- What's up, Elite THENX athletes, It's Chris Heria.

Welcome to another video of official THENX.

Today, I'm gonna be showing you guys one exercise

that's gonna change your life,

the same way it changed mine.

Basically, this exercise is the gateway exercise,

that's really gonna start taking

your training to a whole new level.

With this exercise,

you're building a whole new mind-body-muscle connection,

as well as learning a full body connection

compound movement skill set.

And that exercise is the Muscle Up.

When you're performing a Muscle Up,

you're doing a compound movement,

that's working the entire upper body.

Incorporated with explosive strength, extreme control,

and utilization of antagonist muscles.

Which means you're gonna be pulling

and pushing to complete this exercise.

While you're performing this exercise,

you are firing up your abs like crazy.

Your lats, your shoulders, triceps, forearms, biceps.

Your chest, lower back, hip flexors,

the list goes on and on.

This is why this one exercise is definitely

gonna change your life in so many ways.

It's gonna change your work ethic.

It's gonna change how you train.

It's gonna drastically increase your strength,

your skills, your explosiveness, your control,

and most importantly it's gonna teach you

how to utilize all your muscles together,

and to perform a lot more harder,

more advanced, exercises.

For example,

once you start learning the Muscle Up

and you start incorporating it into your workout regimen,

next you're gonna start doing Explosive Muscle Ups,

Back Clap Muscle Ups, 360 Muscle Ups,

start free styling on the bar.

The great thing about calisthenics

is that a lot of techniques

and skills that you learn

from other moves is gonna transfer

into the next harder progressions

and exercises that you're gonna learn in the future

which will in turn change your life.

A lot of you ask me,

how did you get to being able

to do One-Arm Pull Ups, Muscle Ups,

Handstands, Full Planche and so forth,

and it's all about staying in that progressional state

and working towards these certain exercises.

You can dead lift, bench, curl in the gym

for years and years and years,

you're never gonna learn these exercises,

which is exactly why this exercise is the gateway movement

to start changing your life,

to start changing the way you train,

start to completely change your physique,

your strength, your skill set,

the way that you actually see fitness and true strength,

and most importantly,

it's gonna change the way that you motivate yourself.

When I was first learning the Muscle Up,

there was one thing that clicked in me

that changed my life forever,

and that was mentally thinking that something is impossible,

and then achieving that thing that's impossible,

and now realizing that the things that you think

that were impossible are actually quite possible.

And all it takes is hard work and consistency.

And the most important thing to remember

is that it's not practice that makes perfect.

It's perfect practice that makes perfect.

You can try to do a Muscle Up for years,

but the moment you start training the right progressions,

you're able to do the right requirements properly

and comfortably,

then you're gonna start seeing some major progress,

and that thing that seemed impossible is going

to start to seem like, hey, you know what?

Maybe I can do this.

So once I started incorporating perfect practice,

that means trying to practice perfectly,

I started making progress,

and I started actually getting closer to that Muscle Up,

and I eventually was able to do one.

And that simple accomplishment,

just being able to do it,

let alone the skills and the gains that

you get from continuously doing them,

just being able to do it was enough

to motivate me to where I am here today.

So I'm gonna show you guys how to start learning

how to Muscle Up, from the very beginning.

Now before we begin to learn the steps on how to muscle up,

we first must be able to

pass the requirements comfortably and properly.

And those requirements are gonna be at least

15 Pull Ups.

Keep in mind all these exercises

need to be with perfect form.

At least 15 pull ups, properly.

Next requirement is gonna be an L Sit Hold,

for at least 20 seconds.

And the next requirement you're gonna need

is Straight Bar Dips,

at least 25 in a row.

You need that high number because you need

to be really solid with that push.

Imagine, if your pulling is on lock,

your pushing is on lock,

then the Muscle Up is gonna be a piece of cake.

And all you really need to focus on is technique.

Which is gonna bring us to that last requirement,

which is L Sit Pull Ups.

This is gonna help a lot,

you'll start feeling that muscle connection

between pulling and your core,

so you wanna be able to do at least seven with perfect form,

and if you feel like you can't reach those requirements yet,

then you need to go back,

practice, and master those exercises.

