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muscle up

Muscle Up, Learn The Most Powerful Bodyweight Exercise

Muscle up is one of the most fundamental workout techniques when it comes to street workout. A full body exercise that separates people into two groups – those who can, and those who wishes they can. It involves pushing and pulling up on the bars, and or, on the rings and is followed by a dipping movement. It requires core strength and one needs to be phenomenally strong to be able to do it.

Today we will discuss what muscle ups are and if they are any good to us. The benefits of this calisthenic exercise and what part of the body it works on. The pre-requisites of a muscle-up and the different variants of muscle-ups. And at the end, we will compare this with other exercises to see what is best for you.

What is A Muscle Up?

A coveted fitness regime that requires practice, strength, and experience to master. A complete muscle up is divided into three sequential movements. A pulling motion that improves back and biceps muscles.

A pressing motion that works on chest and triceps muscles. And a transition phase that enhances shoulders, forearms and other smaller muscles in the upper region of the body. Not to forget the core, since the core is completely involved in the process.

How to do a proper Muscle Up

The technique is essential for any bodyweight exercise and fitness regime. But to get started with muscle up and master the art of it, core strength is more important than technique. Not that technique isn’t necessary, but just to be able to do it once – a lot of core strength is required.

Now, let’s see a correct way of performing a muscle up.

1. Before doing a muscle up, one should be able to perform strict pull ups and try to bring the chest to the bar with each rep. If you can’t perform a strict pull-up, it is not possible to accomplish a muscle up.

2. After performing around ten strict pull ups, you can try to add little weight of five pounds using a weight belt and see if you can accomplish a few more pull ups without breaking down. This will help you to get stronger and build some core strength.

3. For a muscle up to be accurate, it is important to perform the kip correctly. Kipping is more of a technical movement than a strength movement. Many people make use of their knees to perform kip, but that is not a proper technique.

4. After the kip, the next progression towards muscle-up is the chest to bar pull up. It is recommended to do at least ten strict pull up, and the same number of kipping pull up. Once you’re able to do these without breaking down, you’re ready to move towards the next phase to achieve a kipping muscle up.

5. Similar to a pull-up, you must also be able to straight bar dip, and master it before trying a muscle up.

Now, you’re ready to perform a hybrid pull up and dip – to accomplish the perfect muscle up and to get you flaunting your upper body strength amongst other.

Note – A false grip is a simple way of putting your wrist above the ring/bar rather than grabbing the ring/bar from below. Putting the wrist above the ring/bar, helps in a smooth transition into the dip, thus making muscle up – a little less complicated.

If this is difficult to achieve then you may also use a resistance band in the beginning.

Video Tutorial

So how to do you do a muscle up on a pull bar/ring?

Well, it’s simple.

1. Hang up on the bar with a false grip, while generating a strong kip – opening the shoulders and thrusting your hips. The false grip makes the transition much simpler as you don’t need to worry about the hand rolling over the bar. If you’re not using the overhand grip, you need to roll over the hand over the bar, while making the transition from pushing to pulling.

2. As the body rises, kick the heels back and shoulder forwards – bringing the chest above the bar.

3. From here, roll your chest over the bar as a change from pull up to the dip, and then to a lockout, if you’re not using the false grip.

Once you’ve accomplished the perfect muscle up, you can try out other variations of it to make it a little harder. You can make the muscle up more challenging by using the wide or the close grip patterns.

And if you’ve successfully mastered those as well, you can try out one arm muscle up, if desired. Adding some more weight using weight belt is the simplest way to make it more challenging.

Is Muscle Up any good?

The muscle up exercise strengthens your forearms, chest, shoulders, biceps, tricep and many smaller muscles of the upper body. One good thing about strength training is that it affects the ability of the body to burn the fat more efficiently and replace it by muscles.

It provides you higher energy levels and long-term fat loss. It improves your flexibility, as it affects your posture and joints and thus helping you to be more active as you grow older.

What muscle group do Muscle Up work on?

Muscle up can completely transform the upper body and make your body athletic in all ways. It increases the size and strength of your forearms, rotator cuffs, and shoulders.

It improves the strength and size of front deltoids, tricep and your chest muscles. It is an amazing fitness regime that improves your middle and upper back, along with your biceps.

Can I do muscle up Everyday

Well, if you’re a beginner, you can try to attempt it – but it is rest assured that you won’t be able to accomplish it.

If you’re intermediate, you can perform transition – where you go from pull into a dip as many times as you want. Whereas the entire muscle up which involves explosive pull up and dips, it must be performed no more than 2 to 3 times a week.

If you’re at an advanced level, you can perform it five times a week. It is important to understand, that body requires some relaxation time as well. So skip the routine during the weekends, but make the most of it during the weekdays. It is important to know and understand, that more isn’t always better.

How to make a Muscle Up more Challenging?

Muscle ups can be difficult in itself if you’re doing it for the first time. Give yourself some time and effort as well, and it will be genuinely fruitful when it comes off. Once you get the nag of executing a perfect muscle up, you can play around and make it more challenging for yourself.

You can make use of the close grips and the wide grips on the pull up bar, just like what you do for normal pull ups. To make it more challenging, you can try out clapping muscle up, strict muscle up, or try doing the impossible – the one arm muscle up.

You can even try to put on some body weights, and rather than doing a quick rep – you can do each rep with an interval of 3-4 seconds.

Muscle Ups compared to other Bodyweight Exercises

Muscle Up Vs. Regular Pull Up

Pull ups help the athletes to increase the upper body strength and at the same time gain some muscles while losing a lot of fat. There are quite a few variations as well in muscle up regime. While some athletes prefer ring muscle ups over bar muscles ups, some prefer the other way around.

There are quite a few people who can accomplish the bar muscle up quite easily but are not able to execute even a single ring muscle up.

Often when compared to each other, ring muscle-ups are considered more easy and doable than bar muscle-ups. The reason being, rings are movable, and with a strong kip, it is relatively easy to get into an optimal position to perform the swing before getting into the lock position.

Muscle Up regimes requires a lot more core strength as compared to regular pull up or chin ups. In a chin up, you only get your chin up and above the bar, whereas in the muscle up, you’re required/supposed to take your entire body from the chest up, above the bar or the ring. Thus for these reasons, a lot of inner strength and endurance is required in muscle up. People might think, that muscle ups, are basically pull ups with a combination of dips, but experts claim it to be harder than it seems from the outset.

Wrapping up

Muscle up is a beast, which if mastered, can give a strong upper body with a lot of muscles. The back, shoulder, tricep, biceps and your abs, will all be pumped up – and you can feel the energy like never before.

Muscle up requires patience and endurance. But if performed correctly and patiently – it is the most rewarding and a huge milestone, which most people are not able to accomplish.