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- What's up, Elite THENX athletes, It's Chris Heria.
Welcome to another video of official THENX.
Today, I'm gonna be showing you guys one exercise
that's gonna change your life,
the same way it changed mine.
Basically, this exercise is the gateway exercise,
that's really gonna start taking
your training to a whole new level.
With this exercise,
you're building a whole new mind-body-muscle connection,
as well as learning a full body connection
compound movement skill set.
And that exercise is the Muscle Up.
When you're performing a Muscle Up,
you're doing a compound movement,
that's working the entire upper body.
Incorporated with explosive strength, extreme control,
and utilization of antagonist muscles.
Which means you're gonna be pulling
and pushing to complete this exercise.
While you're performing this exercise,
you are firing up your abs like crazy.
Your lats, your shoulders, triceps, forearms, biceps.
Your chest, lower back, hip flexors,
the list goes on and on.
This is why this one exercise is definitely
gonna change your life in so many ways.
It's gonna change your work ethic.
It's gonna change how you train.
It's gonna drastically increase your strength,
your skills, your explosiveness, your control,
and most importantly it's gonna teach you
how to utilize all your muscles together,
and to perform a lot more harder,
more advanced, exercises.
For example,
once you start learning the Muscle Up
and you start incorporating it into your workout regimen,
next you're gonna start doing Explosive Muscle Ups,
Back Clap Muscle Ups, 360 Muscle Ups,
start free styling on the bar.
The great thing about calisthenics
is that a lot of techniques
and skills that you learn
from other moves is gonna transfer
into the next harder progressions
and exercises that you're gonna learn in the future
which will in turn change your life.
A lot of you ask me,
how did you get to being able
to do One-Arm Pull Ups, Muscle Ups,
Handstands, Full Planche and so forth,
and it's all about staying in that progressional state
and working towards these certain exercises.
You can dead lift, bench, curl in the gym
for years and years and years,
you're never gonna learn these exercises,
which is exactly why this exercise is the gateway movement
to start changing your life,
to start changing the way you train,
start to completely change your physique,
your strength, your skill set,
the way that you actually see fitness and true strength,
and most importantly,
it's gonna change the way that you motivate yourself.
When I was first learning the Muscle Up,
there was one thing that clicked in me
that changed my life forever,
and that was mentally thinking that something is impossible,
and then achieving that thing that's impossible,
and now realizing that the things that you think
that were impossible are actually quite possible.
And all it takes is hard work and consistency.
And the most important thing to remember
is that it's not practice that makes perfect.
It's perfect practice that makes perfect.
You can try to do a Muscle Up for years,
but the moment you start training the right progressions,
you're able to do the right requirements properly
and comfortably,
then you're gonna start seeing some major progress,
and that thing that seemed impossible is going
to start to seem like, hey, you know what?
Maybe I can do this.
So once I started incorporating perfect practice,
that means trying to practice perfectly,
I started making progress,
and I started actually getting closer to that Muscle Up,
and I eventually was able to do one.
And that simple accomplishment,
just being able to do it,
let alone the skills and the gains that
you get from continuously doing them,
just being able to do it was enough
to motivate me to where I am here today.
So I'm gonna show you guys how to start learning
how to Muscle Up, from the very beginning.
Now before we begin to learn the steps on how to muscle up,
we first must be able to
pass the requirements comfortably and properly.
And those requirements are gonna be at least
15 Pull Ups.
Keep in mind all these exercises
need to be with perfect form.
At least 15 pull ups, properly.
Next requirement is gonna be an L Sit Hold,
for at least 20 seconds.
And the next requirement you're gonna need
is Straight Bar Dips,
at least 25 in a row.
You need that high number because you need
to be really solid with that push.
Imagine, if your pulling is on lock,
your pushing is on lock,
then the Muscle Up is gonna be a piece of cake.
And all you really need to focus on is technique.
Which is gonna bring us to that last requirement,
which is L Sit Pull Ups.
This is gonna help a lot,
you'll start feeling that muscle connection
between pulling and your core,
so you wanna be able to do at least seven with perfect form,
and if you feel like you can't reach those requirements yet,
then you need to go back,
practice, and master those exercises.
Now, over the course of many years,
I've taught literally hundreds of people,
in person, how to Muscle Up.
And from all those experiences,
I've been able to break down the Muscle Up
into basically three steps.
If you can master these three steps,
you're gonna be doing Muscle Ups right after this video.
So the first step I wanna show you guys
is something I like to call the magic button.
So we're gonna take a little resistance band
and it can literally be anything,
we're just gonna mark the floor, right here.
