Muscle-Up Progressions

Join Carl Paoli of San Francisco CrossFit and Naka Athletics as he coaches SFCF athlete Lucas Robinson through progressions for developing a powerful and efficient muscle-up.

The muscle-up is one of CrossFit’s more advanced gymnastics movements, but its roots start in basic body positioning and the kipping pull-up. With the kipping pull-up, Paoli seeks straight-legged global flexion and extension to generate the most power, which means eliminating the local flexion and extension of the hip and knee.

After refining the kipping pull-up, Paoli moves on to the dip. To place Robinson’s shoulders in the best position and to show full lockout at the top of the dip, Paoli cues him to turn out his thumbs. A ring push-up can develop this skill.

In Part 2, Paoli demonstrates band-assisted muscle-ups as a training tool for working the false grip into a muscle-up. A key concept is keeping your hands and feet in front of you.

“If the feet drop or go behind you, you’re never going to be able to do that transition nicely,” he says.

Robinson progresses to ring pull-ups and finally the muscle-up. Paoli makes connections between the shoulder and the hip to better understand the anatomy of the movement.

“Everything is the same and once we start seeing that (connection). All the movements just start making really good sense, and we’ll know where to go in order to assist our faults,” he says.

Part 1
10min 45sec

Part 2
11min 51sec

Video by Again Faster.

Additional reading: The Muscle-Up by Greg Glassman, published Nov. 1, 2002.

Amber Heard Veronica Kay Mýa Natalie Imbruglia Patricia Velásquez