Ring Or Bar Muscle-Up – Which Is Harder
The bar muscle-up has more muscle demand than a ring muscle-up, but the technique is less complicated. Whichever you find harder depends on your current strength levels and experience. So, despite needing adversity to perfect both, the more challenging one differs from person to person.
| Muscle-Up Requirement | Is A Bar Or The Rings More Difficult |
|---|---|
| Balance | Ring muscle-ups use more balance. |
| Time Needed To Learn | Bar muscle-ups take longer to learn. |
| Strength | Bar muscle-ups use more strength. |
| Flexibility | Ring muscle-ups require greater flexibility. |
| Technique | Ring muscle-ups have a more challenging technique |
Ring Or Bar Muscle-Up – Which Is Harder
- Why Bar Muscle-Ups Take Longer To Learn Than Ring Ones
- Why Bar Muscle-Ups Need More Strength Than Ring Muscle-Ups
- Why The Ring Muscle-Up Technique Is Harder Than A Bar Muscle-Up
- Ring Or Bar Muscle-Up – What’s Best For Beginners
- Is A Ring Or Bar Muscle-Up Easier To Cheat
- Our Opinion On Ring Vs Bar Muscle-Ups
Why Bar Muscle-Ups Take Longer To Learn Than Ring Ones
From a scratch start, it takes longer to do your first bar muscle up than if you tried ring muscle-ups. On average, a beginner can ring muscle up in 3 months, whereas using a bar takes 4-5 months.
Bar muscle-ups take longer because the strength needed to elevate yourself over the bar needs months to acquire. On the other hand, ring muscle-ups mainly depend on technique which takes a lot less time to perfect.
In addition, bar muscle-ups are explosive. Therefore, athletes can only practice few reps before feeling fatigued, which caps the progression they can make in a single day. Ring muscle ups aren’t as explosive, so athletes can practice more reps daily – leading to quicker results.
As muscle-ups take longer to learn, we have broken down the progression levels needed:
| Step Number | Progression Level |
|---|---|
| 1 | You must first be able to dead hang. |
| 2 | Next, you practice pull-ups. |
| 3 | If you can do 5 pull-ups, try tricep dips. |
| 4 | If you can do 7 tricep dips, attempt lifting yourself above the bar. The aim is to have your chest resting on the bar. |
| 5 | Then try a chicken-wing muscle-up. To do this, lift yourself on top of the bar with one arm, using the other for momentum. |
| 6 | Lastly, try your first muscle-up! |
Each step should take 3 weeks, hence bar muscle ups taking longer. When it comes to rings, most of your time is spent perfecting the false grip (technique).
This time frame is for complete beginners. We did all sorts of bodyweight exercises before trying our first muscle-up so jumped straight to progress level 4. If you’re in a similar position, you will be able to muscle up sooner than 4-5 months.
Why Bar Muscle-Ups Need More Strength Than Ring Muscle-Ups
Bar muscle-ups use an overhand grip (pronated), which is more muscle-demanding than the false grip used for rings; thus, more strength is required.
On a bar, a pronated grip engages the upper back (trapezius, deltoids, and rhomboid), core and forearm muscles during a muscle-up. However, when using rings, the false grip puts the majority of tension on the bicep; your upper back muscles are only incorporated once you lift your elbows above the ring.
Why less strength is needed for a false grip than a pronated grip when doing a muscle up:
- A false grip positions your hands closer to your chin than a pronated grip. This makes our center of mass closer to the ring/bar, meaning you need less strength to lift yourself.
- In a false grip, our elbows start in front of our body, whereas in a pronated grip, they average 15 inches from the center of our body. As a result, there is more leverage on the pronated grip, requiring more strength.
- The false grip uses the bicep brachii, which is well-trained for most athletes. This is because we use it in the majority of day-to-day tasks. As a result, individuals find it easier to contract and engage during a muscle-up.
What Are The Similarities For Strength Between Bar And Ring Muscle-Up
Both use a compound hold (engaging multiple muscle groups), so it’s important to strengthen all muscles involved to master either the false grip or the pronated grip. When only one muscle group has been trained, it’s challenging to keep balance, and you risk getting injured.
