Increase Vertical Jump & Learn to Muscle Up

These are probably the 2 most common requests I get when talking to people about training: "how can I jump further / higher?" and "I can do loads of pull ups, but I can't muscle up. How can I learn?"

I posted these videos earlier in the year and the feedback has been great! 

Big thanks to Will Wayland at Powering-Through.com and to Scramblog for sharing the videos. As always, big thanks to mi-gym.com for letting us experiment and film there.

I've since had emails from people all over the world asking further questions on the techniques and telling me what great progress they've made on their jump / pulling power.

So here's a quick reminder of the French Contrast method for increasing jumping power:

Remember, this type of training is suitable for no more than 6 weeks at a time. You may also want to work an eccentric phase and an isometric phase to increase your speed of movement (do I feel another couple of videos coming on?)

Being strong is great, but if 2 athletes are equal in strength, the one that is more reactive and can deliver the power faster and more efficiently will be the better performer.
Power is nothing without control; would you drive a Ferrari with ineffective brakes and suspension?


And so onto my pulling power video. Everyone seems to want to muscle up!
Again, I've had lots of feedback on this one with great positive comments on people's progress.

If you take nothing else from this video, remember this one thing: PULL HIGHER!
Most people train pull ups to get their chin above the bar, by the very nature of a muscle up we need to get the body higher (up into full front support really). So you need to train HIGH pull ups, pulling your elbows back and getting the bar to the bottom of your chest. If you can't do this yet then train the eccentric contraction; get yourself high on the bar (by jumping or standing on a box if necessary) then lower yourself down for the count of 5 or 6 seconds. Repeating this in 3 sets of 5 reps and you'll soon be very aware of your lats!

The other part of the muscle up that is often overlooked is the top phase. Remember the muscle up is a pulling and a pushing exercise.
So you need to train your dips, ideally ring dips. And as with the pull up, you need to increase your range of motion; try to get your thumbs to touch your shoulders then push up from there. You'll almost certainly find that you are weak at the bottom of the range. You can use a band to assist you initially, or train the eccentric phase (down).
If you find these dips are completely out of reach to begin with, you can also use push ups with the elbows tucked into your body to isolate the triceps.
Although to be brutally honest, if you can't perform a dip be aware that you may have a long way to go before you can muscle up.

The video touches on Isometric contractions to build strength too. It's worth training static holds for 15 - 30 seconds both at the top of your pull up and the bottom of your dip (or push up).

One last point on the muscle up; don't struggle up there one arm at a time or use your elbows on top of the bar.
A very good coach once told me:

"Practice makes permanent" 

That is to say that practice only makes 'perfect' if you practice perfect technique. Practice the wrong thing and bad habits will be hard to break.
When learning to muscle up always try to perform the transition (from pull up to dip) with both arms at the same time. Always aim to perform the movement correctly, don't teach your body bad habits just to get on top of the bar.

Good luck!

Don't kip during pull ups. Just don't!

I wrote something on a whiteboard for the Crossfit group at mi-gym. It was supposed to be a light hearted joke for them but the image has been shared quite a lot and it got me thinking on why I wrote it in the first place...

Fishy opinion on kipping pull ups

The message reads:

"If you 'kip' then you are a 'kipper'

A kipper is a fish!

DON'T BE A FISH!!

Pull up properly"

For the uninitiated, many Crossfitters swing into their pull ups and muscle ups to add momentum, effectively reducing the work their muscles are doing (making the exercise less effective??)

It's a nice word for bad form.

Now Crossfit workouts can get very competitive, this side of things can be really motivating for those taking part. It's something about mi-gym that I absolutely love. I love recording the results of challenges and seeing how I did overall and how much I bettered myself from the last time, it motivates me.

The theory is that as you train, you'll get stronger and faster and will be able to perform more reps, or an allocated number of reps in a faster time than you could previously. 

For those that are new to Crossfit, or just aren't strong enough to keep up yet, all the exercises are scalable (something else I like about mi-gym). You can reduce the weight on resisted exercises or use bands to assist in bodyweight exercises (such as pull ups), so everyone can train together and you can adjust what you are doing as you get stronger over time. All sounds great!

Sadly the competitive side is a double-edged sword. As in any competition, people will look to win at any cost and will seek the competitive edge while staying within the rules. And so the 'kipping pull-up' was born. At some point, some people that were (presumably) strong enough to perform an actual pull up introduced the swing in order to do more pull ups faster and in doing so, not really performing a pull up at all.

My opinion on the matter (and it really is just my opinion) is that if you aren't strong enough to do XX number of pull ups as part of the prescribed workout, then use a band to assist for now, then train your ass off at pulling exercises until you are strong enough to do them unassisted (by band or by kip).

I'm starting to see fit people with very little pulling strength as a result of learning to kip and forgetting that it's an exercise not a race.

After all, surely if the exercise is pull ups and you start kipping then you're basically just cheating?

Tips for pull ups & muscle ups

I've had a few requests for more exercises and tips on improving your pull up and training for the muscle up.

You can check out my recent article on my own training for Pulling Power as well as my recent post on Isometric Contractions for Strength.

