Today I’ll introduce some helpful resources I’ve found and ones that you can reference along your journey to perfecting your muscle up.  One of the most complete break downs and explanations of the muscle up was given by Coach Carl Paoli

of San Francisco CrossFit and from GymnasticsWOD.com in these CrossFit Journal videos. If you haven’t already subscribed to the CrossFit Journal I encourage you to check it out as it has tons of great info and resources that we coaches constantly reference and learn from.

Just in case you don’t have a CrossFit Journal account and are too cheap to splurge for one, I’ll run you through the progression as best I can that we have used with a number of athletes and that we routinely demonstrate on Thursday classes.

First, learn and get acquainted with the false grip. It is possible to perform a muscle up without a false grip but we consider it a more advanced movement, and one that we can perfect once an athlete understands and has the capacity to perform muscle up with a false grip. Coach Carl Paoli has a few progressions and drills below to improve your false grip:

And don’t forget to work on false grip pullups and even holds as Coach Dusty Hyland from DogTown CrossFit demonstrates below:

Next, make sure you have the capacity and ability to press out of the deepest ring dip you could achieve. There’s nothing worse than being able to pull yourself through the transition of the muscle up and not having the strength to press yourself up and finish. Some drills and ring dip variations we utilize are ring dips with assistance bands, ring dip negatives, ring dips beginning at the bottom position, and ring dips with a pause at the bottom.

Next it’s time to work the toughest part of the muscle-up, the transition and turn over that takes you from under the ring to on top of the rings. There are few drills that have had success with athletes in the past. The first is beginning in ring support and lowering yourself, almost a negative, controlling your descent into a hanging position.

Another helpful drill is to utilize the bands and set them up like Carl shows in the video below. He also highlights the importance of maintaining a hollow position throughout the pull, keeping the toes up as you pull your nose through to toes (nose to toes). Check it out below:

Here’s a different video from Coach Jon Gilson and Again Faster that breaks down the muscle up as well. Sometimes it helps to hear different coaches explain movements as each approaches it slightly differently in their explanation and the cues they provide to athletes. Check it out.

Do you learn better by reading?  Then check out the progression offered up at BeastSkills.com.  My goal is not to inundate you with information, but to offer different resources for you to reference as each of you are likely struggling with a different piece and each of you are different levels.  Pick and choose drills and cues that work for you and put them to practice during your skill work.

WOD 12.28.11
Deadlift 1×5/Wendler

4 Rds:
12 Overhead Lunges
12 Toes to Bar
36 Double Unders

If you’re on the road or just haven’t been in the gym in this week, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Good news=we have 2 ropes hung from the ceiling. Bad news=we have 2 ropes hung from the ceiling and now they’re 15′ high instead of the 10-11′ at the old place. So that means each and everyone of you will have to master not only the up but also the descent back down to the ground (no more jumping down).

I felt that since today we’re working in some rope climbing skillwork as today’s cash-out that I’d repost some of the videos we’ve referenced in past posts. This first video is from Beastskills.com who does an excellent job breaking down difficult gymnastics skills and progressions on his website. Take some time and watch his video below. Oftentimes it helps to hear things explained differently of from a different coach to help it stick and Jim does an excellent job breaking down a variety of options for you to use to get yourself up the rope.

The second is from Ruth’s excellent post and the video was made by CrossFit Portland. As you learned in the first video you’re feet are much more involved in the process of climbing that you might have thought. This gives another persepctive on what is perhaps the most popular technique, the “scissors” or “scoop and stomp” technique as we commonly refer to it.

Both of these are just primers for today’s skillwork. We’ll get more hands-on after the WOD and get you on the road to mastering your rope climb!

WOD 12.21.12

AMRAP 15
400m Run
10 Burpees
15 Ball Slams

Cash Out: Rope Climb Skillwork

Kipping Knees-to-Elbow & Toe-to-Bars from Patrick Cummings on Vimeo.

Today’s WOD involves a few skill based movements and proficiency in those skills will make a big difference in how many rounds you complete in those 9 minutes. Again Faster’s tutorial on kipping toes to bar is very comprehensive and breaks down the key to linking these movements:

1. Closing the shoulder angle hard: The video begins with an explanation of what closing the shoulder means. Many athletes concentrate only on bringing the legs up to the bar without closing the shoulder angle. This makes it impossible to link consecutive reps.

2. Pausing: Once you close the shoulder angle and your toes meet the bar, pause while your body is weightless just long enough before you start to feel your momentum carry you forward. Then open your hips as you swing forward. Without this pause, you end up dropping your legs back too early and swinging like a pendulum.

3. Use your hip flexors: Focus on using your hip flexors to bring your toes to the bar rather than your abs. This will cause your body to ‘fold’ at the right angle.

