​Of all the skills people approach me for assistance, without a doubt the coveted Muscle Up is the most popular. But what underlying skills should you master before devoting your precious time working on attempts for this skill? What are some key differences between a Strict Muscle Up and  a Kipping Muscle Up? This blog post is going to spend some time hashing out all these points and more!

The main reason athletes get frustrated working on the Muscle Up is because they only see the movement as a complicated whole instead of breaking it up into its simpler components. I've seen athletes trying, and failing, attempt after attempt because time hasn't been spent honing the necessary underlying skills. Allow me to geek out on you for a moment and express the muscle up as an equation made up of it's basic underlying components:

Without a doubt, you can certainly break these basic components down further into more parts, and those parts into even more parts, but the basic idea I want to express is the following:

It's time to be honest with yourself. Can you do at least 3 solid Ring Dips in a row? Are you able to pull the rings to at least Chest level? If these skills aren't honed, then any session working muscle up attempts will be an exercise in frustration. If you do have these movements in  your wheelhouse I have good news for you:

Enough theory! Let's go into detail  on how to achieve and improve these components!

If you're trying to work on strict dips, of course the kip is optional. More on that later. Aside from that, the points of performance on both strict and kipping dips are all the same. 

HIGH SUPPORT: Try to maintain external rotation on your shoulders, down your arms, all the way through to the rings.  Put simply, try to make your shoulder blades touch and turn the rings out. That will keep the rings close to your hips where you want them to be. The further they get away from you, the harder it will be to control the rings both in your descent and your press upward.

NEGATIVE: A solid negative will set the tone for the rest of the dip. Many people droop their shoulders and just head straight down. Not so good for your shoulders, and this blocks you from using your biggest muscle groups to help you press back upward. Think about leaning forward with a vertical torso until your chest reaches ring level. That will set you up nicely to use your bigger muscle groups to hold then press back upward from low support. Speaking of Low Support...

LOW SUPPORT: If you've followed these tips so far you won't have much to think about in low support. Just try to maintain your external rotation throughout, keeping those rings turned out as much as possible especially as you get ready to press back upward.

PRESS: "Hey Bear Cub, you skipped the kip!" Don't worry, we're getting to it later, the kip is optional. The same basic ideas apply whether you're pressing strict or kipping it out. Maintain a vertical torso, turn the rings further outward as you press back upward. 

OPTIONAL KIP: It is beyond the scope of this blog post to discuss the relative benefits of strict movements vs kipping movements. Long story short, they both have their place as effective tools to develop various aspects of our fitness. Perhaps one thing that adds fuel to the arguments of those in the strict camp is ineffective movement patterns some use in the kip.

No one can deny that kipping  greatly improves movement efficiency, when done correctly. People just seem to have the wrong idea about the kip, that somehow they can increase their momentum by defying the laws of physics and kicking their legs downward while moving upward. Are you jumping off the air beneath you? Kipping actually works by generating upward momentum with your hips. To break bad movement patterns and help my athletes understand this concept I usually have them perform the following simple drill:

The pull on the muscle up has some key performance points we want to make sure to hit in order to set ourselves up smoothly for the transition. Unlike the dip though, the differences in the pull between a Strict Muscle Up and a Kipping Muscle up are more pronounced:

We're going to go consider details of the strict pull first:

FALSE GRIP: Let's not complicate this very simple and effective concept. The false grip basically is a way to grip the rings as if you're already above them. Doing this gives you a mechanical advantage that will make or break your Muscle Up, especially when performing Strict. To avoid unnecessarily complicating things, keep these points in mind:

While choking up your grip will give you leverage in your pull, you should still be able to comfortably wrap your thumb around the rings. The exact optimal location of the ring will vary from person to person, but basically for a strict muscle up think about getting it as far down your palm as you can before you can't wrap your thumb anymore.

Have you been told to grab the inside of the rings to get your false grip? Sorry, but that will mess things up for you in the long run. First, that type of grip is not sustainable. Let's say you are luckily able to get one Muscle Up this way, most rings will shift position after your transition and descent into your second rep. You will now be grabbing the rings at the bottom and center, like you were supposed to do anyway, but usually with a compromised false grip that will prevent you from getting that second rep.

"Okay, but just do it to get your first Muscle Up!" Listen, I'm with you. I want you to get that first muscle up more than you know. But if you don't practice your pull and transition from the bottom center of the rings, you will always be a 1-MuscleUp athlete. Your Muscle Ups will be always be singles. Break the habit, dial in that False Grip in the right position. 

