pull-up bar

Let’s Get High! How To Do A Muscle-Up

June 13, 2017 By Danny Kavadlo 20 Comments

Danny Kavadlo Muscle Up

One of the things I love most about Progressive Calisthenics is the fact that it is a multi-faceted discipline.

You see, we human beings have a tendency to over-categorize and compartmentalize just about everything. Sadly, this can lead to an improper representation of concepts that can often be better expressed with blurred lines. In other words, not every peg fits so squarely into a hole.

An imaginary, over-lapping Venn diagram comes to my mind when I consider the virtuosity of the muscle-up. It’s a proverbial chameleon of classification. Is a muscle-up strength training or skill development? Conditioning work or muscle building? Power or control? Well, friends, the mighty muscle-up is all of the above and more!

In fact, this ultimate bar experience is the perfect fusion of raw strength and refined technique. It’s an upper body exercise that recruits full body harmony, firing up your muscles while also getting your heart racing. The muscle-up is the only upper-body move in the calisthenics kingdom that employs a push and a pull: it resembles a pull-up that transitions into a dip. But there is a lot more that goes into it. Dare with me if you will…

In The Beginning

If you consult the internet, you are sure to come across a multitude of memes portraying very fit individuals who make the muscle-up look easy. It’s not. To be clear, this is an advanced exercise and a solid foundation in the basics in necessary before exploring it.

On that note, people sometimes think there is a hidden trick or a “hack” to performing a muscle-up. There isn’t. It takes work. While the information detailed ahead will undoubtedly help your training and technique, I recommend that anybody who is serious about muscle-ups be able to a do at least 10 perfect pull-ups, 20 hanging knee raises, 20 dips and 30 push-ups before even attempting to tame this beast.

Get A Grip

Every exercise begins with our contact with the environment. In this case, the way we approach the bar is very important. To perform a muscle-up, position your hands only slightly wider than the width of your shoulders. Yes, this is narrower than you would typical place them for a pull-up. Keeping your hands closer together will help you bring the bar lower down on your body when you initiate the movement.

If you are new to muscle-ups, then use an overhand grip. (Again, this is unlike the pull-up, where beginners generally favor an underhand grip.) In fact, for many people, an exaggerated overhand grip, with the hands cocked over the bar as much as possible and the backs of the hands facing straight up at the sky, is preferable. This is sometimes referred to as a “false” grip, and can ease the transition from pulling yourself up, to pressing yourself over the bar.

Danny Kavadlo Muscle-Up 2

Breaking Down Your Muscle-Up

Pull the bar as low down on your body as you can. Get explosive! Aim to get the bar all the way down to your hips, although it will probably wind up closer to your chest. Use as much speed and force as you can muster up.

Danny Kavadlo Muscle-Up — It begins with an explosive pull. Practicing this movement pattern alone—without muscling over the bar—is a viable exercise in its own right.

At this point, press your chest forward and around the bar. Aiming to bring your elbows above your wrists will assist you in this transition. It’s also helpful to buck your hips out behind you and extend your legs out in front of you so they can act as a counterweight as you maneuver around the bar.

Now press your hands into the bar, extending your elbows and straightening your arms. You want to “dip” yourself up, while maneuvering the bar down. It is not unusual for one arm to go over before the other at first. This asymmetrical act is sometimes referred to as “chicken winging.” While it’s OK to use this avian assist in the early stages (no one’s first is the best), it is something we want to avoid as we develop more strength and skill. Ideally, over the course of time, both arms will go over together like a dip on a single, straight bar.

Once you are fully over the bar, you have completed the rep. Although advanced practitioners can train to do slow muscle-ups, generally speaking, all of these steps occur very quickly. Go for one or two reps at a time, so you can remain fresh for each attempt. Eventually, you can increase your reps.

Type Slow Negative

In addition to the above-mentioned explosive pull-ups and straight bar dips, simply practicing the lowering phase of a muscle-up can be helpful, too. Because muscle-ups have a huge neurological component, doing just half of the range of motion (the eccentric half) allows your body to rehearse how it feels spatially to do a muscle-up, without actually doing the muscle-up.

To do so, climb to the top position. You can use a step, a bench or the aid of a training partner. You can even assist yourself by jumping into it. When you’re at the top, pause and engage all the muscles in your body. Now lower yourself down as slowly as you possibly can. Hinge at the elbows and bend at the shoulders, as you lower your chest to the bar. Wring your wrists around the bar and extend your legs forward as you continue your descent. Continue all the way down until you are hanging from the bar. This type of slow, negative muscle-up will give you a taste of the movement pattern. Like all things muscle-up related, it’s harder than it may seem.