4. Glide more, work less: As you come out of the toes to bar and open your shoulders and hips, your muscles will stretch out and naturally want to contract. Think about using your body’s natural stretch reflex and relax into a gliding rhythm.

Much like all of the movements we encounter, proficiency in a kipping toes to bar will take practice! Watch the video and visualize yourself kipping the toes to bar!

Come on out tomorrow to support Brian as he competes in the Next Level Invitational Series! The series will be held at the Orange County Marketplace next to the fairgrounds. Click here to buy tickets for $10 ($12 at the door).

WOD 09.09.11

Back Squat 3×5 or Wendler

NLI WOD #2

As Many Rounds As Possible in 9:11
9 Thrusters (85/55#)
11 Toes to Bar
20 Double Unders

Thrusters

Bar is taken from the ground on thrusters
Full cleans to start workout are ok.
All Bars are 45# bars.
HIPS: Below parallel and to full extension
KNEES: Extended at top of movement
ELBOWS: Extended at top of movement
HEAD: through the arms, can see ear from side

Toes to bar

ELBOWS: at full extension at the bottom of the movement
FEET: must travel from behind vertical plane of bar at the bottom to contact with the bar at top
Kipping is ok. Strict is too.

Double Unders

Get the reps done! Advanced athletes have to do them unbroken.

Here’s what that looks like:

Perform your pushups with shoulders and arms like this…

Not this…

Why you ask is this a better position? Well it all has to do with putting your shoulder in a better externally rotated position creating more stability and torque in the shoulder, the alignment of the muscle fibers of the pecs are better suited to produce force from this position, this position requires less muscle activation in the pecs and triceps, and the ability to produce more force in the bottom position.

A few great videos that drill home some of the finer points on the pushup are from Kelly Starrett on his Mobility WOD delivered with the typical K-Star flare

and from Carl Paoli on his Gymnastics WOD website

Come out to Big Wok tonight to see Nik off as he heads up to Canada for the rest of his summer then back to wrap up his last semester of college. Plan on meeting there after the last WOD around 8:30ish. See you there!

WOD 07.27.11

Back Squat 3×5 or Wendler

AMRAP 10
6 V-Ups
8 Pistols
10 Hang Power Cleans

Yesterday we wrapped up the June Challenge with the RKC Snatch Test, an AMRAP 5 of Kettlebell Snatches. Yes, we decided to go easier than the initially planned 10 minute Secret Service Snatch Test, but I don’t think we’ll get any complaints. Unless we have a surprise entrant in the next day or so, our winners will be power couple Brianna with Anna getting 82 reps with the 26lb KB and Brian getting a whopping 111 reps with the 53 lb!

For July’s challenge, I chose to pay homage to last July — with a twist. For those of you who weren’t here a year ago, the challenge was max HSPU in a minute. Coincidentally, the winners last year were Brian and Anna. This year though could be anyone’s game as we have a number of people who are comfortable upside-down.

So what’s the twist? This year’s challenge is max distance — walking on your hands! There will be no initial test, but you’ll have plenty of opportunities during the month to get comfortable being upside-down. Of course, there’s also every Thursday for you to come in and work on those skills.

The final test will be walking on the mats as far as you can get. In the case we have more than one person make it the entire way, we’ll have a showdown that weekend followed by an outdoor WOD at Rec Park. If you’re not quite at that level, don’t be scared! We’ll also have a side challenge for max handstand hold time. Newbies, you may think you can’t get upside-down but nothing is further from the truth. We’ll help you get comfortable with wall stands and by the end of the month, you should be able to kick up into handstands all on your own!

WOD 06.30.11

Gymnastics WOD

This past weekend, we were in the mood for ribs, but tired of the slow cooker “lazy” version.  Since we finally had some time to kill, I found this recipe and tried my best to “paleoize” it.  I had some pineapple juice leftover from one we just sliced up and used it to baste the ribs.  The results were delish.

Ingredients:
1 Rack Pork Ribs
A few Tbsp fresh pineapple juice
2 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp celery salt
1T Cajun seasoning
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp cumin (I was a bit heavy handed with the cumin, but it was goood)

1. Preheat oven to 250. Mix seasonings.
2. Baste ribs with juice, rub seasoning mix on both sides. (a smarter or more patient cook would prep this a day early and let it sit…I am neither)
3. Place ribs in oven for an hour, flip, and bake another hour.
4. Increase oven temp to 400 and leave in for an additional 30 minutes (or finish over a grill to crisp).

The results were fantastic. While it was nowhere near as good as properly smoked, fall-off-the-bone ribs, they were pretty satisfying and absolutely paleo.

