bar muscle up

A bar and a rack. The lower you set the bar and more you elevate your feet the harder this exercise is.

Technique

Leaving your heels on the floor, pull your elbows toward the ground until your chest touches the bar. Keep your body in a hollow position, try not to stick your chest out. Hold here for time.

Technique

Jump up to a dead hang on the bar with an underhand grip. Squeeze your legs and abs to make a hollow body position. Pull your elbows toward the floor, trying to keep a long neck so you don’t hunch your ears around your shoulders.

Common Mistakes

Losing the hollow body position, letting the shoulders shrug up around the ears or being loose in the legs.

Technique

Set the rings low and form a hollow body. Do a push up as usual, noting that it may be more challenging to maintain the body line.

At the top, push hard into the rings so that your shoulder blades wrap forward around your ribs, and turn your biceps forward.

Technique

Jump up to a dead hang on the bar with an overhand grip. If possible, bring yourself into a pseudo false grip or full false grip by aiming the base knuckle or back of hand toward the ceiling.

Squeeze your legs and abs to make a hollow body position. Pull your elbows toward the floor, trying to keep a long neck so you don’t hunch your ears around your shoulders. Complete the rep when your chin clears the bar and descend with control. If you want more challenge, aim to tap your chest below your collarbones on the bar.

Very likely, a resistance band (or several) – because these are tough and most of us need to scale them to accumulate any appreciable time in this position.

Technique

Pull up until your chest is touching the bar. Hold there for time, usually 15-30 seconds.

Use as many bands as you need.

Common Mistakes

Letting the chest lose contact and still counting the rep.

Technique

From a support hold on the bar and in a hollow body, descend down until your chest taps the bar. Allow the elbows to travel behind you, try not to just bow to the bar. You will pike as you descend, that’s okay.

4 boxes or dip bars.

Technique

Dip down between the two boxes, keeping a tight body line.

Technique

From a ring support, descend down between the rings without losing the hollow body position. At the top, rotate the biceps forward and make sure the rings are not touching your sides.

Common Mistakes

Try not to hug the rings too close to the sides for stability, especially at the top – this is part of embracing the challenge of the rings!

What is it?

Practice with the strict bar muscle up, even if you’re not quite ready for a strict bar muscle up without assistance.

Technique

Lying on your back holding the dowel/broomstick overhand grip like a barbell, bring your knees toward your face with your legs as straight as is comfortable. Place the dowel on your ankles, shins or knees, then aggressively open the hips by squeezing the glutes, keeping yourself in a hollow body and tracing the dowel up the legs as you go. You should roll from your back into a seated position due to the force of the hip opening.

Technique

Lie on your back like the dowel drill above, then roll backward enough to slide the medball under your lower back (not bum – it needs to be higher than that). Repeat the same hip-close, hip-open movement by bringing the knees toward the face with relatively straight legs, then aggressively driving them open. You should flip over the top of the medball, landing in a seated position on the ball. You might roll off, but you’re not falling far – just be aware that it might happen.

What is this?

An early exposure to the muscle up movement: pulling your quads toward the bar, then aggressively driving the hips to create elevation through the hips and shoulders.

Technique

Set the bar low enough in the rack that you can reach it while sitting on the floor. Sit slightly in front of the bar. Rock forward, then rock back and pull your knees toward the bar while pulling on the bar with your arms straight. This should pull you behind the bar. As you are moving backward, quickly open up the hips to full extension and catch your feet on the floor.

What is this?

The first and friendliest exposure to get you to hip extend on the bar: it’s friendly because your feet get to push into something (the band) which makes the concept slightly less foreign.

Technique

Loop both your feet into a relatively thick band, with legs straight. Swing slightly backward, then slightly forward, then as you shift backward form a hollow, swing through to your arch, and do the hip pop. The hip pop here will mean you lift your toes to just below the height of your chest, then aggressively drive the hips up and punch your feet down into the band aiming for the floor in front of you. As you do this, you need to push down hard into the bar with your arms straight. If you get the timing right, you will float up behind the bar with your shoulders higher than your hips.

What is this?

An unassisted hip pop, but still gives you a target and a sense of grounding as you finish the hip extension. Set up two boxes either side of yourself behind the bar.

Technique

Jump to hollow, swing to arch, and begin the hip pop. Pull the toes to the height of your chest while pulling your shoulders behind the bar. From this position, extend the hips while still pushing down into the bar, catching your feet on the boxes in full hip extension.

As you get better at this, you can raise the height of the boxes so you are caching higher and higher

What is this?

The “all grown up” version of the hip pops, the hips to bar is a precursor movement to the bar muscle up. To be able to turn over, you should be able to jump to the bar, initiate the hip pop and elevate yourself so you can easily see over the top of the bar, with your arms at least parallel with the bar.

Technique

Same as all your other hip pop movements – good timing, huge hip drive, and continuous straight arm pressure down into the bar.

What do they do?

Help you understand and build strength in the finishing position of a bar muscle up – there needs to be constant downward pressure on the bar. You also need to keep your neck long and make sure your shoulders are as far away from your ears as you can make them by pushing your shoulders down. This will engage muscles that will help you stay stable on top of the bar.

