Lead-Up Exercises to Muscle-Up: Part 3 The Muscle-Up Dip

The Muscle-Up Dip is perfect for strengthening the muscles you’ll need to complete the full Muscle-Up

The Muscle-Up Dip is an important piece of the puzzle in learning to do a full Muscle-Up. This week’s video is the third exercise in our four-part series leading up to the Muscle-Up, so if you’ve been following along by now you should be almost all the way there! This particular exercise addresses the incredibly important step of developing the strength to push out of the second part of the Muscle-Up where you get the elbows and chest above the bar.

I’ve seen this exact point in Muscle-Ups attempts to be the factor that keeps the client from nailing it.Training with Muscle-Up Dips will also allow you to squeeze out a few more reps when your kip is no longer getting you high enough above the bar. Or, when you’ve progressed to a slow (non momentum) muscle up.

The Muscle-Up Dip is a counterbalancing movement, using your legs to keep you from falling back.

This exercise may take a little getting used to, as it becomes a balancing act between the legs moving forward as you lower your body. The key is to keep the torso as close to the bar as possible. This will be the exact place that you will end up in once you’ve kipped above the bar when attempting the full Muscle-Up.

I definitely recommend building strength and endurance by working on your regular dips, which will help prepare the shoulder girdle for this much stress on the anterior capsule. Be sure to do plenty of warm-ups before attempting this exercise, and if you experience pain, stop the movement.

Check out the video below, and get going on the last step before the full Muscle-Up!



You can check out our article Shoulder Rehab Exercises for Better Bodyweight Training in order to strengthen the shoulder stabilizers and surrounding musculature if you find that this a weak point in your body.

And if you haven’t tried out the first two exercises in this series, you can find them here:

• Lead-Up Exercises to the Muscle-Up: PART 1 THE JUMPING MUSCLE-UP
• Lead-Up Exercises to the Muscle-Up: PART 2 THE KIPPING PULL-UP