Don’t know how to do a muscle-up? Doing muscle-ups isn’t just about improving your strength levels, it’s much more than that.

You need to know which steps can help you get over the bar. Muscle-ups are a great goal that you can set and if I’m being completely true, muscle-ups are great to show off in the gym. Imagine this: a lot of guys in the gym that are way stronger, way muscular and have big PRs in the main lifts, but they can’t do the muscle-up.

What do you think is more impressive for a girl checking you out: a dude that’s spitting himself as he deadlifts 400Ib or a dude that’s doing some crazy tricks in the pull-up bar?

Easy answer: muscle-ups!

In this guide I’ll take you through everything that you need know, in order for you to put yourself over the bar and do the muscle-up.

The 2022 Guide on How to do a Muscle-Up


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Muscle-Up Prerequisites: How Strong do You Need to Be

I prefer to go right ahead and tell you the truth, the muscle-up is a hard movement. But I’ve good news, more than lots of strength, what you need is good technique, which is what makes or breaks the goal of getting yourself over the bar. But that doesn’t mean that increasing your strength levels doesn’t have a place in your muscle-up routine.

So, how strong do you need to be in order to get yourself over the bar?

  • 12-15 pull-ups;
  • 8-10 dips;

These are the basic numbers that you need to reach, so you can learn how to do a muscle-up. However, I can’t promise that once you achieve these numbers, that you’ll be able to get yourself over the bar. You need strength but what you really need is good technique.

But sticking with the strength that you need to acquire, you might be thinking: “how am I going to do a muscle-up, if I can´t barely do pull-ups?”

If you’re a complete newbie that can’t do pull-ups, here’s what you should do:

  • Your goal is: “I want to do 5 reps”. If you’re a newbie, this goal might be a little hard to achieve in the beginning, so next step…;
  • Jump until you’ve your chin over the bar – hold that position for 1–2 seconds – start the descent (eccentric part of the movement), but control it, take 3–4 seconds until you reach the bottom part of the movement and repeat (do this 10 times).

REMEMBER: Jump-Hold-Control descent

swing muscle up

Next: How can you progress?

Hold the top position for longer periods of time, and do the descent even more slowly. After doing this, you’ve to try to do one rep without jumping. ONE FULL REP.

I did this myself when i started training. You then can progress by doing 3 sets of 1 full rep, next 2 reps, next 3 reps, 4, 5, and so on…

You can apply this when you do dips, but dips don’t have the same carryover to the muscle-up as pull-ups have, so practice both but don’t forget that pull-ups is the most important movement.

Explosive pull-ups

All that we’ve discussed so far applies mostly to beginners, so the one key step or exercise that I want you to follow is doing explosive pull-ups. Yes, explosive pull-ups and high pulls are the exercises that will help your muscle-up, because the muscle-up is mainly an explosive exercise. Work your explosiveness and you’ll be one step closer to know how to do a muscle-up.

Execute The Muscle-Up With Proper Form in 4 Steps

1. Swing And Hit The Button

By now you already know that to learn how to a muscle-up, you need to focus on being explosive. You’re in the bottom position and you’re to pull as fast and as high as you can. But like I said in the beginning of this post, strength and explosiveness plays a part in the muscle-up, but technique is the most important factor.

So, what are some tips that you can take to help you learn how to do a muscle-up?

Firstly you need to think about swinging and hitting the button at the bottom position.

What does this mean?

You do this by putting a marker in front of you, so when you’re holding the bar, swing forward and try to hit the marker with your feet. Try to keep your body straight and then explode. When you explode and swing forward you try to hit the marker in order to create momentum for the muscle-up. Without enough momentum your chest won’t get over the bar.

2. L-sit Pullback

Next you got to add the l-sit pullback to the swing that you did in the bottom part of the movement.

Let’s recapitulate: You explode and swing forward to hit the button and create momentum.

Next you need to pull and do the l-sit. You take advantage of the momentum that you create it and in the part when your body starts to swing back you start to lift your legs into a l-sit. Always keep your arms straight like you were doing a straight arm lat pull down and keep your core tight.

Warning: this step has the goal of teaching you how to generate explosiveness and keep your body tight, but the l-sit pullback isn’t perfect form, it’s just a step, when you finally learn how to do a muscle-up, you won’t do the l-sit pullback.

One alternative advice to the l-sit pullback that I can give is for you to think about pulling as high as you can and hit the mark of your belly button. If you can do this, you’ll be much closer of getting yourself over the bar.

3. Grip

One common mistake when learning how to do a muscle-up is having the wrong grip position.

grip for pull-ups

Sometimes, when you’re getting into the top part of the muscle-up your wrist blocks the transition. In my case, I suffered from this mistake, and I think this is a beginner mistake. Because you aren’t familiar with the movement and your body has to swing, you tend to hold the bar to tightly, which causes you to not having optimal wrist position when you’re at the transition phase. But as you get more explosive and more familiar with the movement you’ll be able to deal with your grip position.

Tip: rotate your wrists up to get a smother transition. This is called the false grip.

4. Transition Phase

This is the phase of the movement where beginners struggle the most, however this isn’t the most difficult part of the movement. The transition phase requires a lot of technique, but without nailing the first parts of the movement you can’t expect to transition to the top of the bar.

So, if you’re swinging forward with explosiveness, and you take advantage of the momentum that was create it, now you can think about pulling to your belly button and get yourself over the bar.

Also, think about pulling your body along a curve, because when you go through the transition phase you can fail for two different reasons:

  1. You perform the muscle-up in the exact same way as you were doing pull-ups, which causes you to hit the bar with your chest;
  2. You’re too far away from the bar when you reach the transition phase, which in turn makes you lose explosiveness and you can’t hold the top part of the movement.

To correct this you need to work on your timing. This is the last step that you need to figure out to put yourself over the bar. In the beginning of the movement when you swing forward there’s an exact moment that you need to pull. As I already explained, with your arms straight, pull yourself up when you feel that you’re almost starting to swing back. If you failed this, it won’t matter how explosive you are or if you’ve optimal grip position, you won’t do the muscle-up.

Put All Together And Get Yourself Over The Bar

If you feel that this movement is too hard, don’t worry too much. Muscle-ups can be difficult, that’s why many bodybuilders and powerlifters can lift lots of weights with amazing form, but they can’t do muscle-ups. Learning how to do a muscle-up can take a lot of time and can be frustrating because you can’t seem to have any progress. That’s why you should record yourself when you do muscle-ups and keep trying.

Nobody said that it was going to be easy, but I’m not here to help you with quick fix schemes, muscle-ups are hard and you need to do lots of repetitions. Keep the main steps in mind and you’ll be one step closer to learn how to do a muscle-up:

  • Build you pull-up strength to 12 reps and your dips to 10 reps;
  • The one key step or exercise that I want you to follow is doing explosive pull-ups. Explosive pull-ups and high pulls are the exercises that will help your muscle-up;
  • When you’re holding the bar, swing forward and try to hit the marker with your feet. Do this while thinking about being explosive;
  • Rotate your wrists up to get a smother transition. This is called the false grip;
  • Work on your timing. With your arms straight, pull yourself up when you feel that you’re almost starting to swing back.

If you’re still trying to figure out how you can design a training program, so you can achieve your goals, make sure to check out my post on going from Skinny to Muscular: The Ultimate Guide to Build Muscle. It goes through everything that you need to know to build muscle and increase strength.


Want to Start Training (making smart gym decisions)?

Check my guide Skinny to Muscular: The Ultimate Guide to Build Muscle.

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