Parkour/Exercises/The Muscle-Up

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A Muscle-Up is an excellent general conditioning exercise, which engages most of the arm, shoulder, back, and core musculature.

How to perform a muscle-up:

1. Find a horizontal bar or rail about a foot over your head.

2. Grasp the rail, palms oriented away from you, and perform a pull-up

3. At the highest extent of your pull-up, shift one of your arms up so that your palm is on top of the bar, facing downwards and your elbow is facing generally upwards.

4. Shift your other arm into the same position, and straighten your arms.

Notes:

Step 3 is often the hardest to learn. One tip is to put your wrists further over the rail than normal before you start the movement. In a normal pullup, the backs of your hands are facing you, but in this case you want them to face upwards at a 45 degree angle (approx.). Perform steps 2 and 3 as quickly as you can to gain and preserve momentum.

Beginners should focus on grip strength, pull-ups, and dips before moving to muscle-ups.

For a more in depth guide to training for the muscle-up, a good guide can be found here:

http://super-human-strength.blogspot.com/2009/09/muscle-up-training-guide.html