This week I filmed a quick video at mi-gym on the specific exercises for high, strong pull ups as well as making the transition from pull up to muscle up. All of these exercises are relatively simple to perform and require very little equipment.
All the equipment in this video, including resistance bands, is available from Jordan Fitness: http://www.jordanfitness.co.uk/

Hopefully there's something here for people of all abilities, let me know what you think.

As always, let me know what you want help with, what articles you want to read and what videos you'd like to watch. Requests to: brad@bradwendes.com

Isometrics for Strength

Firstly let's briefly go over the different ways in which our muscles contract:
Concentric Contraction - Where a muscle contracts as it shortens (eg. bicep while lifting a weight during bicep curl)
Eccentric Contraction - Where a muscle contracts as it gets longer (eg. bicep while lowering a weight during bicep curl)
Isometric Contraction - Where a muscle contracts without shortening, lengthening or moving any of the bones attached to the muscle (eg. pushing against a wall or trying to lift something too heavy for you to move)

Now I'm a big fan of Isometric Contractions (static holds) as part of my training, particularly holding at the top of a pull up movement and holding the bottom of a press up movement (chest off the ground obviously).
In fact I've been holding these positions as part of my general conditioning for as long as I can remember (having a Pilates instructor as a mother is partly to blame) so when I started introducing clients to these holds I was surprised at how difficult they found them.

When I recently read an article by Superlife Nutrition co-founder Stephen Kirlew, I was pleased to see that he was all for the use of Isometric contractions:

"Your muscles make up approximately 60 -70% of your body's power" says Stephen, "the rest comes from the tendons which are often neglected when training." Tendons are tough, flexible bands of tissue that connect muscles to bones and are extremely strong. "I weigh 176lbs and can lift more than guys double my size because my power comes from a combination of muscles and tendons and a lot of these huge guys don't realise that."

Stephen is British armwrestling champion, so he knows a thing or two about pushing against an immovable force.

A massive plus point in strengthening tendons is that you gain strength without adding any bulk.
I know this is definitely something that's of interest to my female clients.

So, in keeping with trying to increase your strength without adding bulk. Here's some challenges for you to train your tendons;
- Hold at the top of a pull up, at least chin above bar. Hold until failure or 20 seconds, whichever comes first.
- Hold at the bottom of a press up, chest 1" above the ground. Hold until failure or for 60 seconds,whichever comes first.
- Perform a barbell bicep curl with your usual weight (comfortable 6 - 8 reps) and hold the bar with your forearms parallel to the floor until failure or 30 seconds, whichever comes first.

You might be surprised at how difficult these challenges are.
If they're tough, try putting them into your regular workout to strengthen out these weaknesses.

Let me know how you get on.


Full article by Stephen Kirlew:
http://www.superlifenutrition.co.uk/blogs/news/7518902-tendon-titan

Pulling Power

It's getting towards the end of the month and time to start thinking about tweaks to my program for April.
For my legs I'm changing the French Contrast to focus on explosive power and increased velocity, this will involve lighter loads, faster movements and slightly modified exercises - more on this in a future blog post.

I am now looking to increase my explosive upper body pulling power, this prompted a discussion with Will Wayland (http://www.powering-through.com) about possibly using French Contrast for upper body pulling.

The French Contrast method is best used to increase ballistic power, so it lends itself to jumping or pressing very well.
But upper body pulls tend not to be ballistic or explosive. However I do want to develop explosive ballistic power in my upper body pulls. This power will make muscle ups and Parkour climb ups easier to perform.

The discussion then moved onto how it could be achieved by varying the exercises slightly so as not to completed destroy yourself. Will was of the opinion that weighted pulls ups and variations thereof would be a good start but was concerned that a lack of variation would fatigue the upper body. I wanted to take a slightly different approach and look at using barbell bent over row and kettlebell bent over row in addition to pull up variations to avoid excessive fatigue by just using one exercise.
After some further discussion and different ideas on exercises and contrasts, we settled on what we both think will be an efficient French Contrast method for building upper body pulling power, specifically with regard to the muscle up.

As much as I don't want to turn into a 'one trick pony' the increased power in my legs is phenomenal, so I am going to try French Contrast for upper body pulling during the month of April.

One session per week will be as follows.
3 sets of the following French Contrast circuit:
3x Weighted (high) pull up, 14.5kg
5x fast medicine ball slams (driven by lats)
3x Resistance band speed row
5x band assisted muscle up (on bar)
With 2-3 minutes recovery between sets

Each of the pulling exercises pull will involve taking the elbows back as far as possible, the pull ups will all be chest above bar (I hope)

After this circuit I'll then perform these additional exercises:
3 sets of 10reps 2x 20kg kettlebell bent over row
3 sets of 5reps Bulgarian dips on rings (must not forget top phase of the muscle up)
3 sets of 6 band pull/push (featured in this video)
3x 30 second static hold, chest to bar (top of pull up)
3 sets of 6reps 70kg Barbell overhead press 

That should be enough to blitz my upper body and increase ballistic pulling power.
I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

This is purely me experimenting on myself to see how it works out.

If you want to try it yourself please let me know how you get on

Barbell bent over row can wait until next month