chain.
How to do it:
Hinge yourself at the hip and lift your head towards your hands while simultaneously retracting your shoulder blades and bringing your arms to your sides. Maintain a neutral neck. Your arms should be extended sideways and your shoulders should be bent at 90-degrees. Make sure all the power comes from your lats and not your shoulders or triceps.
Slowly walk yourself forward as low as you can. Once you’re at your lowest possible point, engage your core and glutes while fully extending your arms.
Grab a pair of Olympic rings shoulder width apart.
Lower yourself back slowly to the starting position.
2. Not Enough Pull Strength
This second point follows the first. However, pull strength covers more than just the lats; it includes the shoulders, forearms, rhomboids, and traps.
To get your pull strength up, you need to work on your back, arms, and grip. In other words, there’s a whole chain of muscles you’ll want to work on. The rowing machine and ring row are both great places to start because you’ll be able to crank out reps regardless of how close you are to an actual muscle up.
Ring Row
The ring row works your body almost like a pull-up but focuses your alignment more. Do enough of these and you’ll be ready to go faster than you can say “Woooo”, “Yeah”, or whatever else you’re supposed to say when you get your first muscle up.
Not to mention it’s a great way to improve your grip and forearm strength.
How to do it:
Position the rings where you’re comfortable. The lower they are, the more difficult the exercise.
Grip each ring, palms facing down, and lean back until your arms are straight.
Keeping your body aligned from head to toe (looking forward, neck straight, core engaged, and back in a neutral position) pull your chest towards the rings as high as you can--similar to the rowing machine.
Lower yourself slowly and back into the starting position.
3. Lacking Wrist Mobility
The wrist is a complex joint made of bone, ligaments, muscles, nerves, and connective tissue. It also moves in all directions--flexion and extension or moving your hand forward and backward (e.g. a basketball shot); adduction and abduction or moving your hand side to side (e.g. casting a fishing rod); and everything else in between. Basically, a 360-degree range of motion.
Muscle ups can be extremely taxing on your wrists, especially if they aren’t mobile enough. When performing a muscle up your wrists move almost 180-degrees. In the beginning of the exercise, your wrists are fully-extended with your fingers pointing towards your body; and at the end of the exercise, they are fully-extended in the opposite direction. We can’t stress it enough: wrist mobility is absolutely crucial when performing a muscle up.
To avoid overextending or, worse, injuring your wrists, you need to perform stretches and exercises that increase their mobility.
Wrist Rotations
Arguably the most basic wrist exercise (most likely you’ve done this in gym class), wrist rotations are very useful and extremely easy ways of working the wrists in all directions. It’s a utilitarian exercise that hasn’t gone out of fashion and probably never will.
How to do it:
Relax your arms and extend them forward.
Rotate both wrists outward, forming a circle with each wrist.
Repeat the movement rotating both wrists inward.
Wrist Rocks
How to do it:
Start on hands and knees with palms shoulder width apart and fingertips facing forward and spread wide.
Slowly rock forward keeping palms on floor and straight arms, to maximum range.
Rock back to start position.
Repeat the process with fingers towards body and internally rotated as well.
Static Stretch With Resistance Band
A resistance band takes any stretch to the next level. Use it to maximize your wrist flexibility and mobility.
How to do it:
Loop a resistance band around a pull-up bar (or a cage).
Facing away from the pull-up bar, grab the band with one hand and extend your arm forward, palms facing away from you.
Step forward until you feel a stretch in your wrist. Go as far as you can and hold for 20-30 seconds.
Repeat with your other hand.
Don’t own a resistance band? There are plenty of cool options but I use these really well priced ones from WOD Fitters.
4. Poor Grip Strength
No matter how strong the rest of your muscles are, you won’t be able to perform a muscle up with a weak grip. It’s common sense, really: unless you can hold on to the bar, you shouldn’t even think of pulling your entire body over it. Seriously.
Fingertip Pushups
This exercise serves a double purpose. Not only does it improve grip strength, it also improves your wrist strength significantly.
How to do it:
Assume a pushup position but only your fingertips should touch the ground. Make sure your left and right hand are positioned at 11 o’clock and 1 o’clock respectively.
Lower yourself to the ground until your chest is beside your wrists. Keep your core and glutes tight throughout the movement. Your back and your hips should be aligned at all times.
Push yourself up to the starting position.
Farmer’s Walk
This is hands down the best exercise for building up your grip strength. All you need is two dumbbells, some walking space, and you’re good to go.
