- What's up, guys, it's Chris Heria.
Welcome to another vlog.
I wanna put an end to bad muscle ups.
So today I'm gonna be showing you
what you should not be doing when performing muscle ups,
and what you're gonna need to do to correct them.
See you downstairs.
(chill music)
All right, so some people that cannot do the muscle up
or perform it correctly, may call this exercise
a party trick, but in reality the muscle up
is one of the most profound exercises
utilized by elite athletes all around the world
that will bring you insane strength and muscle development.
You may hear from people that are doing them wrong
that they are bad for your shoulders.
When that's in fact not true.
I've personally been doing muscle ups for over nine years,
and when executed properly is one of the best upper-body
compound exercises and is worth the time it takes
to learn correctly to avoid injury and reap its benefits.
Now there are many ways to muscle up
whether it be the gymnastic style, a kipping muscle up
using a false grip on rings or a strict muscle up,
but across all the different ways to execute a muscle up,
there are things that you should never do
as it's simply not part of the movement
and will definitely lead to injury.
That being said, the first point I wanna make
is about the rotation of the shoulder.
One of the most common mistakes that I see all the time
is called the chicken wing muscle up
and it looks something like this.
(chill music)
All right, now the chicken wing muscle up is such
a common mistake because when you're first starting off
to learn how to do muscle ups, it's really hard
to get your chest to the bar and being able to pull the bar
up to your chest nice and high is a necessity
for the muscle ups.
So normally to compensate the lack of strength
a person just starting off will try to use
their dominant arm to leverage themselves
up and over the bar which will definitely cause injury
and create muscle imbalance.
So this is something you don't want to do ever.
You're always gonna have more strength utilizing
both of your arms than trying to leverage with one.
So if you find yourself having this problem,
the solution to this would be training high pull-ups.
That's gonna develop the strength that you're gonna need
to get your chest to the bar
with both arms pulling with equal force.
Jumping muscle ups, that's gonna build the strength
and condition your body to get comfortable
with the transition and getting over the bar
with your arms evenly.
Switching from pulling to pushing all in one fluid motion
without leveraging one arm,
and lastly, work on negative muscle ups.
This exercise will allow you to connect all the muscles
that will be needed to perform the muscle up.
Throughout every position of the muscle up
without actually having to do one concentrically
which will allow you to understand the movement
to be able to correct your form.
Now moving on to the second common mistake
that I always see for the muscle up is the elbow flare.
Doing muscle ups with your elbows completely flared out
and it looks something like this.
(chill music)
Now first off, you never want to be doing
muscle ups like that.
You should always have your elbows in front
and tucked into the sides versus flared out.
The correct motion of a muscle up is pulling the bar
straight to your chest with your elbows in
like the opposite of a bench press.
So as you can feel, bringing your arms straight
to your chest and then leaning forward to push
straight down, two natural functional movements
that you can find in rows and dips,
and both of those exercises you never want to be
flaring out your elbows because that is what leads to injury
and impingements in your shoulder.
Just like how a bench press can be dangerous
if you're doing it with your elbows flared out,
this exercise is just the same and can definitely lead
to injury if you're rotating your cuffs
from a flared out angle with your elbows like that,
and this is why you have people saying that the muscle up
is bad for you because they're doing it wrong,
and doing a muscle up with your elbows flared out
like that is bad for you and will lead you to injury.
So the solution to this would be to practice
both high pull-ups and negative muscle ups
with elbows in front of you to mimic
the correct movement path of your shoulders and your arms
which is pulling straight to your chest with your elbows in
and then shifting your body angle
to be able to push straight down.
All right, now the third common mistake that I always see
are people trying to do the muscle up
when they're completely fatigued
before they've actually mastered the muscle up technique.
If you're still in the learning phase of the muscle up,
you wanna be training this exercise completely fresh.
You do not want to be training this exercise fatigued.
This is a very difficult exercise
if you're still learning it and one that takes
a lot of conscious effort and technique and form
which you will lose along with the needed power
to perform the exercise.
You also need to have a strong body connection
when doing muscle ups and being fatigued
is going to weaken that connection.
