Muscle up with no *, destitched
So when I managed to get my first muscle up last week it was certainly no thing of beauty. As Jeremy accurately described, it almost looked like I was pulling myself out of the pool. In a way I was doing that. Once I got my chest up to bar height I would adjust my right arm under my body and use my forearm as a lever to allow me to get on top of the bar. To me, if you get from hanging under the bar to on top of it, it’s a muscle up, even if it is an ugly muscle up.
Well the bruises on my forearm had healed a bit so I figured as part of my mini-workout last night I would head outside to try some more of my slow awkward muscle ups. Up until that point I had always used my right arm as the lever to get me over the bar. To mix things up a bit I also did a rep or two with my left arm leading just to see if I could.
Ali came out to see since she hadn’t seen me get over the bar in person. She agreed it was weird the way I was able to pull myself up onto the bar but she was proud I finally managed to do it. She went back inside with the dogs but I wanted to try a few more reps.
I decided I was going to try a “conventional” muscle up where you start with a small swing forward, and then as you swing pack you pull up and over the bar. This is a move I have tried countless times in the past couple years but never got any further than banging my nipples off the bar.
I again utilized a close grip but this time I actually gripped the bar as opposed to just laying my wrists on top of it like I do for my slow variation. I still tried to rotate into as much of a false grip as I could.
I stepped off the supports forward to give me a little forward swing and then as I went back I raised my knees and pulled hard. My body followed a nice arc around the bar and I found myself on top, able to easily press on top of it. This was IT! A 100% legit muscle up! I was very excited and asked Ali to come out and see. I handed her the Flip camera to record the event since we all know, without video, it didn’t happen.
So I followed the same routine and was able to again muscle up with no major problem. Really it looks like I did it quite easily watching it back which makes it even more strange since I have struggled for so long putting the pieces together. I was quite excited and Ali was excited for me since she knows how long I have wanted to accomplish this feat.
Looking back, I think I have had the strength to do a muscle up for quite a long time. The key difference this time was changing my hand position so they were relatively close together. That change forced my arms to follow the path necessary to provide clearance for my chest to ger over the bar. In the past I had a wider grip and my motion was too much of a vertical up and down thing instead of the elliptical body path you need.
Regardless of how I got here, now that my body knows how perform a muscle up I certainly am going to progress from here. Next up is trying to string multiple reps together and then experiment with the many variations out there.
I had the stitches pulled out of my head this morning. Took all of 5 minutes. I was told the wound is healing nicely.
Here is the muscle up video. I am proud enough of it that I don’t want you to have to click a link to load it in another tab. I prefer it live here front and center until my blog vanishes into the cyber graveyard.