Muscle Up Tutorial Guide

Learn the mechanics, drills, and tips and tricks to

develop the Strict Ring Muscle Up, and progress to
kipping variations if you desire. If the Muscle Up has
eluded you or you want to develop strong, safe
positions, this guide is for you!

WATCH ON YOUTUBE
Introduction
The rings are some of the most humbling training tools at the gym. Watching elite gymnasts
on the rings just doesn’t capture how tough these things are. They do this stuff with what
looks like relative ease when in reality the effort, dedication, and strength required to do
even the most simple skills are immense.

But that doesn’t mean that the rings should be off-limits to you. In fact, if you
train to do pull ups and dips in the gym, then I would encourage you to
consider working on building the skill of a ring Muscle Up. The logical and
sensible pursuit of this movement with easy-to-replicate regressed
movements is a great way to promote shoulder strength, range of motion,
and build your confidence.

I took a poll on Instagram and I asked how many of my followers…

• Did Muscle Ups in training
• Avoided them due to not fitting their goals
• Wanted to learn them but didn’t have one yet

51% were in the 3rd category.

Some of you may have been trying to build your Muscle Up for quite some time. If you’ve
been unsuccessful then I encourage you to revisit these steps often to really cement in your
head how to build strength here. You can also refer to the companion video for this guide.

DON’T LEARN KIPPING FIRST – DO THIS INSTEAD

One mistake I see many athletes making is attempting to achieve their first
Muscle Up by utilizing KIPPING MECHANICS. While this is an effective way to use
hip and shoulder power to propel yourself over the rings, without the requisite
strength underneath it can be dangerous and you can find yourself getting stuck
and frustrated.

Instead, develop your strength and good mechanics patiently, focusing on the Strict Muscle
Up as a first goal. Then you can learn to kip if you wish and you’ll feel confident your body
will always land safely in good positions with the added dynamic element at play.
 Good Mechanics
T H E FA L S E G R I P

The false grip is an essential part of Muscle Up training when you are learning the
progression that follows. Learning how to get into this grip is tricky at first and then
becomes second nature. It is going to feel awkward, weak, and uncomfortable at first. Stick
with it and always try to reinforce stronger and deeper false grips.

Performing a Muscle Up without the false grip is entirely possible, but it is much more
challenging. The false grip will shorten your lever, and will also position your hand
appropriately for the most challenging portion of the Muscle Up – the transitions.

3
1

4
Helpful Tool - Grips With Wrist Protection

These are by no means necessary, but Victory Grips (victorygrips.com) are my chosen grips that I use for
hand and wrist protection whenever I do Muscle Up training. They are a unique design that not only
covers the most vulnerable part of your palm, but they also cover the inside of your wrist. This becomes
valuable for protection when we do False Grip training for Muscle Ups.

T H E 3 M U S C L E U P S TA G E S

To get a Strict Muscle Up, you will need to master these. Each of the drills help to train all 3
Stages, but remember that anytime you want to break one of the stages out and train it
exclusively, you can.

1. Chest to Ring Pull Up

Unlike a traditional pull up where you might only be

attempting to bring your chin above the bar or rings, the
Muscle Up will demand that the rings get all the way to
your chest and even as low as your abdominals.
 2. Pull Up to Dip Transition
(aka Transition)

This is without question the hardest part of the

Muscle Up and where most people fail. The
strength and skill to keep the rings close to your
body and to pull your bodyweight from below and
behind the rings to above and in front of the rings is
what we will spend most of our time working on
with strengthening drills.

3. Deep Ring Dip

The ring dip that is connected to a Muscle Up starts

from a very low position. You can see how the
shoulders are at or below the level of the ring when
you begin to press up. You must train for this deep
positional strength to be successful.
 Drills
BANDED RING DRILL

This is a great tool for learning the ring path with very low resistance. I’ve seen people try to
rehearse this with different methods and none of them are as effective as this simple set up.

This drill is a very effective way to create minimal tension and simulate a ring Muscle Up. It is
useful for teaching athletes how the rings are supposed to move around the body as you
pull yourself from below the rings to above the rings. To start let’s look at how you loop the
bands around the rings. The bands will start attached overhead to a pull up bar or beam.
Then you will loop them through the ring as shown below.
RING DRILL SETUP
 Once you have secured the rings to the bands you will kneel down
underneath the rings and rehearse the following steps:

1. Pull Up Simulation
Pull the rings to your chest

2. Transition Simulation
Drag the rings along your chest and bring them into your armpits
(visualize ripping your shirt off like the HULK!)
 3. Dip Simulation
With thumbs in your armpits (simulating the bottom of the
dip) press the rings down towards your hips and slightly turn
the palms forward.

