Kipping Muscle Up
Trains the Lats.
- Equipment
- A pull-up bar
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Hang from a bar with your shoulders set down and the body still.
- Swing into an arch, then snap the hips forward into a hollow — this is the kip.
- Time the pull to the moment the hips drive, so the bar work and the swing add together.
- Pull the chest to the bar and roll the shoulders forward over it.
- Press out of the dip to straight arms.
- Lower back through the transition and catch the swing rather than stopping it dead.
Common mistakes
- Kipping to make up for a pull you do not have. The kip adds speed to a movement you can already do; used to reach a position you cannot hold, it delivers you there at speed with nothing to catch you.
- Swinging from the knees. The arch-to-hollow comes from the shoulders and hips with the legs following; a knee-driven kick is a different swing and it does not time with the pull.
- Learning it before the strict version. This is the same movement made faster, and the transition is where a mistimed one goes wrong.
- Doing it on a bar with no room behind. The swing travels, and the space the body needs is worth checking before the first repetition.