Hi, I am Geek Climber.
Last year I saw the video of the professional rock climber, Magnus Midtbo, doing a one-arm
muscle-up, and my reaction was "Wow, that's crazy.
A conventional two-arm muscle-up even seems impossible to me."
Fast forward to today, I feel my body is ready to take on this challenge, and
starting from today, I will attempt to do the muscle-up every other day until I can
do 3 in a row.
For the first day, I decided to just try it out and see how it felt like.
I know, it looks as if I was just doing pull-ups, but, yeah, I was actually attempting muscle-ups.
I decided to search for "how to muscle up" on YouTube and go through as many of them
as possible.
The first mistake I discovered is my thumbs were on the top of the bar instead of wrapping
around the bar because I was so used to gripping climbing holds without my thumbs.
So I went on and tried the muscle-up by wrapping my thumbs around the bar.
It felt better but I still couldn't get up.
I thought to myself that maybe it was because I never consciously tried to rotate my wrists
to make the transition.
So I went on and attempted to force the transition.
Needless to say, it didn't work, either.
After a few days, I got a suggestion from my friend, Ted, to try the muscle-up with
a band to get familiar with the entire movement.
After a few tries, I was able to get my first band-assisted muscle-up, but once I took off
the band, I still couldn't get it.
Again, I went back through the tutorials about how to muscle up, and one of the tips that
caught my attention was engaging the chest.
So I went to the gym and tried the muscle- up by engaging my chest, and I was able to
muscle up without the band for the first time!
I checked the replay and realized I was unconsciously doing the infamous chicken wing muscle-up,
meaning going up with one arm first then the other, instead of both arms at the same time,
sooo… it didn't count.
For the next few days, I consciously tried to make sure my arms pulled equally.
I was able to pull myself up to the point that the bar hit my upper abs, but I could
never find a moment to turn both of my wrists at the same time.
I tried and tried and tried.
I got to a point that I tried so hard that my muscles were too sore to attempt the muscle-up
every other day.
I had to speed up muscle recovery by stretching, drinking a lot of water, eating a lot of protein,
and foam rolling every day in order to get back on schedule to attempt the muscle-up
every other day.
But after trying and trying and trying, I still couldn't get it.
At this point, I doubted myself, despite all the effort I put in, maybe it was not a technique
problem; maybe I was just not strong enough; maybe I just don't have enough pull power.
But how could that be?
I had been doing a pull-dominant sport rock climbing for many many years and I could do
10 pull-ups in a row without a problem.
Or maybe it was a push power problem?
I knew my push power was relatively weak, but I had never had a problem pushing up the
bar when I did the muscle-up with the band.
(Sigh) Maybe I should just give up because my body was simply not ready.
For some reason, Mike Boyd's muscle-up video showed up on my recommendations again.
His video is about an average guy like himself learning the muscle-up.
I watched it on day 1, but I didn't felt much then.
I re-watched it again and I felt so inspired.
I came to understand the struggle.
I thought to myself, if Mike can do it, then I should be able to do it, too.
I analyzed his muscle-up attempt frame by frame and compared it with mine side by side,
and then I realized he was kipping his knees pretty hard whereas my lower body was just
loosely hanging.
I thought to myself, maybe that is what I missed.
I went back to the gym, and this happened.
Oh, there you go!
Take a break.
Come on, come on, come on.
Ahh.
Thanks, man.
I was not used to muscling up directly after coming down from the previous attempt, but
after a few more days of practices,
today is the day, guys. Dude. One, two, three.
Ahh.
Yes!
Three, man, three straight.
Oh, I am so excited.
Yes. That's the best feeling ever, to get that move that you've been doing.
Yea!
Thanks for watching.
I hope you enjoy the video.
Last year I started my journey of training with a 30-day hangboard challenge.
This year I set four goals for myself.
The first one is climbing a grade higher, which I did earlier this year.
The second one is the muscle-up, which is this video.
The third and fourth one are-.
Actually, hit that subscribe button and turn on the notification bell and so you can find
out as soon as I achieve them.
See you in the next video.