Explosive Muscle-Up - How to do it

After getting (very) comfortable with pull-ups and dips, you can start to think about moving on to a pretty sweet move known as the Muscle Up. In this particular tutorial, we’re going to be looking at the Explosive Muscle Up ( as opposed to the Slow Muscle Up). 

Check out the full video tutorial on how to learn an explosive muscle-up.

The muscle up is a multi-directional skill, in that we need to first pull, and then push. In between is the transition which allows us to switch from a pull up, to a dip, and the transition is where most people struggle when performing the muscle up. To be ready to train the muscle up you should first build up to an explosive and strong high pull up, as well as a deep and stable bar dip. In addition, it might be a good idea to learn the “over grip” or “half false grip”, which I will get into more later. The explosive muscle up also requires a lot of technique. As well, learning how to kip a little bit, and, as crazy as it sounds, cheat your way to your first muscle up, might actually be a good idea. Let me explain what I mean. 

In a strict explosive muscle up, there is no kip, i.e. no swinging of the legs. To call what you’re doing a strict explosive muscle up and then kip, would be incorrect. However, if your purpose is not to do a strict muscle up, but rather just to get yourself over the bar, then I do recommend using a kip/”cheating” early on in your training. It’s okay to kip at first but to be mindful to try and kip less and less as you progress more and more in your training, and get closer and closer to a strict explosive muscle up. Learning to do a skill, albeit in poor form, at first, is still very valuable for your training - as long as you are not putting yourself at risk of injury. Do it ugly at first, make it pretty later. 

A strict explosive muscle up. This move requires power and technique, and you should not swing your legs for the movement.

Speaking of injury, there is one thing in particular to avoid: the one-arm-at-a-time muscle up. As well, to avoid injury, always try to be conscious to keep your elbows tucked in. Keeping the elbows tucked in will also make your muscle up cleaner, as well as enable you to pull up higher than when your elbows are flared out, and thus transition/complete the muscle up easier. 

Muscle-up technique: avoid flaring our elbows and to get one elbow after the other when doing a muscle-up.

To progress towards an explosive muscle up we are going to take a 3-directional approach. That is, we are going to attack the pull, the push/dip, and the technical part. In this case the technical part consists of the ‘Over Grip’ and kip training.

Pull

Of course, to be able to do a muscle-up, you will need to be able to do a pull-up. What I recommend focusing on is increasing the range of motion of your pull ups. That is, work towards doing a high pull up. You can start by trying to get your chest to the bar rather than just your chin; then, you can progress to trying to get your lower ribs to the bar; and eventually, you can work towards the naval-to-bar pull up. 

Getting your chin over the bar shouldn’t be where you stop if you’re working towards the muscle up. Here are three progressions you can work to develop the pull aspect of the muscle-up even more.

To get used to the increased range of motion of the exercise, at first, you could consider using a thin rubber band. I recommend using a band that is not too thick, and to use it as an intermediate step between the different steps of high pull ups. 

For example: 

1. Regular pull ups 

2. Chest-to-bar pull ups with band 

3. Chest-to-bar pull ups 

4. Lower-ribs-to-bar pull ups with band 

5. Lower-ribs-to-bar pull ups 

6. Naval-to-bar pull ups with band 

7. Naval-to-bar- pull ups 

This is an example of what NOT to do. Try to keep your body closer to the bar than this.

When doing the naval-to-bar pull ups, think of trying to crash the bar into your naval. Try not  to have your body so far away from the bar when you do this pull up, as this will make it more difficult to get over the bar once you try to apply it to the muscle up.  

For complete programs on the explosive muscle-up as well as many other movements such as the handstand, handstand push-ups, one-armed handstand, and more, head over to my app. If you intend on taking your calisthenics journey seriously, having some form of guidance and coaching is important. Even the pros have coaches!

Dip

You’ll most likely be able to perform a strict dip with ease long before you’re able to do a strict explosive muscle up. So what I recommend you do is work on harder and harder dip progressions, until you are able to do a strict ring dip. Learning the ring dip will be helpful for learning the Slow Muscle Up if you decide you’d like to learn that at some point too. 

An example of a dip progression to improve this part of the explosive muscle up could be: 

1. Regular bar dip with resistance band

2. Regular bar dip without resistance band 

3. Supinated straight bar dip with bands

4. Supinated straight bar dip without bands 

5. Ring dip with bands 

6. Ring dip without bands 

7. Bulgarian dips 

Jut like with the pull-up, when you’ve got the regular dip down, work on harder progressions to improve this aspect of your muscle-up.

