Wisdom of the Week- Muscle-Up Transition Drills
Hey folks! Our muscle-up series is now in full swing, and we are doing our best to help you finagle your way into your first muscle-up!! The muscle-up is arguably the most coveted movement in CrossFit, and a real statement to an athlete's hard work, strength, and skill when they finally nail their first one. Please keep in mind that there are prerequisites to any movement, including the muscle-up. It is an extremely challenging movement that requires a lot of strength to do safely and properly. So please guys, be honest with yourself, ask yourself "can I do consistent ring dips in a row without assistance?" Also, "Can I link together a significant number of strict chest-to-bar pull-ups?" Making sure you have appropriate strength is the biggest key to getting this movement into your arsenal of skills.
Now assuming you do have appropriate levels of strength, the muscle-up is still very complex. Even the strongest meathead at the local globo-gym will struggle mightily with ring muscle-ups. This series, we are focusing on the transition, as this is the point where your muscle-up will make or break. The transition refers to the time when an athlete transitions from pulling under the rings to the point where they are sitting in a deep and dark dip position on top of the rings.
If done improperly, the transition can damn your muscle-up attempts for all eternity! To avoid such a travesty, we have included a very simple but beneficial transition drill to help ensure you are hitting your points properly. As you will see in the video, this drill offers an opportunity for the athlete to hang in the false grip and focus on keeping the hands close as they pull to their chest. When the rings reach the chest is the time where the athlete should then pull through the rings into the dip.
Watch the video a few times and give this one a whirl! When done properly, it's much harder than it looks, and is a great first step to figuring out the pesky transition of the muscle-up.
Email us with any questions to: staff@voyedgerx.com