Ring muscle ups, guts

So when Ali is out of town I leave work an hour early so I can get home to let the dogs out.  Getting home early meant I had some extra daylight so I decided to put it to good use outside in my bar park.

I decided to dig out my rings, I wanted to give ring muscle ups a shot.

When I was on the long quest for the elusive muscle up I did some work trying to do the movement on rings since some people said that in some ways it is easier to get your first MU on them.  The thought process is when you do a muscle up on rings you don’t have a bar in the way of your chest blocking the transition.

This is definitely true however the ring MU (when done without massive kipping) is also more of a power movement than a swinging bar muscle up.  I never was able to do one in my training before, partially because I guess I lacked the necessary power.

Just like a bar muscle up, technique is an important aspect of doing the same movement on rings.  You have to grab the rings with a strong “false grip” which basically means rotating your grip so that your wrist is almost on top of the rings.  Doing this allows your wrist to be in the proper angle to do the top part of the movement.  In a swinging bar muscle up you can get away with not using a false grip because your momentum will naturally rotate your grip around the bar for you.

The actually pulling movement is dramatically different than a bar muscle up.  With a bar muscle up your elbows are far in front of your body and you are pulling on a stationary object.  With muscle ups on rings you start with your elbows forward and palms facing one another.  As you pull up you are also rotating your hands outward at the same time to get into position for the pushing part of the motion.  There are a lot of moving parts.

So anyway, I got my rings suspended from my high bar and after loosening up a bit , gave it a try.  My first 3 or 4 attempts I was close but I got stuck right at the transition point.  I was a bit disappointed, figuring if I can do 7 muscle ups on the bar I should be able to get at least one on rings.

So I took a breather and tried to visualize what I needed to do, strong pull and imagine getting my shoulders over my wrists.  I reapplied the chalk to my hands and gave it another shot.  I did it!  I was pysched and went inside to grab my Flip cam because of course if it isn’t on video, it didn’t happen.

I actually shot two attempts. After watching back the first one I realized that I did a little bit of a hop into it off the ground which makes the attempt less than 100% legitimate.  Well I couldn’t have that so I went again, this time making sure I had my feet off the ground before pulling up. I was able to pull that off as well, I was pysched.

I found that the ring muscle ups put a ton of torque on my elbows and forearms, I could really feel it afterwards.  Of course I need to use moderation on the rings, the last thing I want to do is go too hard too fast and hurt myself.

I am excited to have conquered another body weight movement that for a long time seemed so elusive. Next step will be stringing a few together.

Yesterday I started tracking my progress in my daily GUTS routine.  GUTS stands for the guts of the BBR’s which are dips, pull ups and push ups.  Everyday at the gym for the past couple weeks I have been starting my work outs by doing one set max’s of dips, pull ups and push ups back to back.  My plan is if I can get the guts up to BBR levels, the 5 MU’s on the front and back of it will more or less take care of themselves.  If you want to see where I am at you can always use this link.

Last night I dug into some more 24 episodes.  I think I am up to episode 4 or 5 of season 1.  Yea I can see why people liked the show.  I shouldn’t be hurting for TV content to watch for a long time.