The sequential muscle-up is an important stepping stone towards achieving a true muscle up. Most people training in gyms nowadays have difficulty doing pull-ups, let alone muscle ups. If you are reading this site however, this is soon going to change for you. If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to start with the article on the sternum pull-up.
There are several reasons why I’m writing a tutorial for this exercise. The cool thing about the sequential muscle-up is that it builds confidence quickly – a thing that is needed when trying to achieve goals that seem “impossible,” such as the real muscle-up. The move also builds strength needed for the transition phase in the real exercise.
Here is a video we shot of the sequential muscle-up. You can clearly follow the three major phases: 1. pull-up, 2. shift of the weight and rotation of the free arm, another shift of the weight with rotation of the first arm.
Note: it is essential to train both sides in this movement – although the video doesn’t show this. As soon as you are able to do the move with the weaker arm (most people have a weaker arm), start practicing it this way.
Speaking of sequences, I chose this completely unrelated photo of a beautiful girl doing the moonwalk on a sandy hill at the beach. I’ve been into haiku lately and found this Basho haiku poem to fit quite nicely with the photo.
I recently finished the last level of my German language classes and was browsing in the German section of a bookstore when I stumbled on this book of haiku poetry translated in German. I was shocked that the translations were so good. Anyway – back to the sequential muscle-up.