Unless you’re already a trained exerciser, barbell pull-ups are one of the most challenging bodyweight movements you can try. In addition to requiring significant core and upper body strength, muscle exercises require excellent mobility, body awareness, coordination and timing.
If you’re determined to add muscle-ups to your gym repertoire, know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to develop this skill.
- Wrong way: Repeatedly swinging and slamming your body into the bar until you become tired, frustrated and possibly injured.
- The right way: Muscle development.
Muscle-up progression is a series of increasingly difficult movements that gradually develop muscle-lifting technique while building strength. Each stage of the progression includes benchmarks that indicate your readiness to move on to the next exercise within the progression.
The final stage is, of course, a muscle lift performed safely with confidence and impeccable form.
6-Step Bar Muscle-Up Progression
John Gallucci, Jr., MS, ATC, PT, DPT, its CEO JAG Physiotherapyexplains that lifting muscles is actually a series of smaller movements tied together:
- Kip swing
- Knee lift
- Leg lift
- Chest to barbell pull
- Tricep dip
To muscle up, you need to be comfortable performing each of these movements repeatedly. That’s where muscle progress comes in.
Developed with input from Gallucci and Jeff Waters, USA Boxing Registered Trainer and owner of Waters Performancethe following muscle growth progression starts at beginner level. Depending on your fitness experience and current strength levels, you may be able to skip.
Step 1: Knee/feet hanging
- Grab a pull-up bar with a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Hang at arm’s length with your arms straight (a position known as dead cream) and your legs straight and together.
- Bend your knees 90 degrees and raise them to hip height. Hold for one second and then return to the starting position.
- Once you can perform three sets of 10 repetitions, do the same movement keeping your legs straight so that your body creates an L shape. Once you can perform three sets of 10 repetitions of straight leg raises, move on to the next step.
End: “Make sure you’re not swinging and using momentum to lift your legs, and that all the work is coming from your hip flexors and core,” says Gallucci.
Step 2: Assisted chest-to-bar pull-up
- Wrap one end of a large resistance band around the pull-up bar. Grab the barbell with a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and place one foot on the other end of the resistance band.
- Hang at arm’s length with your legs straight and core and glutes engaged.
- Without swinging or kicking (using momentum to push you up), tuck your lats and squeeze your shoulder blades together as you pull your chest into the bar.
- Pause, then lower yourself into a dead hang.
End: “Start with a thicker belt,” says Watters. “If you can do 10 full pull-ups, use a thinner band. Over time, keep lowering until you can do 10 strict pull-ups with the thinner band. Then move on.”
Step 3: Strict pull from chest to bar
- Grab a pull-up bar with a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Hang at arm’s length with your arms straight and your ankles crossed behind you.
- Without swinging or kicking, engage your core, glutes and lats as you squeeze your shoulder blades together and pull your chest into the bar.
- Pause, then lower yourself into a dead hang.
- Once you can do three sets of 10 reps, move on. But keep practicing chest-to-bar pull-ups while working on new skills.
End: “At this stage, it’s important to also work on the ‘push’ ability you use in a muscle gain,” says Watters.
He suggests incorporating push-ups into your workout routine, including leveraged push-ups, in which you lower to the ground and temporarily raise your arms before pushing up into the plank to eliminate any momentum from the movement.
“Start from the floor position halfway up, then lower yourself back to the ground. That’s the hardest part of pushing, so we emphasize it,” he says.
Step 4: Tricep Dip
- Grab the handles of a dip station and jump or step up to the starting position: feet off the floor, arms straight and ankles crossed. (To make the movement easier, you can put a large resistance band on the handles and place your knees on it.)
- Keeping your forearms vertical and elbows tucked (not flared), allow your torso to lean forward as you lower your body until your elbows form about a 90-degree angle.
- Reverse the movement, returning to the starting position. Once you can do three sets of 10 reps, move on.
Step 5: Kip Swing
- Grab a pull-up bar with a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Hang at arm’s length with your arms straight and your legs straight and together.
- Get into a hollow body position: engage your core and lats to bend (round) your spine and tilt your pelvis back (tuck your tailbone).
- Use the shoulders to push your chest forward and bend your spine, allowing your legs to swing behind you.
- Use your shoulders, lats, and core to come back into a hollow body position and begin pulling up in the same way you do for chest-to-barbell pull-ups.
- Once you can complete three sets of 10 reps of kip swings during which your chest meets the plane of the bar, move on to a full muscle-up.
End: Make sure you use your shoulders, not your hips, to create the swing.
Step 6: Lifting Muscles
- Grab a pull-up bar with a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Hang with your arms straight and your core and glutes engaged.
- Start a leg swing: starting in a hollow body position, use the shoulders to push your chest forward and arch your spine. Then use your shoulders, lats and core to return to a hollow body position. (Once you’re behind the bar, lean back and pull down on the bar to get as high as you can.)
- Squeeze your shoulder blades together and pull your hips toward the bar. Once your abs contact the bar, rotate your wrists forward, lean forward and straighten your elbows so your torso is over the bar.
- Hold and then lower to a dead hang position.