Drill this often until you don’t need to think about where the rings should be in relation to
your body. Meanwhile, you can also work on developing strength with the drills to follow.
MUSCLE UP ROW

This drill has tremendous power to build strength for your muscle-up transition. Major points
to keep in mind:

1. Always keep the legs straight.

2. Heels stay down and toes stay up. Never let your weight move to the ball of your
foot.
3. Always stare are your toes and keep your trunk flexed.
4. This movement ends after you have finished your TRANSITION. There is NO DIP.
BANDED RACK MUSCLE UP

This drill can be use in conjunction with the Muscle Up Row. The value of this drill is that now
you will be able to train your dip as well as your transition. It is tempting to pull fast through
the pull up portion of this exercises since this is where you will feel a lot of support from the
band below you. Don’t make this mistake. Pull slow so that you must give greater effort, and
thereby strengthen your body, through the transition.

• Don’t rush the pull up!

• To make adjustments to the difficulty of this movement always adjust the height of the
rings rather than the height of the band.
• Make the drill easier by moving the rings lower relative to where the band is
positioned.
• Make the drill harder by moving the rings higher relative to where the band is
positioned.

1 2 3

4 5
 M U S C L E U P N E G AT I V E S

You must have a decent amount of strength already built from the last two drills before
jumping into this drill. This exercise begins from the TOP so you need to find a safe and
simple way to get yourself to this height. Stacking boxes might be a little dangerous so
consider lowering the rings to a height that is safer to mount.

The most important stage of this negative drill is the reverse transition. If you don’t have
enough room to perform the full negative of the pull up, but you can perform the transition,
that will work.
NEGATIVE DIP

TRANSITION

NEGATIVE PULL UP
Kipping Mechanics
A kip is simply leveraging some strength and power from another body part (like the hips or
shoulders) to create momentum that will help you get through a range of motion in an
exercises. Kipping Muscle Ups, Pull Ups, and Handstand Push Ups are common places where
the kip is leveraged.

If you are close to a Strict Muscle Up, you can use a small kip to get through a slight sticking
point at the transition to help build your confidence. Once you feel it a few times you can
start to connect the mind and muscle. Using a slight kip or kick of the lower body can be a
valuable tool to help you build your confidence as you develop your Strict Muscle Up. Take
your time and make sure you have it down before moving on to the following drills.

The rest of the progression steps I want to illustrate are going to teach you how to build
kipping mechanics. I have always taught that you need to develop strict strength first before
kipping. Some would say that kipping is just cheating the movement, but I disagree. If you
continue to develop strict strength and also develop the athleticism and skill to perform
efficient kipping mechanics, then you have more tools in your toolbox.

A pitcher in baseball may throw the vast majority of the pitches as fastballs, but it is nice to
have a slider, curveball, or knuckleball in the back pocket to use on occasion for the right
situation. Kipping gymnastics work well in a variety of situations in training and especially if
you choose to compete in the sport of fitness.

You may never desire to progress further, but for some of you who want to learn a kipping
Muscle Up for the purposes of efficiency and doing Muscle Ups in conditioning workouts like
CrossFit, then the next drill is a first step to understanding how to transition your hip and
shoulder power into a safe Muscle Up.
 BENT ARM KIPPING MUSCLE UP

These photographs are meant to help illustrate the lower body mechanics. I teach a 3 step
lower body mechanics drill that I call the Forward, Back, & Up.

• This pattern is a great way to help you learn how to leverage your hips to propel you up
and through the transition of the Muscle Up more smoothly.
• As you drive your legs up on the 3rd portion of this leg swing your body will naturally
lean back. That is ideal.
• As your body elevates up to the rings you will perform your normal transition mechanics
and your body with roll over the rings, arriving in a dip.

Start with a half arm bend Legs forward Legs back

Drive legs & hips up Lean back

Transition over and into the dip – elbows above wrists

STRAIGHT ARM KIPPING MUSCLE UP

This is a simple continuation of the last drill. These photographs are meant to illustrate the
same lower body mechanics; however, the starting position is with a straight arm. This will
slightly change how the positions look in each of the photographs below as compared to
the bent arm start. You’ll keep the false grip in this one.
N O FA L S E G R I P M U S C L E U P

For ultimate efficiency and application to the sport of fitness, you may want to learn this
version of the Muscle Up.

If you have learned how to do the straight arm kipping Muscle Up in a false grip and you
would like to learn a NO FALSE GRIP MUSCLE UP then here are 3 things to consider. Keep in
mind that without the false grip your body is going to have to take a different path and the
lever you are pulling with is now longer with this new grip. The mechanics are going to be
much more similar to a kipping bar Muscle Up. Here is what you need to know.

• Grip is a modified false grip in the palm, not the fingertips; knuckles on top
• Push your feet behind you further on your wind up
• Elbows on top of the rings in your transition

This sequence is here to illustrate that the Non-False Grip Muscle Up requires a much more
aggressive kip. You will see a much longer arch with the leg behind on the BACK and you
will also notice the hips get significantly higher on the UP. Lastly, you will see that at the
transition the elbows are directly above the wrists.
Final Thoughts & Next Steps
Muscle Ups are definitely an impressive skill that exemplifies bodyweight control and
strength. Hopefully you can find some variation in these progressions to start adding to your
training. You may never progress all the way, but after filming a lot of reps with these drills, I
can confidently say that even just adding in Muscle Up Rows can help you build a great
upper body physique and strength.

I hope this progression helps you on your continued path to Looking Good and Moving Well.
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