Now, over the course of many years,

I've taught literally hundreds of people,

in person, how to Muscle Up.

And from all those experiences,

I've been able to break down the Muscle Up

into basically three steps.

If you can master these three steps,

you're gonna be doing Muscle Ups right after this video.

So the first step I wanna show you guys

is something I like to call the magic button.

So we're gonna take a little resistance band

and it can literally be anything,

we're just gonna mark the floor, right here.

Gonna put this on the floor.

Now we're gonna grab the bar, shoulder width apart.

Slight of an over grip.

And you wanna be able to walk out from your tiptoes,

to where you're just hanging on by the tip of your toes.

We're gonna start with out dominant foot on the ground,

and one leg is gonna be able to swing back and forth.

Now with my right foot,

I'm pushing on the ball of my foot,

so my heel is off the ground

and that's actually pushing me back so I can stay in place.

So, we're gonna be in this position right here,

and the opposing foot that's free,

we're gonna have it pulled back, like this.

So, we're gonna have this foot come straight.

Not up and down.

It's gonna go straight, pass these bars.

Pass your body straight

and once it gets to that marker,

it's gonna go straight down.

Having this straight down motion

is gonna give your body this type of

momentum.

So, the better you come in,

it's all about timing,

the better you come in to the magic button,

the stronger of a momentum you're gonna have,

it's gonna be spring that's gonna launch you back up.

Now if you guys have ever seen me do Explosive Muscle Ups,

I already know how high I'm gonna go,

depending on how perfect I go into this magic button.

I'm gonna give you guys a little example.

(upbeat music)

So you see, a lot of power stems from

that magic button right here.

So you guys wanna master this movement right here.

If you notice right here when I'm doing this,

my feet are always in front of my body.

Never go behind your body, ever, ever, ever.

That's gonna completely eliminate your momentum

and this is literally gonna stop you from going up.

With this magic button,

you'll eventually be able

to push the magic button back, back, back,

until it's closer to your body,

and you have less of the magic button.

Less than you're doing it from here.

Eventually, you don't need to swing anymore

and you just pull straight up.

Alright, so once you've been able to master this move,

the next move I have for you guys

is called the L Sit Pull Back.

This move is gonna stem directly off of the magic button.

The ending position of the magic button

is actually gonna be the starting position

of the L Sit Pull Back.

And this is when we're gonna start

to be using a bit of momentum,

but it's gonna be controlled momentum,

and eventually we're gonna eliminate it,

so that we are actually doing them strict and properly.

Alright, so let's go right into this L Sit Pull Back.

We're gonna start with the shoulder width grip.

Slightly of an over grip.

You wanna hold and squeeze as tight as you can.

Remember we're gonna go straight into that magic button

and as soon as we feel that dip,

you're gonna feel a second of forward momentum.

Then you're gonna feel a stop,

and then you're gonna feel the energy

start to pick back up and start to pull yourself back.

As soon as you feel that energy start to pull yourself back,

is when you're gonna begin to go up into an L Sit.

Don't go any higher, don't go any lower.

Exactly 90 degrees and going right into that 90 degrees

and stopping is gonna give you that little pump

to reach even higher than you normally do

when you're pulling up on that bar.

So keeping all of that in mind,

let me show you guys what that looks like.

Here we go.

(steady techno music)

Now when you first try this exercise,

you may not go that high,

you might be doing little pumps, something like this.

But eventually, you're gonna work on this move,

you're gonna master this move.

You're gonna master the timing and once your legs come up,

and then when your legs come back down,

and it should look like this.

(upbeat techno music)

And you can basically see,

where I'm basically right at the top

of where that Muscle Up should be.

Which is gonna bring us to the third step.

And if you've mastered these first two steps,

then you've basically already done the Muscle Up,

the last step is literally to lay over the bar,

and this is gonna stem from the peak position

of step two, the L Sit Pull Back,

when you're at the top, top, top,

your highest point is when you're gonna pull that bar

as close to your body as possible

and you're gonna kind of lean forward onto the bar

literally like you're trying to lay on top of the bar.

And I've seen a lot of people go high enough,

literally if you can pass your nipple line,

then you are definitely capable

of being able to execute a Muscle Up.