So the solution to this would be training the muscle ups
first thing and to know when to stop
and proceed to the next progression of the muscle up.
This is gonna ensure that you're gonna train past failure
and make progress versus trying something
and failing over and over.
You can also try using a resistance band
when doing a muscle up if you feel you need
just a bit more assistance to be able to perform them.
The most important thing is to train smart, guys,
and never compensate your form for how many reps you do.
Remember there's no timer inside your body that knows
how many reps you did.
All it knows is the quality and effort
that you're putting into your reps,
and that's gonna create major progress for you.
Now moving on to the fourth mistake I always see
is kicking when you're doing the muscle up,
and it looks something like this.
(chill music)
Now the reason why people do that is because subconsciously
they think that they're gonna get an extra step in the air
to get above and over the bar,
and in reality there's nothing there to step on top of.
So when you kick your legs down,
you actually shoot your body back down
completely killing your explosiveness and the effort
that was needed to get to the top of the bar.
Also when you kick down, you're breaking your form,
and you're dropping your hips and breaking
that body connection that's needed to perform the muscle up.
So if you happen to be doing this, the solution for it
would be to train your l-sit pull ups
and your l-sit pull backs, and even high pull ups.
The high pull ups are gonna develop your strength
to be able to get your chest to the bar effortlessly,
and the l-sit pull up and the l-sit pull downs
will help with your back, hip engagement, and connection,
two pieces that need to connect to engage using proper form
when doing a muscle up.
All right, now lastly, I'm gonna leave you guys with a tip
that's gonna drastically improve your muscle ups
if you're not already doing this,
and that's having a solid solid grip,
slightly over grip as well,
and maintaining that strong grip
will allow you to do more reps consecutively.
So to make sure that you're thoroughly training your grip
for the muscle up, you could be hanging on the bar for time.
It'll also help if you have a slight over grip
while you're hanging, and a great time to do this
will be at the end of your workout.
Another exercise you can be doing is weighted pull-ups.
Of course, doing pull-ups with more weight
is gonna force you to develop a stronger grip,
and when you take that weight off,
not only are you gonna feel a lot lighter,
but the exercises are gonna feel a lot easier,
and you're gonna be able to hold on a lot longer
with a lot less effort.
All right, now for those of you who want to
learn the muscle up or improve on your form,
I've made a workout on the Heria Pro app
that's gonna break down the movements of the muscle up
separately to get you building your strength
to do muscle ups correctly and injury free.
All the exercises that I've shown you today
that correct all these mistakes
are incorporated into this workout routine,
and in the workout, these exercises are the same ones
I used to perfect the form of my muscle up.
So if you want to get access to this workout,
as well as full access to all my workouts and programs
with specific goals in mind like burning fat,
getting shredded, and building solid muscle,
make sure you've downloaded the Heria Pro app
in the App Store or Google Play Store
to have me as a personal trainer in your pocket,
and with that said, that's gonna end today's video.
If you enjoyed the video,
definitely smash that like button.
Comment down below, let me know what you want me to make
the next video about, and send this video to a friend
that's trying to perfect their muscle up,
and of course if you haven't already,
make sure you subscribe 'cause I post
every single Thursday, 2:00 p.m., USA, Eastern Time.
Now for more of my content during the week,
make sure you guys are following me on Instagram.
Almost every single post
I always do some type of giveaway.
So if you want a chance to be a part of that,
make sure you're following me on IG.
For everyone enjoying the music on the channel,
these are all the tracks to my brand new album
I just dropped called "Workout Music."
It's available on all music platforms.
So make sure you play my album "Workout Music"
the next time you're training for that extra motivation.
And, guys, we have a brand-new item dropping in the shop,
the Heria massage gun, a definite necessity
if you're training hard and you need to recover fast.
They're powerful, sleek, and best of all
they're really quiet.
Pick yours up today at chrisheria.com,
and I'll see you guys next Thursday,
2:00 p.m., USA, Eastern Time.
Mad love, peace out.
(air whooshes)
(chill music)
Smash that like button, guys.
(machine hammering)