Well now you know exactly what you need to work on, get going! If your issue is coordination, try to work on these skill tips one at a time until it all comes together. If you simply lack the strength to press or pull your body upward, don't be discouraged! Do what you can with smart, strength building modifications for ring dips and pullups in your daily WODs until you eventually progress to the point you can both support yourself, and pull or push your own bodyweight upward! While it is possible to build strength using banded modifications, I personally feel they can easily become a crutch and stunt the strength development of most athletes. If ring dips are programmed, do stationary dips if you can. If you can't do that, try to use a box to support your feet behind you. The same principles apply to Pullups, try to use box supported modifications that support your feet behind you, allowing your hands and knees to hang in a straight line. This will give you some support without accelerating you out of the low support position like a band does, allowing you to develop strength in that most important portion of the movement. A future blog post dedicated to strength building modifications will demonstrate all these options more clearly.

This blog post is getting kinda long! And besides, transition drills deserve their own blog post. Stay tuned for more details!

If you made it this far, congratulations! This is proof you're dedicated to doing whatever it takes to get that muscle up, or to clean up the one you already got! What should you do with all this info? How can you program your skill and strength drills in order to help you get the most progress?

Spend some time working on each component regularly, paying special attention to which part of each movement needs most improvement. Maybe you have ring dips, but you regularly feel like you've smoked your shoulders after doing a WOD with them in it. That means time spent improving your movement patterns, especially the negatives, will help you share the load with the major muscle groups designed to handle it. Maybe chest to bar pullups are a piece of cake, but you can't seem to get the rings to chest level. Spending some time hanging out in the false grip, working on those pulls will help you to pull in the right direction. 

While I hope this post was informative and helpful, nothing can replace the feedback and guidance of a motivating and qualified coach. Ask your coach to observe you and let you know which aspects of your Ring Pulls, Dips, and Transitions need the most improvement, spend most of your time working on those bite sized parts, then you will see very quick improvement in your muscle up attempts! I would love to be your coach as well, if you're interested in any of my classes, clinics, or private sessions feel free to CONTACT ME so we can work something out! Stay Gymnasty my friends!

It's time to take a look at the history of the challenge! Anyone who has been coming to my clinics and classes for a while realizes how central the challenge is to my instruction. How was the challenge born? What changes has it undergone, and why? 

Very soon after the success of the inaugural "G WOD" I quickly identified the need to efficiently break my students up into skill groups. People of all different skill levels and athletic backgrounds needed to receive gymnastics instruction in the relatively short window of time available in the class. How could I keep the more skilled athletes engaged while not sacrificing the needs of the novice athletes, thereby alienating and discouraging those who needed the most attention? How could I ensure that those wanting to learn the more advanced movements truly had the necessary pre-requisite skills?

With these needs in mind, I started to map out the progressions of some of the most sought after gymnastics skills for which athletes approached me for help. The idea was to have them perform as many of the movements in these progressions as possible, starting from the easiest level until whichever level they broke down. I created a rep scheme for each level and a time domain, so that these elements that could be re-tested in order to quantify progress. At this point, the first iteration of the challenge was born!
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The first version of the challenge was a gateway WOD with rep scheme and time domain as follows:
LEVEL 1- (POLAR BEAR LEVEL: 0-3 minutes)
10 AIR SQUATS
10 PUSHUPS
10 SITUPS
10 KNEE RAISES

LEVEL 2- (PANDA BEAR LEVEL: 3-6 minutes)
8 V-UPS
8 BOX JUMPS
8 DIPS
8 PULLUPS

LEVEL 3- (GRIZZLY BEAR LEVEL: 6-9 minutes)
1 ROPE CLIMB
6 RING DIPS
6 CHEST TO BAR PULLUPS
6 HANDSTAND PUSHUPS

LEVEL 4- (BLACK BEAR LEVEL: 9-12 minutes)
4 RING MUSCLE UPS
4 PISTOLS
4 BAR MUSCLE UPS
4 MAT HANDSTAND WALK (each mat measuring 4ft length)

This first challenge focused on progressions of the 4 most sought after skills people requested instruction from me to learn: the Ring MU, Bar MU, Pistol, Handstand Walk. In the lower skill levels I also saw the need to include movements that, while not technically being progressions to those skills, were most often tested in our daily WODs and competitions. Regarding the time domain, I liked the idea of a gateway WOD, from a recent CrossFit Games Open at the time, as a way to test the movements of each level. I didn't want the whole challenge to be too long, but each skill level needed enough attention, so I decided on a 3 minute window for each level.  I was originally going to have a similar rep scheme for all levels, but after some preliminary tests, I realized in order to maintain a 3 minute window it would be more practical to have a lower rep scheme for the higher difficulty levels, which allowed me to raise the rep scheme for the lower levels. Voila! Challenge version #1 was born, performed by 12 athletes on April 29th 2014, generating the first leaderboard of this functional gymnastics competition which has been going on ever since!