Set up a box just in front of the bar you’re working on. You should be able to stand with your heels directly below the bar and your toes are just touching the box.

Technique

Hop up to the bar, and place your toes on the box. Keeping your body tight so that your butt doesn’t shoot back, press down onto the bar with your arms straight. Do not let the elbows bend. You should pull backward such that your shoulders move behind the bar and your toes slide up the box.

Do not let your butt shoot back further than your shoulders. If you catch yourself doing that, try squeezing your glutes to stop it from happening.

Technique

Set a thick band up on a bar and climb into it with both feet in the band. Keeping a perfectly straight line from your shoulders to your toes, push down into the bar with your elbows locked as hard as you can. Your shoulders should drift behind the bar and the band will pull your feet up until you’re in a somewhat lever-like position.

Common Mistakes

Losing the hollow body position by extending the back excessively.

Technique

With your hands next to your hips, squeeze the dumbbells or rings back so that your hip joint aligns with your wrist. You don’t want your hands next to your thighs – that means you’re not squeezing back hard enough.

Lock out the legs (if doing a full L-sit) or tuck the knees in close to your chest. The legs should be at least as high as the hips if not slightly higher. Press down into the rings or dumbbells so your shoulders are far away from your ears with a long neck.

If you’re on the rings, maintain constant pressure down, but try not to just hug the rings to your sides.

Common Mistakes

• Using a progression that is too hard for you right now – there’s no shame in a tucked L-sit and you’ll get more out of doing a regressed version well than doing a hard version poorly.
• Allowing the legs to drop down
• Allowing the hips to drift behind the hands
• On the rings, squeezing the rings to your sides so you don’t have to stabilise

What you need to know

A true false grip on the bar isn’t necessary for a kipping bar muscle up, but some degree of it can be very helpful to make the turnover easier. Rather than a neutral grip where the second knuckle faces the sky as you jump up to the bar, rotate your hands over the top of the bar so that the base knuckle faces the sky and the second knuckle faces forward.

Why it matters

A lot of times, people make perfectly good arch and hollow shapes on the floor, but the second they jump to the bar they do nothing resembling those shapes. Starting by exposing yourself to making those positions before adding momentum can help bridge the gap.

Why?

I like starting with a beat swing because a lot of people’s kip swings are too loose and floppy to generate sufficient power. The beat swing is smaller, and asks for more control.

Technique

I like to see really long body shapes in the beat swing, resembling the hanging arch and hollow very closely. There is no room for a knee bend in a beat swing.

Technique

Starting from a dead hang, begin to make your arch and hollow shapes, then add rhythm to turn it into a beat swing. Start making more aggressive, larger movements to turn it into a larger kip swing. Use this movement to practice seeing how big you can make your swing while still keeping it tight. You may be tempted to bend the knees, but avoid this for as long as you can.

Technique

Jump from one or two small steps behind the bar, not below it. Get your toes up FAST so that when you catch the bar you’re in (or on your way to) a pike position. Swing through to a powerful long arch, and patiently wait to start reversing out of the arch to push down onto the bar and pull your toes up to the height of your chest.

With a bar in a low rack, placed low enough that you can sit on the floor just in front of the bar, pull your knees to your chest and push down on the bar until your hips and shoulders glide behind the bar. You will have to push continuously, you will not get away with a push to leave the floor then swing.

Begin initiating the movement like the pull to stomp, but extend the hips so that you catch the floor with your feet, then push to jump over the top of the bar.

What is it?

A REALLY FUN drill that teaches you to keep a hollow body and pull aggressively on something with straight arms to glide behind the bar.

What is it?

A movement that feels (and looks) a lot like a glide kip, which shares roots with a bar muscle up. The band will support you as you swing forward, then use your momentum to pull up and around.

To execute, set a bar in a low rack and secure it with more bands.

What are you supposed to get out of this drill?

Two things:

1. The concept that you absolutely must continuously press down into the bar for a successful turnover
2. The movement of the toes (or knees, but preferably toes) toward the ceiling that helps initiate the swing backward before the hip drive over the bar

What is it?

A moderately useful drill that requires you to use the swing leg in a way that helps you over the top of the bar, since a lot of people aren’t strong enough to single leg jump their way to the top of the bar. (I am using your weakness to my advantage!)

Why the box?

The box does two things:

1. It adds momentum if you’re not yet efficient at generating it for yourself
2. It slows down the swing from the arch back to hollow, which forces people who rush their way out of the arch to slow the hell down.

Using bands for kipping bar muscle up regressions comes with their own set of pros and cons and I generally prefer to use them sparingly. But they do provide a tactile cue to push down into especially for people who struggle to extend the hips if they’re not pushing into something.

Technique

It’s the same as your usual bar muscle up, but you’ll need to be more patient as you reverse from the arch back to the hollow. Wait for momentum to dictate your change in position, don’t try to beat physics because you will make it very hard for yourself.

What is it?

The bar muscle up!