Muscle-Up Fault: Early Pull

Muscle-Up Fault: Early Pull
Written by Hunter Britt (photo of Lauren Fisher courtesy of Preston Smith)

Today, we’re going to discuss a common mistake in the muscle-up that is overlooked when certain athletes are trying to improve their muscle-up skill.

For those who understand the basics of a muscle-ups, let’s assume that we agree that for someone that is either a larger athlete or is not the strongest gymnastics puller that they are going to need a larger swing than that of a smaller athlete.

It just makes sense right? More swing, more kinetic energy, your body is going to be moving somewhere. To gain a bigger swing, athletes will either jump into the rings for a huge first swing or from the top of the rings dropping in to the second muscle-up they will push away off the top to achieve a bigger swing. This is perfectly fine to do and I encourage it for someone that needs it, but what is not happening is that athletes are not waiting long enough on the transition from the forward swing to the back swing to start the “pull”. Be more patient on the transition time from the arch swing to the hollow so that tension can be kept on the rings.  

Take a look at the two following photos:

You can see on the picture to the left that the pulling portion of the muscle-up has the straps actually going slightly backward. This position was achieved by holding the arch body a tad bit longer when the athlete was in forward swing. Too many athletes take a huge swing and right when they hit the peak of the swing, they get geared up to swing through and they are now horizontal underneath the rings. The bigger the swing, the longer you must wait to pull.

It sounds obvious, but the concept is missed quite often when trying to be applied. Like I said, the most common times this is seen is with larger athletes or ones that struggle with strength in their gymnastics pulling. To add another person into the mix that has this problem is the athlete, it could be you, that has a beautiful swing, strong pull and has an awkward time with the turn over. This is problem again because they are pulling from under the rings and trying to get their body to nearly rotate 180 degrees just to catch the muscle-up.

Be patient with the swing and allow yourself to maintain tension throughout the entire pull.  Keep working hard and I hope this helps some of you out there.