Bar None

It can take a great deal of time and energy to achieve your first muscle-up, but the feeling of getting high above that bar is worth it. Take your time, respect the journey and understand that, like many great things, it will require discipline, intensity and consistency. Even after you’ve done your first muscle-up, it may be a while before you do your second. That’s ok. It’s a long road; enjoy the ride. In time, the sky’s the limit!

If you’ve experienced any breakthroughs with your muscle-up training, please let me know in the comments section below. Danny wants to hear about it! For that matter, feel free to post any questions you may have about muscle-ups. After all, we’re all a work in progress. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Keep The Dream Alive,

-DK

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Danny Kavadlo is one of the world’s leading authorities on calisthenics, nutrition and personal training. He is the author of several best-selling Dragon Door titles including G ET STRONG and STRENGTH RULES. Danny has been featured in the New York Times, Men’s Fitness, and the Huffington Post. He is a regular contributor to Bodybuilding .com and TRAIN magazine. When not working one-on-one with clients in his native New York City, Danny travels the world as a Master Instructor in Dragon Door’s internationally acclaimed Progressive Calisthenics Certification. Find out more about Danny at www.DannyTheTrainer.com

The Case of the Missing Pull-up Bar

December 17, 2013 By Al Kavadlo 19 Comments

The day after Thanksgiving I showed up to work out at my number one training spot, the iconic jungle gym in the Northeast corner of Tompkins Square Park. I always like to get a serious workout in the day after Thanksgiving to offset the gluttonous amount of savory meats and sweet dessert treats that I’ve consumed during the previous day. Imagine my shock when I arrived at the jungle gym to find that my favorite pull-up bar had gone missing!

Well to be honest, I wasn’t that surprised. After all, the bar had gradually been getting loose over the course of the last several months. Since the park reopened in the early ‘90s following the infamous Tompkins Square Park Riot of ‘88, the jungle gym has gradually become one of the most popular outdoor training spots in the NYC area. Even on the coldest winter day, a handful of dedicated loyalists are still out there getting their reps in. Hundreds of pull-ups, muscle-ups and other exercises are performed on that bar every day. It’s taken a beating over the years!

Without my normal pull-up bar available I was forced to improvise a lot of my workout, which often winds up being a good thing. Instead of doing my typical overhand pull-ups, i used the bars on the big yellow monkey bar arch to do pull-ups, which places the hands into a neutral position.

I did muscle-ups on the low bar, which forced me to hold my legs in an “L” to avoid hitting my feet into the floor at the bottom of each rep, adding an extra challenge to an already difficult move.

I still did my handstand push-ups and pistol squats like I normally would. Exercises that require no equipment at all will forever be available to you no matter what!

At the end of the workout, I was over my initial disappointment about the missing bar and I actually started to see the whole thing as a blessing in disguise (the endorphin rush from a good training session often gives me better perspective). I’ve always believed that the universe opens a window every time it closes a door. I was looking forward to seeing what other variations I might come up with in future workouts, as it appeared I would no longer have access to the high bar that facilitated so much of my training for so long.

Indeed, the next few times I trained at the park, I continued to work around the missing high bar. My L-Muscle-ups began to get a bit smoother. The neutral grip pull-ups quickly started to feel just as comfortable as the standard pronated grip. I almost forgot there was anything missing. Just when I had fully accepted the situation, things suddenly went back to normal just as quickly as they initially changed.

On Friday, December 13th I showed up to train at TSP and the high bar was back! The bar appears to have been reinforced and it feels more secure than it has in years. The low bar also appears to have been reinforced – an extra bonus! It felt great to muscle-up on that high bar again; it didn’t roll around or squeak at all.

Though it appears to be the very same bar that went missing two weeks prior, the exact details of what happened remain a mystery to me. There are still questions that I may never know the answer to:

What was the final straw that brought it down? A plyo muscle-up? A giant rollover? A simple bar hang? Was anyone hurt?

Or was it just taken down by the NYC Park’s Department as a precaution until they could properly reinforce it?

And what brought it back? A crafty calisthenics practitioner with some welding prowess? My brother Danny’s phone call to 311? Or maybe it was just a Christmas miracle!

Whether it was the work of the NYC parks dept, a fellow bar athlete or the supernatural, I may never know. However, this much I can say for certain: Pull-up bar or not, it is always possible to have a great workout; our only limitations are the ones we place on ourselves.

And to whoever it was that fixed the pull-up bar at TSP: Thank you!

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About Al Kavadlo: Al Kavadlo is the lead instructor for Dragon Door’s Progressive Calisthenics Certification. Recognized worldwide for his amazing bodyweight feats of strength as well as his unique coaching style, Al is the author of three books, including Raising The Bar: The Definitive Guide to Pull-up Bar Calisthenics and Pushing The Limits! Total Body Strength With No Equipment. Read more about Al on his website:www.AlKavadlo.com.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

March 5, 2013 By Danny Kavadlo 20 Comments

One of my very favorite things about calisthenics is that you can do it anywhere. That fact in itself is endlessly fascinating to me. Think about it: in a day and age where people sit in traffic while they drive to the gym, or wait an hour in line to take a thirty minute spin class on a fake bike, the simple notion that a gym isn’t necessary is truly liberating!