GYMNASTICS WOD 04.28.11

Headstand Progressions
Kipping Pull Up Skill Work
Skin the Cat to L-Sit

Goat Slayer being coached by the Snake

Lets go over the progressions:

1. The Handstand Hold: You want to build the ability to hold a handstand against a wall for at least 15 seconds (more is better). Practice kicking up softly and finding a solid hollow position. Your shoulders are active and you are squeezing your glutes, quads, calves, and pointing your toes.

2. The Negative: Practice kicking up into a handstand and lowering yourself slowly until your head touches the ground, and kick down. Start by practicing negatives on an abmat until you are consistent and not crashing on your head. *Note: just because your head touches the ground does not mean you can relax your arms and make your neck support your weight! Add 3 second pauses to various points of your negative as you progress.

3. The Partial Press: Not to be abused, partial presses are great building blocks to gain full range of motion. Kick up into a handstand and lower a few inches and press out. Repeat this and increase the depth each time. Use an abmat or doubled over yoga mat always with the end goal of not needing your ‘binky’ in future WODs.

4. The Band-Assisted: This progression is a double edged sword. On one hand, it allows you to fully work the range of motion and allows you to try to find a good hollow position while supported on the bands. However, it also allows for you to cheat it by not staying tight. Often times, these band assisted HSPUs end up looking like an elevated push up when you allow your body to lean. Also a binky to kiss goodbye.

5. Handstand Push Up w/Kip: This is a full range of motion HSPU, but you allow your legs to tuck slightly and kick up, creating momentum to press out of the hole. This is a great assistance move, but not to be relied on as your standard HSPU. Often times, CrossFit competitions do not allow kips as a standard.

6. HSPU: This is where you have arrived at doing Diane, JT, and Nate as Rx’d. They may not look perfect and your body may not be in a perfect hollow, but they get better and better with time.

7. HSPU facing the wall: This is the next step for those looking to get freestanding HSPUs.

8. Advanced technique videos:

Here are some of our past posts if you want more details!
Gymnastics Resources
July Challenge Tips
HSPU Tips
Learning the Handstand

WOD 04.19.11

Handstand Push Up Skillwork

Back Squat 3×5 or Wendler

3 Rounds:
50 Squats
7 Muscle Ups (sub 3 pull ups/3 dips)
10 Hang Power Cleans

Ruth learning the muscle up with Coach Tucker

Today the fourth CF Open WOD was announced and the muscle up is one of the movements along with a burpee variation and overhead squats.  After talking with some Intrepids today about the workout a look of fear and defeat came over them when muscle ups were discussed.  I understand that we may not get everyone muscle ups by Friday, but we can at least start along that path.  Today I’ll introduce some helpful resources I’ve found and ones that you can reference along your journey to perfecting your muscle up.

One of the most complete break downs and explanations of the muscle up was given by Coach Carl Paoli of CrossFit San Francisco and from GymnasticsWOD.com in these CrossFit Journal videos. If you haven’t already subscribed to the CrossFit Journal I encourage you to check it out as it has tons of great info and resources that we coaches constantly reference and learn from.

Just in case you don’t have a CrossFit Journal account and are too cheap to splurge for one, I’ll run you through the progression as best I can that we have used with a number of athletes and that we demonstrated at last week’s Gymnastics Class.

First, learn and get acquainted with the false grip. It is possible to perform a muscle up without a false grip but we consider it a more advanced movement, and one that we can perfect once an athlete understands and has the capacity to perform muscle up with a false grip. Coach Carl Paoli has a few progressions and drills below to improve your false grip:

Details at GymnasticsWOD

And don’t forget to work on false grip pullups and even holds as Coach Dusty Hyland from DogTown CrossFit demonstrates below:

Next, make sure you have the capacity and ability to press out of the deepest ring dip you could achieve. There’s nothing worse than being able to pull yourself through the transition of the muscle up and not having the strength to press yourself up and finish. Some drills and ring dip variations we utilize are ring dips with assistance bands, ring dip negatives, ring dips beginning at the bottom position, and ring dips with a pause at the bottom.

Next it’s time to work the toughest part of the muscle-up, the transition and turn over that takes you from under the ring to on top of the rings. There are few drills that have had success with athletes in the past. The first is beginning in ring support and lowering yourself, almost a negative, controlling your descent into a hanging position.

Another helpful drill is to utilize the bands and set them up like Carl shows in the video below. He also highlights the importance of maintaining a hollow position throughout the pull, keeping the toes up as you pull your nose through to toes (nose to toes). Check it out below:

Details at GymnasticsWOD

Here’s a different video from Coach Jon Gilson and Again Faster that breaks down the muscle up as well. Sometime it helps to hear different coaches explain movements as each approaches it slightly differently in their explanation and the cues they provide to athletes. Check it out.

Achieving the Muscle-up from Patrick Cummings on Vimeo.

