American Parkour - Parkour and Freerunning

Official Store of American Parkour

Buy Tutorial DVDs,

Clothing, and Gear

At the APK Store

Home

Train

Practice

Demon's Drills

Muscle-Ups

Friday, 19 May 2006

Demon's Drill for May (Better late than never) is a great tutorial for Muscle Ups.

A muscle up is a strength exercise that is extremely useful in parkour. It is an explosive pull up straight into a dip, often performed on bars, beams, rings, and specifically translates to parkour in the way of climbing up walls. Muscle ups build up strength and power for climbing up walls super fast. Chances are you will never fulfill your potential for fast and smooth wall climbs without being able to perform a muscle up. While a muscle up requires a certain amount of pull up strength, good technique is also a must.

Requirements: In order to do muscle ups, you must first be able to do at least ten or fifteen pull ups. You must also have the patience and determination required to master the technique. For most people, it takes some practice to get a feel for the coordination and timing required to do a muscle up.

There are two keys to performing the muscle up:

The grip is very important. Most people train pull ups by dangling from the bar by their fingers. For a muscle up, it is important to slide your grip farther over the bar. This allows for an easier transition from the pull up to the dip.
Timing and coordination are also important. When first learning the muscle up, it is easier to achieve it with a slight swing. The explosive pull up should begin right as you start to swing backwards. It usually takes a little experimentation to discover the right timing for you.

The Progression

Begin by finding some level bars, tree branches, or other similar obstacles that are located four to seven feet off of the ground. In order to get used to the movement, start off with something shorter than you. This allows you to do an “assisted” muscle up with a jump. As you get comfortable with the movement, try using less of a jump.
When you have gotten used to the movement, the next step is doing a free hanging muscle up. When learning, keep in mind that a swing will make muscle ups easier. Start with a slight swing and powerfully pull up at the point where you begin to swing backwards. Bring the knees up and try to get your chest over the bar. Once you have gotten over the bar, push yourself up into a straight arm position.
Once you have mastered the swinging pull up. Start trying it with less swing until you can do one at a dead hang.
There are many other muscle up variations and combinations you can experiment with. Some examples are L-muscle ups, slow and controlled muscle ups, laches to muscle ups, and 360 underbars to muscle ups. Be creative and find other uses for your new found skill.

So why do we do muscle ups anyway? Muscle ups are a great parkour specific strength exercise. Muscle ups develop overall upper body strength and promote coordination. Perhaps the main reason traceurs should master the muscle up is because of how much it improves your ability to climb up walls. Nearly all traceurs have not maximized their ability to quickly climb over the top of a wall from a wall hanging position. Muscle ups teach coordination and build the strength needed to do so.

Watch the Video.

Users' Comments

Display 22 of 22 comments

1. 05-19-2006 08:06

man thats a really good thing to pratice, im thinkinh about doing some this weekend with my friend

Redwolf

2. 05-19-2006 10:02

That's definitely getting done this weekend. Appreciated Torook.

Versus592

3. 05-19-2006 11:04

Thank Demoon

m2.

4. 05-19-2006 12:39

Hell yeah muscle ups are the bomb!

Smilez22

5. 08-08-2006 14:26

thanks man......i try some :grin

theman

6. 08-23-2006 22:40

im going to try that soon thanks man!!!!

if you have in y free time pleas pm me whith more stuff im a noob thow a real noob i suck big time

thepunishermjm

7. 12-11-2006 18:01

being able to do pull ups is a fundemental fo pakou you should do them 4 times a week

flipinG

8. 12-30-2006 10:28

...and I was just thinking about using my pull up bar for something other then pull ups :grin

BlazingNinja

9. 05-15-2007 16:27

but pics would be great :grin

caliparkour

10. 05-16-2007 10:14

such a big help, im just now being able to do them fluidly

jnc2y

11. 07-07-2007 22:29

demon u friggin rock

Ratsnrope

12. 02-13-2008 19:54

Ater a couple months of hard work, i finally achieved a muscle-up. Not only 1, but i can now do 5 or 6 consecutively. This drill really is a huge help and teaches everything correctly with great tips, as with all the others. Thanks Demon!!!

Traceur21

13. 03-21-2008 19:41

before this vid i couldn't do a nice "flowing" muscle up...but now me and my friend have compititions on who's the best!

AdamMathis

14. 05-09-2008 20:21

thanks man, i started training a few weeks ago, and these drills really help with every aspect of, well, everything :grin

kononoko

15. 05-30-2008 15:27

Sweet can't wait to try this :grin

psyco123332

16. 06-25-2008 07:53

do push-ups help to getting to do a muscle up because i havent got anywhere i can do pull ups tbh.

ryanmjames

17. 07-19-2008 07:48

Demon, you are the next elvis... you ROCK!!!! :grin

Mak43

18. 11-07-2008 16:27

craziness. Pics would help bigtime

IMIKAI

19. 11-11-2008 13:59

I've been training to try and do a muscle-up for about a month now, and I still can't do them. I might need to find a different bar to try it on, because the one I'm trying them on now I can't do a swing, or else I'll pull the whole thing down. I am able to do more palm-forward pull-ups than I could previously though, which should help a lot. I need to go out to my park's pull-up bar sometime and try