Now, please understand that I have nothing against the gym. It can be a great place to train hard. I have had many spectacular workouts in gyms. I just believe that the gym is not the only game in town. Due to the simple and sublime nature of body-weight strength training, you can make a gym out of almost any place you want.

These very places themselves are a few of my favorite things too.

In the Backyard

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Some days we want that shortest distance, with no need to travel. Several years ago it dawned on me that the ultimate home gym could be mine, but I’d have to build it. So for a low price, plus some time and sweat, I built my first Backyard Pull-Up Bar. I could now rip through those reps anytime the urge struck me. This was even better than the indoor, mounted bars I’ve owned for most of my life. You see, I have always been a fan of outdoor workouts. I love being outside in general. However, these days, it seems we have a cultural obsession with climate control. We drive in cars with individually heated seats and exercise in air-conditioned buildings. I am pleased to say that the outdoor workout eliminates those unnecessary commodities. Nowhere can you dominate your own body-weight and release your inner beast like you can under the earth’s sky, truly in touch with who you are.

At any time of day, any time of year, all my favorite exercises are waiting at my doorstep. From powerful pull-ups, to perfect planks, to mighty muscle-ups, they’re all here. Several different bars and numerous angles provide for unlimited variations of many of the oldest and noblest exercises. It is also of note that these iron bars have a big, fat two inch diameter, which adds extreme grip training to every single workout.

My brother and fellow trainer, calisthenics icon Al Kavadlo, immortalized the Backyard Pull-Up Bar in his ground-breaking book Raising the Bar and its companion DVD.

danny.kavadlo.plank

In the Park

I am lucky enough to live in New York City, one of the main hubs for body-weight enthusiasts of all walks of life. There are many parks, playgrounds, and jungle gyms in the Big Apple, but none are as well known throughout the world as Alphabet City’s legendary Tompkins Square Park.

I’ve trained a hundred times at TSP at six o’clock on a Monday morning. I can tell you first hand that there is nowhere you will feel as motivated and inspired as you will there, no matter what time of day it is. While the city sleeps, serious-minded individuals can be found lunging, jumping, pushing, and pulling. Even in the rain or snow, you can always find some hard core body-weight aficionados out there doing their thing. In fact, it’s the first place I ever saw a one-arm pull-up.

But just as it is motivational to train amongst those serious athletes, it moves me equally to see how many new jacks train at TSP as well. You see, a certain solidarity exists at Tompkins. It spans across the entire community of the park, from the world-renown bar masters, all the way down to the young kids doing their first chin-up. Hell, where else could you observe an ex-con asking a drag queen for handstand advice? I’ve seen it at Tompkins. Ya’ gotta love Alphabet City!

In The Basement

Sometimes I do train indoors. Remember, by keeping things simple and pure, based on mechanics and movement, we can train anywhere we want to. So do dips in your kitchen. Practice your bridge-work in the living room. Put a pull-up bar in the hallway.

I personally like to train in the basement.

The basement has been used as a metaphor for the subconscious by everybody from Dostoevsky to the hit television series “Wilfred.” And it makes sense. When we are in the basement, we are in the building’s underground, free to explore the deepest, most primordial workings of its structure… and of our own!

Much of calisthenics training is based on unleashing our instinctual primitive movement patterns. In Convict Conditioning, Coach Wade discusses how you tap into your “tree dwelling” DNA when you pull your own body-weight when executing pull-ups. Well, you don’t get more primitive than that! There is no better place to explore the deep, dark movements of the mind, spirit, and body than underground, with just your physical self and your psyche, ready to train hard!

Danny.Kavadlo.Bar

In the End

The places I listed above are just a few of my favorite things. Hopefully you have discovered some special work-out spots that are near and dear to you, where you can push yourself, free from judgments, and full of positivity. We all need somewhere we can work on self-improvement and awareness. Explore your options and be creative. Have fun with it.

The still photos were taken by my wife, Jennifer, during an improvised workout on the now-famous Backyard Pull-up Bar. The following videos demonstrate some diverse calisthenics training at Tompkins Square Park, and a basement workout based on push-up bar variations. Of course, I had to include a video in the backyard with my bro Al as well. Keep the dream alive!

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About Danny: Danny Kavadlo, Master PCC, is a Personal Trainer in New York City. He’s worked with hundreds of clients, including athletes, models, and celebrities. He is featured in the Convict Conditioning Series & Raising the Bar, and is known globally as a motivator & leader in the calisthenics community. Learn more about Danny at: www.DannyTheTrainer.com.