Do you learn better by reading?  Then check out the progression offered up at BeastSkills.com.  My goal is not to inundate you with information, but to offer different resources for you to reference as each of you are likely struggling with a different piece and each of you are different levels.  Pick and choose drills and cues that work for you and put them to practice during your skill work.

---

WOD 04.13.11

Weighted Pullups 2-2-2 or Pullup Skillwork

Deadlift 1×5 or Wendler

10 Tabata (20s on/10s rest) Sets of:
Box Jumps/Kettlebell Swings
Rest 1 min
10 Tabata sets of:
Wallball Shots/Pullups

]]> http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/2011/04/13/muscle-up-progressions-resources/feed/ 7 http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/2011/03/24/carrotkohlrabi-slaw/ http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/2011/03/24/carrotkohlrabi-slaw/#comments Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:00:37 +0000 Marcus http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/?p=5682

Inspiration for today's recipe

As you may have seen Avelyne post on Sunday, many of us were introduced to the kohlrabi two weeks ago with our first CSA boxes. After I read that the kohlrabi could be eaten raw, I somewhat volunteered to try it that way. (Read: Ruth turned her nose up and thought I was nuts, as usual.) Once I separated the greens and then peeled the actual root, I sliced off a bit of the white flesh and found it to be tasty. It was a bit peppery with a sharp taste similar to a radish and texture much like jicama.

I then decided to make a slaw out of the kohlrabi and the carrots that also came in the CSA box, figuring the flavors would complement each other. My goal was to approximate the pickled carrot/daikon slaw common to Asian cuisine, minus the sugar usually used to pickle the mixture. After cleaning the carrots, I cut the kohlrabi into chunks and shredded both in a food processor. Now that I had about 4 cups of shredded carrots and kohlrabi, I placed them in a tupperware and added the following:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1½ tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp coconut aminos*

Mix all the ingredients together fully and let refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight. Serve chilled as a side dish.

* – I’ve posted a recipe or two that called for coconut aminos. For those curious, it’s a soy sauce substitute made from coconut sap and sea salt. It has a salty and slightly sweet flavor, more akin to a teriyaki than a soy sauce but with elements of each. It can be found at Whole Foods and I highly recommend picking some up!

WOD 04.24.11

Gymnastics WOD

Mike holding a frog stand

Many of you asked for it, so we’re changing things up. Thursday will no longer be a ‘make-up’ day and will now be our gymnastics & skills day.  It’ll start with just gymnastics skills ranging from handstands, tumbling, rope/ring work, kipping pu, muscle ups, etc, but we may include skill work on other things that are skill intensive such as kettlebell work, oly work, OHS work, etc. We’re making the change for a couple of reasons:

1. People need gymnastics skills: Back in the day, Strongmen (lifters) could all do handstands, walk across the room on their hands, and general Cirque du Soleil stuff because it was part of the culture of being strong. Somewhere along the line, it got thrown by the wayside and relegated to girls’ gymnastics only. You all know the total body awareness AND strength to be able to perform any of the gymnastics movements so we’re trying to convey the same to everyone else. Just like lifting isn’t just for boys, gymnastics isn’t just for girls.

2. You’ll PR your lifts by doing gymnastics: Michelle Benedict of CrossFit Fort Bragg already had a sick deadlift in the mid low 300′s but then started doing Jeff Tucker’s Gymnastics WODs in addition to her regular CF programming and PR’d by 40#s in 3 months. The amount of core strength needed to perform these movements is ridiculous, and it will translate to your lifts (as most fail in the core/trunk before anything else).

3. Make up days get ridiculously hectic: With the potential for 3-4 different wods simultaneously occurring, AND the need to instruct 3-4 different warm ups each day, the quality of instruction has no choice but to degrade. It’s like managing a circus on some nights, and the last thing we want is for injury to occur because we’re juggling too much at once.

4. It’s FUN: duh.

Some days we’ll program 2-3 skills while others we may add a gymnastics wod. We’ll keep in line with the rest of the week’s programming so we don’t trash your shoulders the day before we do muscle up progressions, etc.   In addition to learning these skills, you’ll learn the proper way to spot each other when needed.    Most classes will involve an aspect of tumbling, inversion (being upside down), and core work.  Each skill will be tailored to your skill level so you’ll be able to progress each week.  An example of a gymnastics class would be:

Forward Roll:

• One hand/two hands
• Flippin’ Burpees
• Tuck/Roll out of Handstands

Handstands, scaled to your ability, ranging from:

• kicking up
• one-handed
• free-standing
• walking
• ring

L-Sits:

• tucks
• parallette L-Sits
• ring L-Sits
• L-sit pull ups/muscle Ups

WOD 03.22.11

Double Under Skill Work

Power Clean + Power Jerk (3+1)x3

3 rounds:
1 min stations (10 sec between each station)
Tire Flips
10m Shuttle Run
Hang Power Cleans
Rest 1 Min