Very soon after the introduction of the challenge, I quickly saw the need to add another level that tested more advanced movements in order to motivate the more skilled athletes in my classes. Some of these athletes were able to complete the challenge in only their first few attempts. I also decided to simplify the time domain by making the WOD a straight 10 minute time cap as opposed to a gateway WOD. This version of the challenge was as follows:

10 MINUTE TIME CAP
LEVEL 1- (POLAR BEAR LEVEL)
10 AIR SQUATS
10 PUSHUPS
10 SITUPS
10 KNEE RAISES

LEVEL 2- (PANDA BEAR LEVEL)
8 V-UPS
8 BOX JUMPS
8 DIPS
8 PULLUPS

LEVEL 3- (GRIZZLY BEAR LEVEL)
1 ROPE CLIMB
6 RING DIPS
6 CHEST TO BAR PULLUPS
6 HANDSTAND PUSHUPS

LEVEL 4- (BLACK BEAR LEVEL)
4 RING MUSCLE UPS
4 PISTOLS
4 BAR MUSCLE UPS
4 MAT HANDSTAND WALK (each mat measuring 4ft length)

LEVEL 5- (MASTER BEAR LEVEL)
2 STRICT HSPU
2 STRICT RING MU
2 MAT UNBROKEN HS WALK
1 LEGLESS ROPE CLIMB

The new highest level introduced strict elements that require more strength and coordination to perform. The unbroken 2 mat (8ft) distance requirement of the handstand walk in the highest level added another element of difficulty, although not by too much. You might notice the 10 minute time cap reduced the time domain of the WOD from its previous total of 12 minutes, despite adding another difficulty level. After seeing the amazing performances of my top athletes I was convinced 10 minutes was more than enough time to complete all this work, if they truly had consistency in their skill set for these movements. 

Impressed with the performances of my highest level athletes, who were not only completing challenge version #2 but in progressively faster record times, I decided to introduce yet another level of higher skilled gymnastics movements to push the limits of their skill sets:

10 MINUTE TIME CAP
LEVEL 1- (POLAR BEAR LEVEL)
10 AIR SQUATS
10 PUSHUPS
10 SITUPS
10 KNEE RAISES

LEVEL 2- (PANDA BEAR LEVEL)
8 V-UPS
8 BOX JUMPS
8 DIPS
8 PULLUPS

LEVEL 3- (GRIZZLY BEAR LEVEL)
1 ROPE CLIMB
6 RING DIPS
6 CHEST TO BAR PULLUPS
6 HANDSTAND PUSHUPS

LEVEL 4- (BLACK BEAR LEVEL)
4 RING MUSCLE UPS
4 PISTOLS
4 BAR MUSCLE UPS
4 MAT HANDSTAND WALK (each mat measuring 4ft length)

LEVEL 5- (MASTER LEVEL)
2 STRICT HSPU
2 STRICT RING MU
2 MAT UNBROKEN HS WALK
1 LEGLESS ROPE CLIMB

LEVEL 6- (SWOLAR BEAR LEVEL)
1 BACK UPRISE
​1 DISLOCATE
1 BACKWARD ROLL TO SUPPORT ON RINGS
1 PIROUETTE
1 FREESTANDING HSPU

The highest level of difficulty introduced skill moves that to be honest, while more advanced than the previous high level, were not regularly tested in our daily WODs and local competitions. Not that working toward attaining these movements is necessarily wrong,  but I quickly saw that it was going to draw focus away from improving efficiency in the regularly tested fundamental movements in all the levels below it which are the focus of my instruction. It also bothered me that there were other movements frequently tested in our fitness programs that serve as great progressions toward these skills that I hadn't originally included.

Since I had an ongoing leaderboard though, I initally didn't want to change the lower levels of the challenge, because that would essentially mean having to introduce a new leaderboard in order to fairly compare the newer participants. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the competition aspect of the challenge was always secondary to its function as a teaching and diagnostic tool for my clinics. So I decided to finally take the step to rework the lower levels of the challenge, introducing movements that create smoother progressions to the higher level skills. This resulted in:

This is the challenge that forms the basis of instruction in my gymnastics clinics, classes, and sessions. It is as follows:

