Timing the hidden key to your first Muscle-Up

The Muscle-up is tricky, no question need to be asked! There’s also no doubt that it is an impressive sight to stringing together multiple muscle ups is even more impressive. The truth is you need to start somewhere, and that somewhere is just a single triumphant muscle up.

But how do YOU get a muscle-up?

You’ve been spending months or maybe years getting yourself to the ‘appropriate’ strength level, but its just not happening..

Where did you do wrong?

There’s a lot of talk about technical side and strength involved in earning a muscle-up, but sometimes, especially if you are close, what you really need to work on is timing.

“The key to your first muscle-up is timing”

I like to think of a muscle-up, especially the kipping one, as a highly dynamic and powerful movement. Because of this you need to be careful with HOW and WHEN you use your energy. so much so that I compare the muscle-up to the Olympic lifts. Please bear with me, I’ll explain..

At the beginning, a muscle-up is going to be essentially like a 1RM lift. It’s not to be treated lightly and it’s going to be a MAX EFFORT movement. You need to be really careful how you portion out your energy (it’s a limited resource).

To further compare; the muscle up, like the clean or snatch has multiple parts to it. There is a first pull, second, turnover and catch.

First Pull to the knees, second to the hips then the catch over head…

First pull to arms 90 degrees, and then explode through the rings!

Basically the first pull is till the arms are bent at 90 degrees. we only need to start creating momentum here. Start slow and build to an apex of power, because that comes as the arms close on 90 degrees.

The second pull is really where the muscle-up starts! That’s actually why we see a lot of people who can only muscle-up with slightly bent arms to begin with. (they can’t transition the first and second pulls)

This is where we need to bring all the POWER!

This is where you add your SPEED!.

Here we use every muscle we can recruit to explode up and through the rings. Once you’re through all you have to do then is dip out.. (easier said then done I know)

When should I worry about timing?

A good way to think about it is this – if you can honestly say to yourself that you have spent the time working on both the technique & strength components for a muscle-up then it’s time that you put your faith in all of that practice & focus on getting the timing right.

If you’re still confused check out the video below.

If you need more information about the strength or technical aspects of muscle-ups check me out @trainwithandy on instagram.

Till next time,

Andy

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