A few months ago, I learned the muscle-up in 35 days.
I got countless comments saying that's not a real muscle-up because kipping doesn't
count.
I decided to learn the ring muscle-up first to build up the foundation strength for achieving
a bar muscle-up without kipping.
Unfortunately, after that, I injured my finger and I couldn't grip the bar normally without
feeling any pain.
One day, I was deep into the YouTube rabbit hole and I saw an old video released 9 years
ago of a guy with his shirt on casually doing slow and controlled muscle-ups, and his secret
is gripping the bar with a false grip.
All of a sudden it hit me that I can train for a non-kipping muscle-up with a false grip
now without having to wait for my finger to be fully recovered since based on my experience
of learning the false grip from the ring muscle-up, the bodyweight will be mostly on the wrists
instead of the fingers.
So starting from today, I will attempt to learn the slow muscle-up until I can do 3
in a row.
Alright. Let's do it.
See if this works.
Oh, oh my god.
Hoooo, man.
I thought the false grip on the bar would be similar to the false grip on the rings,
but the pressure on the wrists felt so bad that I ended up questioning myself whether or
not I was gripping it correctly.
On day 3, I decided to grip with my thumbs over the bar since my wrists felt a lot better
this way.
Oh, I can't believe it.
Ha, I am so close, so close.
Oh my god, why can't I push it up?
I was able to elevate myself higher than before, but for some reason, I just couldn't get
myself over the bar.
I kept on trying and trying and trying, oh you gotta be kidding me, but still couldn't
make it.
On day 11, I accidentally did a chicken wing up. Oh, okaaay. That's one, hooo.
Maybe a little bit of chicken wing, and it was because I unconsciously wrapped my thumbs
around the bar in order to push myself up.
At that moment I realized one of the grips I tried on day 1 was actually correct.
The correct grip is to have the bone on the palm be on top of the bar, and I just have
to get used to the wrist pressure.
I managed to do a rep without the chicken wing. Hoooo. Okay, one, hooo. But I realized
it was very difficult to come down with control without losing the false grip because my muscles
were not used to the eccentric movement.
I practiced and practiced but still couldn't figure out the negative
part of the muscle-up.
On day 17, while I was still struggling with the negatives, ah,
a veteran gym regular, Jeff, offered me some valuable advice.
Just my opinion. Yea, let me know. I have a vested interest.
I need every input I need.
Your negative, when you are like coming down, you are going so slow on that. I feel like
that's where you are burning out.
Just make that a little bit smoother and come down. You are like on that last one. The
second you came down great and you started going down so slow, which is cool, but,
I see what you mean there. You are burning yourself out.
To summarize, he told me, yes, I should avoid doing the negatives so fast to lose the false
grip, but I shouldn't do the negatives too slow either because that would tire out the
muscles.
I should come down a little bit faster and at the same time, try to maintain a false
grip.
I listened to his advice, and I was able to do 2 reps.
Two.
OK, one last.
Hoo.
Three.
Ahhh.
Oh, my god. Thanks for the tip, man.
On day 19, with fresh arms, this happened.
One, two, three.
Hoo, finally.
As you can tell from my reaction, I wasn't particularly excited.
Deep down I knew that I didn't do the slow muscle-up with a full range of motion because
I couldn't get all the way down with my elbows straight.
I could have faked excitement and uploaded the video but that's not me.
I decided to figure out how to do it instead.
I searched every single corner on YouTube, Reddit, and Google but couldn't find anything.
Therefore, I tried posting my question on Reddit bodyweight fitness, direct messaging
people on Instagram who showcase their slow muscle-up, but the answer I got is nothing
more than training harder and working on your wrist flexibility.
While I was at the gym trying to figure this out myself, all of a sudden I experienced
a very familiar magical feeling.
It was the same feeling during my incomplete MoonBoard collab with rockentry.
By the way, it's incomplete because I injured my finger and we both assumed the video would
be done once my finger was recovered.
He taught me how to hold on to a very crappy MoonBoard hold with straight arms, and the
key is to engage the shoulders.
When I engaged my shoulders, it became so much easier to hold onto the false grip with
straight arms.
The easiest way to experience this is to grip the bar with a normal grip since most people
are strong enough to hold onto the bar without engaging their shoulders.
The next day, this happened.
Two.
Three.
Yes, man, hoo, hoo. That has to be it.
Man, that has to be it.
After I reviewed the footage, I realized my right arm wasn't completely straight at
the bottom, so I had to do it again to make sure my right arm was straight.
One, two, three.
OK, this has to be it, and it is.
Thanks for watching.
I plan to continue to making videos of myself learning various calisthenics moves.
While learning the muscle-up, I discovered how reliant I was on my fingers when I was
climbing, and there's so much more room for improvement in other parts, like wrists,
arms, and shoulders, which calisthenics focus on.
Additionally, the support and popularity of these videos have been incredible.
I got so many comments asking me to make videos like "average guy learns front lever, back
lever, or handstand," and I will definitely try my best to make it happen.
I am actually in the middle of learning the handstand now, and it's super-duper hard
for me.
For those who have supported me since the early days, I know you guys are here for the
climbing videos, and I will never stop making them.
I am not a V double-digit climber so I don't have the ability to make videos of myself
sending this and crushing that, but I will always keep on innovating to see what type
of climbing videos the majority of climbers like to watch even though there were a lot
of failed experiments in the past.
I have big collaboration plans with rockentry, and once my finger is recovered, we will definitely
resume it, so stay tuned!
And as always, make sure to like and subscribe.
See you in the next video.