How to do a Muscle-up?
We noticed that a lot of people are wondering how to do a muscle-up. We receive this question very often during our coaching sessions and group training. The muscle-up is one of the most popular Calisthenics skills that a lot of Calisthenics athletes want to learn. It is a combination of a pull-up and a dip, but somehow it seems to be more complicated than just that. If you try to do this exercise for the first time, a lot of people recognize that it is very difficult. However, we noticed that many people make the same mistakes. It’s actually a lot easier than you might think right now. If you have some strength and learn the right technique it isn’t as hard as you might think! It mainly comes down to your Calisthenics technique. That’s why we explain in this blog post, and the tutorial video down below, 5 important technique tips so you can get your first muscle-up!
Notice that this blog post is created for people who can’t do a muscle-up yet. Therefore performing a strict form muscle-up is not the goal. The goal is to help you understand how to create momentum to get over the bar. You will learn how to do a strict form muscle-up later.Â
How to do a Muscle-up? – 5 technique tipsÂ
Required strengthÂ
To perform a muscle-up both pulling and pushing strength are required. Therefore we would say that if you can do 8 pull-ups and 8 straight bar dips, you can start learning the muscle-up! Are you still struggling with pull-ups? Then you should take a look at this blog about how to increase your pull-ups. Later in this blog, we will give you some exercises which you can do to gain strength in the pull-up and dip movement.Â
Tip 1 – Create a swing
The first important tip is that you need to create a swing. Why? Because the goal is to go around the bar and to get on top of the bar. With a swing, you can create momentum and move diagonally. In comparison with a regular pull-up, you pull yourself straight up without swing. This makes it impossible to get over the bar because you can’t bring your elbows around the bar. So:
- Grab the bar.
- Create a swing, mainly with your chest.
- Make sure to keep your arms really straight.
- With a swing, you can create momentum to get over the bar.
”Imagine that there is a trampoline in front of you.”