Gonna put this on the floor.
Now we're gonna grab the bar, shoulder width apart.
Slight of an over grip.
And you wanna be able to walk out from your tiptoes,
to where you're just hanging on by the tip of your toes.
We're gonna start with out dominant foot on the ground,
and one leg is gonna be able to swing back and forth.
Now with my right foot,
I'm pushing on the ball of my foot,
so my heel is off the ground
and that's actually pushing me back so I can stay in place.
So, we're gonna be in this position right here,
and the opposing foot that's free,
we're gonna have it pulled back, like this.
So, we're gonna have this foot come straight.
Not up and down.
It's gonna go straight, pass these bars.
Pass your body straight
and once it gets to that marker,
it's gonna go straight down.
Having this straight down motion
is gonna give your body this type of
momentum.
So, the better you come in,
it's all about timing,
the better you come in to the magic button,
the stronger of a momentum you're gonna have,
it's gonna be spring that's gonna launch you back up.
Now if you guys have ever seen me do Explosive Muscle Ups,
I already know how high I'm gonna go,
depending on how perfect I go into this magic button.
I'm gonna give you guys a little example.
(upbeat music)
So you see, a lot of power stems from
that magic button right here.
So you guys wanna master this movement right here.
If you notice right here when I'm doing this,
my feet are always in front of my body.
Never go behind your body, ever, ever, ever.
That's gonna completely eliminate your momentum
and this is literally gonna stop you from going up.
With this magic button,
you'll eventually be able
to push the magic button back, back, back,
until it's closer to your body,
and you have less of the magic button.
Less than you're doing it from here.
Eventually, you don't need to swing anymore
and you just pull straight up.
Alright, so once you've been able to master this move,
the next move I have for you guys
is called the L Sit Pull Back.
This move is gonna stem directly off of the magic button.
The ending position of the magic button
is actually gonna be the starting position
of the L Sit Pull Back.
And this is when we're gonna start
to be using a bit of momentum,
but it's gonna be controlled momentum,
and eventually we're gonna eliminate it,
so that we are actually doing them strict and properly.
Alright, so let's go right into this L Sit Pull Back.
We're gonna start with the shoulder width grip.
Slightly of an over grip.
You wanna hold and squeeze as tight as you can.
Remember we're gonna go straight into that magic button
and as soon as we feel that dip,
you're gonna feel a second of forward momentum.
Then you're gonna feel a stop,
and then you're gonna feel the energy
start to pick back up and start to pull yourself back.
As soon as you feel that energy start to pull yourself back,
is when you're gonna begin to go up into an L Sit.
Don't go any higher, don't go any lower.
Exactly 90 degrees and going right into that 90 degrees
and stopping is gonna give you that little pump
to reach even higher than you normally do
when you're pulling up on that bar.
So keeping all of that in mind,
let me show you guys what that looks like.
Here we go.
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Now when you first try this exercise,
you may not go that high,
you might be doing little pumps, something like this.
But eventually, you're gonna work on this move,
you're gonna master this move.
You're gonna master the timing and once your legs come up,
and then when your legs come back down,
and it should look like this.
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And you can basically see,
where I'm basically right at the top
of where that Muscle Up should be.
Which is gonna bring us to the third step.
And if you've mastered these first two steps,
then you've basically already done the Muscle Up,
the last step is literally to lay over the bar,
and this is gonna stem from the peak position
of step two, the L Sit Pull Back,
when you're at the top, top, top,
your highest point is when you're gonna pull that bar
as close to your body as possible
and you're gonna kind of lean forward onto the bar
literally like you're trying to lay on top of the bar.
And I've seen a lot of people go high enough,
literally if you can pass your nipple line,
then you are definitely capable
of being able to execute a Muscle Up.
The problem is, is that people get up to this point
and they lean a little bit
and then (grunt) they come back down.
They completely give up.
I can't stress it enough, you need to lean hard.
Lean forward like you're gonna lay down on top of the bar.
Once people finally commit to that concept, you see,
(snap) they start doing Muscle Ups like this, in a second.
So in the L Sit Pull Backs,
we're doing more of like a Lat Swing Pull.
We're kind of swinging further away from the bar
but now when you do the L Sit Pull Back,
I actually want you to incorporate a Pull Up
into it so that you're not swinging too far away.
You're keeping the bar actually
as close to your body as possible.
So from this position you're gonna swing up,
bring your legs up,
and you're actually gonna try
to start pulling the bar to your stomach.
So instead of doing this,
You're gonna go,
boom, right to the stomach.