Technique + Transition 

Due to the explosive nature of this movement, the transition itself becomes more of a technique issue and less of a strength issue. A lot of strength is required with the slow muscle up transition since we need to bring ourselves from under the bar to over the bar slowly and in a controlled movement. But with the explosive muscle up we use more of a powerful high pull up together with an Over-Grip, and quickly switching your elbows from facing downwards to upwards. 

In order to make your life easier (well, harder at first) I recommend learning the Over Grip/ Half False Grip. 

With the over grip you are basically gripping - shockingly - over the bar, i.e. you are putting more of your hand on the bar, as opposed to just gripping the bar with mostly your fingers/upper palm. Using the over grip will make it much easier to rotate over the bar. To learn the over grip, start to introduce it in your regular pull up workouts. It will feel weird at first, where you might be able to knock out 10 clean pull ups with your normal grip, you might not even be able to do one with an over grip/half false grip. Stick with it, though, and it will come. 

Another important technique that will help you when learning the explosive muscle up is the bar kip. The bar kip is a very technically demanding skill, in that you are supposed to keep straight arms through the whole motion, meaning you entirely use your lower body to swing your body from under the bar to over it. But, if we introduce a pull together with a bar kip, then we make it more of a muscle up movement. 

A strict bar kip

By combining some of the traits of a strict explosive muscle up, together with a strict bar kip, we make the explosive muscle up easier. What we get, then, is a Kipping Muscle Up. The strict explosive muscle up requires a high level of strength, and the strict bar kip requires a high level of technique. But mixing both movements together means we only need a medium amount of strength and a medium amount of technique. 

On the left is a kipping muscle up, where you are able to kip/swing your legs as well as pull and use some back strength to create momentum in getting over the bar. With a strict explosive muscle up, you are using only strength/power and should not be swinging your legs at all.

I would argue that starting by learning a Kipping Muscle Up will help you on the path towards a strict bar kip as well as a strict explosive muscle up. 

A Kipping Muscle Up with a lot of kip. I recommend mixing some traits of the kip into your explosive muscle up training and trying to swing less and less until you are able to perform a strict explosive muscle up.

Technical Drills for Bar Kipping 

For a strict bar kip you will need explosive core strength. The two basic movements that make up a bar kip are Toes to Bar and Hip to Bar. To develop these foundational movements for the bar kip, you can consider using these exercises: 

1. Half knee raise

2. Knee to chest 

3. One leg half toes to bar 

4. One leg toes to bar negatives 

5. Toes to bar negatives 

6. Toes to bar 

7. Hip to bar 

Once you are strong enough to do toes to bar + hip to bar, you need to introduce a small swing to the movement. Therefore, continue with the progression of exercises to: 

1. Swinging toes to bar 

2. Swinging toes + hip to bar 

3. Bar kip

The final step is to create a pulling motion at the exact same time as we are bringing our hips to the bar. This will, after some practice, create enough momentum to get you to the point where you can rotate over the bar and perform the final part of the movement: the dip.

That was a lot, so let me try to summarize all of this. 

How to do an explosive muscle-up

1. Develop a strong and powerful/explosive high pull up.

   Work on strengthening your pull up from getting your chin over to the bar, to getting your chest to the bar, to getting your navel/hip to the bar. 

2. Develop a strong dip.

   Work on the dip until you are able to do a slow, deep, ring dip. 

3. Develop an over grip/ half false grip

   Developing your over grip will reduce the amount your hands need to rotate on the bar and will make the transition easier once mastered. 

4. Develop explosive core strength

   by working on the bar kip.

5. Work on your Kipping Muscle Up. 

6. Reduce the kip more and more

   ie make your explosive muscle up stricter and stricter, until you are able to do the explosive muscle up with no kip. 

The explosive muscle up is a very technically demanding drill and will require a lot of training. But, if you go through the progressions, and work hard at bringing all of the above-mentioned aspects all together, it certainly will come. 

If you’d like a a completely guided workout for training the explosive muscle up, you can always head to my app. There, you can find programming for the explosive muscle up, the slow muscle up, along with a ton of other movements, strength skills, and programs.

Thanks you guys as always for checking this out. Hope the tutorial helps, and if you’ve got any questions you can hit me up here, on the YT video, or on my IG. Peace!

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