Ring Muscle Ups are beautiful and the most attractive skill to have in CrossFit. Elite athletes and experienced crossfitters make this movement look seamless, but there are a few skills that are needed to achieve this movement. In this post, we break down the movements and drills for the Ring Muscle Up.
The Ring Muscle up is a combination of strength and skill. You can make up for the lack of strength by skill to attain a full rep ring muscle up. Although it is highly recommended to improve you Pull Up/Chin Up, Ring Dips and Support strength for you to improve your Ring Muscle Up game. First you will need some pull strength. You will need 1-5 strict body weight chin ups, a bent over row or pull of up to 75% of your body weight and 1-5 reps of strict ring dips. If you do not, you will not even be able to complete the entire rep if you successfully execute these drills in the videos below.
Getting Used to the Swing
In this video, the goal is to use the weight of your toes and legs to achieve a large swing of your legs that will get to the height of your eyes or wrists. No activation of your core, just using the momentum of your leg swings.
Ring Swing to Front Lever
Once you have felt the momentum of the swing, we look at bringing the hips up to your shoulder position or a Front Lever. Your ankles, hips and shoulders are in line. With this drill, you will also practice starting to tighten up the muscles in your lower back, your lats creating tension between your shoulder blades.
Rings To Hips Swing
Here we look at bringing the hips up and towards the rings. Use the momentum of the swing and also the push of your hips (squeeze the glutes) towards the rings. When you can do this, your body and centre of mass will be closer to the rings. You will need some pull strength, mainly your lats to bring the rings towards your hips.
Once you have mastered these drills, you will have mastered using your swing and your hip extensions (glute extensions/squeeze) to transfer your body closer to the rings to help with your Ring Muscle Up.
In the next post we will look at some more drills to progress into the transition and also the lockout. Stay calm and keep practicing your drills. It is a process. Do not rush these steps if you want to attain the Ring Muscle Up.
So get practicing guys, the rings are not for decoration and for practice. Get on them and swing around or hang around. The more time you spend on the rings, the stronger you will be on them.
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