How to do it:
Grab two heavy dumbbells or kettlebells. Make sure they’re heavy enough so that you can’t lift them over your head.
Keeping your back straight, shoulders square, and core engaged, bring the dumbbells to your sides. Your arms should be straight and fully extended.
Hold on to the dumbbells and keep your grip tight. Walk 100-ft (30m) or further without dropping the dumbbells. Conduct until grip is erring on the side of failure.
Tuck Front Lever Hold
The tuck front lever hold ticks a few boxes at once for a few of the aforementioned shortfalls for the muscle up and serves four purposes that pertain to unlocking the muscle up:
(1) improving grip strength;
(2) increasing shoulder mobility;
(3) lat activation and;
(4) core engagement
So definitely don’t overlook this one. The tuck lever holds are transferable to a number of different gymnastics movements so give them a regular run in your routine.
Anyone looking to do a muscle up or any other form of advanced gymnastics can benefit from this exercise.
How to do it:
Assume a dead hang with an overhand grip (palms facing away from you). Your hands should be shoulder width apart. Brace your core and shoulders.
Bring your knees slowly to your chest. Make sure that your core is still engaged at this point.
Slowly rotate your body upward and bring your knees directly under the bar. Your back should be parallel to the ground. Imagine pressing your hands towards your toes for maximum lat engagement in the position.
Hold from anywhere as long as 10 seconds to a minute depending on how you find these. 4-5 holds to failure should do the trick.
You can also try a more dynamic variation of these and conduct repetitions from tuck down to full dead hang, back up to tuck. It’s all about feeling what turns things on and off appropriate to achieving the muscle up.
Want a portable wrist training tool you can use daily? I like to use the Captains of Crush Hand Gripper which I take away with me and use daily.
5. Lacking Push Strength for Final Phase
The last phase of a muscle up is probably the most frustrating and the part most struggle with. But that’s expected. It takes a lot of chest and tricep strength to push yourself completely above the bar.
Here are some exercises to put you over the top--literally.
Explosive Push-ups
The explosive push-up is the push-up’s badder, cooler cousin. It’s has the exact same steps but is much more difficult.
How to do it:
Assume a push-up position--hands directly below you at shoulder width apart, back straight, and hips aligned with your torso.
Push yourself up explosively and try to get as high off the ground as possible.
Return to the starting position and repeat.
Ring Dips
A ring dip in the concentric phase (where you are pushing yourself up against gravity) simulates the final phase of a muscle up quite well. I prefer ring dips to bar dips as the added instability will help to build all the stabiliser muscles that will essentially get you to the muscle up faster.
How to do it:
Hang your rings or find your dip bars.
Grab each ring with your palms facing inward and your hands right beside your chest. Keep your entire upper body engaged. Feel free to touch feet or toes to floor as a regression (easier option)
Enter full extension of the arms (straight arms) with palms and elbow crease facing forward.
Lower yourself slowly to elbows are at 90 degrees to the floor and tucked beside the body tightly. Thumbs should just about brush the nipples and shoulder should remain slightly protracted.
Keep body in a straight line and neutral neck, press up controlled into the number 2 position for a full rep and good range of motion.
Wear a weighted vest with 2-3 kg’s for a greater challenge (see: Strict Pull-ups above), or at the opposite scale you can use resistance bands to make it easier once again.
The rings are definitely my most utilised bit of training equipment. As a tip, I prefer the wooden handled gymnastics rings as they are far more grippy and don't get slippery like the plastic variety when you are a little sweaty.
Pro-Tip: Use A Resistance Band
If you want to simulate the muscle up, you can practice the entire movement (see: Breaking Down The Muscle Up above) using a resistance band (see: Static Stretch With Resistance Band above).
Having a resistance band will provide you an additional boost so you can complete all the steps of a muscle up. The reason you want to do this is so that you can get the proper rhythm and tempo for the actual thing.
Practice resistance band assisted muscle ups after your regular sessions. This improves your coordination and prepares you mentally for the actual movement. Eventually the band can be reduced in resistance and later not used at all!
Putting It All Together
Even if you do all the exercises above, you’ll realize that the muscle up is greater (read: more difficult) than the sum of its parts. It can get really frustrating if you don’t have enough patience.
There’s really no easy way around it--you need to put in the work one way or another. Check out this short video on how to perform a proper muscle up.
Keep grinding!
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