10 MINUTE TIME CAP
LEVEL 1- (WHITE BEAR LEVEL)
10 AIR SQUATS
10 PUSHUPS
10  SITUPS
10 KNEE RAISES

LEVEL 2- (BLUE BEAR LEVEL)
8 V-UPS
8 BOX JUMPS
8 DIPS
8 RING ROWS

LEVEL 3- (BROWN BEAR LEVEL)
1 ROPE CLIMB
6 RING DIPS
6 TOES TO BAR
6 PULLUPS

LEVEL 4- (BLACK BEAR LEVEL)
4 RING MUSCLE UPS
4 PISTOLS
4 BAR MUSCLE UPS
4 HSPU

LEVEL 5- (NINJA LEVEL)
1 LEGLESS ROPE CLIMB
2 STRICT HSPU
2 DEFICIT HSPU
3 MAT UNBROKEN HS WALK

This current version shifts certain movements that were previously in lower levels of difficulty to higher ones while introducing smoother progressions of those movements in their place (such as ring rows leading to pullups). The unbroken distance requirement of the handstand walk in the highest level was increased to 3 mats (12ft) because, let's face it, it's still not that long compared to what is normally required of us in most competitions. I'm confident though each category of movement is tested sufficiently to reveal basic proficiency.

While this version of the challenge may be considered "easier" than last version, the focus returns once more to improving your efficiency of movement in these highly tested skills as opposed to working to acheive flashy movements that aren't tested as regularly. Indeed, if it is your goal to reduce your completion time as much as possible in order to sit atop the current leaderboard, then you will see that the time and effort needed to do so is challenging enough. What specific strategies will help you accomplish this will be discussed in detail on my next blog post.

Until then, I hope you had an interesting read on my thought process behind different iterations of the challenge down to the version I use today. If you're interested in performing this challenge, as always you can find more details on movement standards on the Challenge page of website, or contact me for details on my classes and clinics. Let me know what you think, and stay GymNasty my friends!

Competitive CrossFit athletes may perhaps view this question as a personal challenge, as if their abilities are being called into question. Not wanting to back down from a challenge, some amazing athletes have answered my call and I've been privileged to see some spectacular performances. So while I definitely take advantage of this mindset to generate as much participation as possible from competitive athletes, the main reason I pose this question so often is not to personally challenge anyone in particular.

I pose this question more in the mindset of a scientist. I'm interested in the observable, measurable, and repeatable. The CrossFit revolution has encouraged us to view fitness beyond the parameters of aesthetics and body composition alone. Our ability to perform functional movements ever more efficiently translates directly into an increase in work capacity across broad time and modal domains.

Some individual elements of our fitness are more easily comparable than others. What's your 5k time? How much can you deadlift? What's your Clean & Jerk? How about your snatch? The readily comparable nature of these elements leads many athletes to dedicate more time improving them for an immediate payoff in gauging their progress amongst their peers. 

In regards to gymnastics skills, the most vital aspect and very foundation of this revolution in fitness, these aspects of our fitness may not seem to be as readily comparable. True, we might say "I can do [X] pullups in a row" or "I can do [Y] max unbroken Muscle Ups," but we certainly don't see athletes throwing those numbers around as often as they do some other benchmarks, such as their weightlifting numbers for instance. The best way to motivate competitive athletes is through competition. With this in mind, I decided to create a way to motivate athletes to both develop and improve the efficiency of their gymnastics skills while appealing to their desire to beat everyone else. 

The BearMuscle Gymnastics challenge is nothing more than a progression of the fundamental skills most commonly tested in our training programs, local competitions and regional competitions. The rep scheme is kept purposefully low so that what is being tested becomes less a matter of overall strength & conditioning, but rather a function of your efficiency of movement. While other iterations of the challenge previously included more advanced movements, the current version is purposefully designed with simpler movements. This is in order to keep athletes laser focused on improving their efficiency in the skills that will provide them the biggest competitive edge in their competitions. Indeed, to sit atop the leaderboard of this challenge you must dedicate the time necessary perform all sets of these movements efficiently and unbroken.

So when I ask "How Gymnasty are you?" I'm not challenging you to a duel. Frankly, I'm not even as interested in the individual performances on the leaderboard itself. I am inviting you to observe, measure, and improve your gymnastics skills, and to offer you a system by which to do so. I have had the joy of personally seeing tangible improvement among the many athletes who have decided to challenge themselves and retest their performances, pushing their gymnastics skills to the limit in my lab. The feeling of accomplishment these athletes have felt pale in comparison to joy I feel as a coach, to see the results of my gymnastics experiment come to fruition with their improvement. I want to thank everyone who has played a part in this experiment, and I look forward to many more positive results and new participants! 

EXPLANATION OF THE CHALLENGE
CURRENT LEADERBOARD