I did my first muscle up yesterday (30th October 2020)! At age 42! I surprised myself that I was able to do it. For those of you who don’t know what a muscle-up is, let me explain before you watch the video.
The muscle-ups require upper body strength, in particular the back, shoulders, arms and core. You basically do an explosive pull up followed by a dip.
I have sort of been training for it by doing pull-ups a few times a week. This is on top of my daily runs and Zoom workouts. I started doing the pull-ups since I installed the Pull Up bar back in May 2020.
All I’ve been doing leading up to doing the first muscle up (yesterday was the first time I’ve actually tried doing them) is pull-ups, chin-ups, hanging knee raises and static holds at the top of the pull bar with knee raises. Those were the 4 exercises I have been doing on the pull-up bar.
On the first attempt in doing the muscle-up at a park, it was embarrassing and couldn’t even hold myself on top of the bar. I needed to do it at a gym park because my pull-up bar doesn’t have the front clearance. I asked my daughter to take videos of my attempts but when I did actually do one she didn’t record it. Yes, we were both surprised that I managed to do one but she did take a video of my second muscle up and that’s what is in my video.
It was roughly after my 5th attempt where I managed to actually perform the muscle up and was lucky not to have injured myself. I did somehow pop or tore my callus on my hands from doing the muscle up but who cares. I was more excited and proud of myself knowing that I managed to do the muscle-up.
Here’s a video and yes I did kip, but who doesn’t for their first muscle up:
My tips to do the muscle up:
- Build up your strength and at least do 10 strict pull-ups
- Time the kipping to help you get up the bar
- Strengthen your triceps by doing dips if you need to. I haven’t really been doing any dips since I stopped going to the gym
- Most important, you need to be explosive when you do the pull-up as you need some momentum to get yourself up
I aim to try to do 10 pull-ups and then progress to do them without kipping. If you’re aiming to buy a pull-up bar then try this as it’s similar to the one that I have. You can also read this article INSTALLING PULL UP CHIN UP BAR IN THE GARAGE to help you install the pull-up bar in your garage:
Good luck!