As soon as you feel like you've got the closest part
to your stomach you're gonna just immediately
start leaning over and collapsing your body like a book.
Let me show you guys what that looks like, alright.
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So as you can see I left my feet there.
And I let my body forward.
Once I'm already on the top,
then I can put my feet back down,
and to get back down we do it again,
you go through the same motion,
back to the magic button.
Lean forward.
And if you practice your straight bar dips,
boom.
That's a wrap right there.
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And that is basically how you learn
your very first Muscle Up.
You really wanna make sure that
you guys are leaning forward,
you can practice this while you're doing Straight Bar Dips.
Try to lean as forward as possible.
You're gonna condition yourself
to always being on top of the bar
and it's gonna make this transition a whole
lot quicker, smoother, and easier.
The next thing you wanna do is
really start making these Muscle Ups as strict as possible.
This is gonna tremendously increase
your explosive power,
your strength,
and your overall physique and skills.
And soon you'll be incorporating the same
strength and skills into other exercises.
And the rest will be history,
you guys will be doing Handstands,
Handstand Push ups, Full Planche pushups,
and so forth in no time.
And you'll still be doing Muscle Ups,
because I still do muscle ups
and incorporate them in my weekly regimen.
Weighted Muscle Ups, Closed Grip Muscle Ups,
Wide Grip Muscle Ups, Explosive Muscle Ups,
360 Muscle Ups, and so forth.
It doesn't end here, this is only just the beginning.
So, once you guys are able
to master your first Muscle Up,
you wanna start bringing that magic button
a little bit closer,
start using less of the magic button.
A little bit closer, start using less of momentum,
until eventually, you're not using the magic button at all,
and you're pulling straight up.
(techno music)
Alright guys, so,
if you followed along this whole entire video,
you're able to pass requirements,
you still feel like there's a tiny bit more
that you could be working on,
to really execute this move,
here's a couple tips for you guys.
Now like I always tell you guys,
if you guys are struggling with the concentric part
of a movement, the positive motion of that movement,
then the number one thing you need to do is
work on the negative, the eccentric form of that movement,
so doing Negative Muscle Ups is literally one of
the best things that you can be doing,
for extra credit, to help you achieve the Muscle Up.
When you're going through the negative motion,
you're actually gonna be able to put your body
into every position of the muscle up
without actually having been able to do one,
so you're gonna get really comfortable with these positions,
you're gonna develop your muscles
to being in these positions,
it's gonna come a whole lot easier.
And another major key tip that help me achieve my
strict form Muscle Up is Explosive Pull Up training,
specifically these two exercises.
Explosive L Sit Pull Ups,
and I would sit on the ground in an L sit position
and from dead hang, just completely relaxed,
I would try to explode as hard as I can
and try to literally get my lap to the top of the bar.
And the last tip I have for you guys is to start
incorporating Weighted Pull Ups
and Weighted Straight Bar dips.
Obviously if you get comfortable doing an exercise
with extra weight on you,
then when you take off that extra weight,
the same exercise is literally gonna be a breeze,
you're gonna be flying through them.
So with these requirements,
these steps for the Muscle Ups and these tips,
you guys should be able to do a Muscle Up
with perfect forms, strict Muscle Ups,
eventually, no excuses.
So, with that said thank you guys so much for watching.
I really hope that you guys achieve your first Muscle Up.
If you do, let us know.
And for more work outs, just like this,
that are gonna have you in the best shape of your
life not just looking strong, but actually being strong,
then sign up right now at THENX.com
become a member and get full access
to all our workout programs, technique guides,
and daily workouts, that are gonna have you shredded.
Download our THENX app in the app store
to take our workouts with you everywhere.
It's like having me as a personal trainer in your pocket,
and comment now within the first 30 minutes
for your chance to win some free THENX gear.
We do this every Sunday, 8 p.m. USA eastern time.
And if you guys need some extra weight to start doing
some weighted exercises you can go ahead
and pick up my weight vest at Chrisheria.com
and before we go, I have a huge exciting announcement.
The THENX team will be doing a North American tour.
We're gonna be doing workshops all around USA
and Canada starting November 2nd
to November 12th.
So if you live in the USA
or Canada,
and you wanna attend one of our workshops,
learn from us personally, then go ahead,
link will be in the description below,
go ahead and sign up right now
while there's still availability.
And I can't wait to meet all of you guys,
it's gonna be a crazy time.
So, thank you guys so much for watching again,
and don't forget to leave a comment down below,
let me know what you want the next video to be about
and I will see you guys next Sunday.
Mad love, peace out.
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