Lastly, bar and ring muscle-ups require high relative strength – which you calculate through your strength-to-weight ratio. The grip you use is irrelevant without the ability to lift your body weight.
Why The Ring Muscle-Up Technique Is Harder Than A Bar Muscle-Up
Ring muscle-ups require significant balance to coordinate the transition between the false grip pull-up and lifting above the rings. The main reason athletes struggle is due to the type of muscles engaged and the unstableness of each ring:
- Ring muscle-ups use small shoulder muscles (Rotator Cuff, Rhomboids, and Teres Major) to move the elbow above the rings. They aren’t used often, so they bring individuals shakiness and unsteadiness when learning the technique.
- In addition, the rings aren’t fixed to the ground (like a pull-up bar), so athletes must control their balance throughout the muscle-up to lift themselves. For beginners, this adds another layer of instability to the technique.
On the other hand, bar muscle-ups engage the upper back muscles, core, and forearms – all of which people condition daily; plus, the muscle-up is done on a sturdy bar, so minimal balance is required. This makes the technique far more straightforward, so athletes adapt it much faster.
In our opinion, once you do your first muscle-up, you’ll never forget it. Even if you don’t train, individuals utilize the muscles frequently, and the motion is simple to memorize.
However, as individuals rarely use the shoulder muscles on the rings outside of exercise, and the motion is so complex, inconsistent practice can make you forget how to do it. Therefore, it’s imperative to perform many reps before claiming you can do one.
Ring Or Bar Muscle-Up – What’s Best For Beginners
We recommend learning the bar muscle-up (before a ring muscle-up) as it establishes a solid foundation to begin calisthenics. This is because it equips you with sufficient upper-body strength so that you can progress, to try other tricks and statics faster.
On the flip side, if you learn a ring muscle-up first, you only gain knowledge of the technique. While your shoulders, core, bicep, and back will get stronger, it won’t be enough to diversify. As a result, you need further strength training to create your framework.
In addition, bar muscle-ups rub less on your wrists than using a ring. This is because individuals already have calluses above their metacarpals (from day-to-day tasks), protecting them from friction. However, the false grip (ring muscle-up) generates friction in obscure places (such as the side of your thumb) – your skin won’t already be conditioned, making it more painful.
A small point worth mentioning is learning the bar muscle-up first inhibits you from paying for extra equipment. Most individuals have access to a pull-up bar, which they can use for free, for example, a park, tree, or door frame. However, to learn a ring muscle-up, you must commit to purchasing a set of rings.
Lastly, if you can do a bar muscle-up, you can learn a ring one quicker – you’ll have sufficient strength and be familiar with lifting yourself.
At the end of the day, it’s up to you what you want to learn. But, consider the long-term advantages of each one.
Is A Ring Or Bar Muscle-Up Easier To Cheat
A bar muscle-up is far easier to cheat than a ring muscle-up; here’s why:
- The momentum you gain to swing your elbows above a bar makes the bar muscle-up significantly easier to cheat the technique. The swing minimizes the distance between your elbows and the bar – gravity is doing the work for you.
- In addition, your form doesn’t have to be as strict using a bar; high relative strength alone gets you far into the muscle-up – even without a proper technique. For example, many bodybuilders can do the chicken wing muscle-up with no calisthenics experience.
It’s much harder to cheat on rings because they’re loose. Therefore, cutting corners leads to injury (commonly a pulled deltoid) rather than an easier muscle-up.
A kipping muscle-up is purposely building momentum to perform a muscle-up.
They are far easier on a bar because the pole is fixed. Therefore, athletes can use momentum to reduce the necessary power to bring themselves above the bar. Hence, making it easier.
Significant balance and stability are necessary to perform a kipped muscle-up on rings because athletes must control their body weight during the swing and lifting motions. While kipping is made to simplify the muscle-up, it actually makes it more difficult on rings.
Our Opinion On Ring Vs Bar Muscle-Ups
The main takeaway from this article is the following:
“Rings use a more difficult technique, whereas bars require greater strength.”
We both learned the bar muscle-up first; however, it wasn’t a conscious decision because we never knew about rings at the time! Once we discovered the ring muscle-ups (several months after perfecting the bar one), there was still significant shaking in our elbows throughout the whole movement. So, don’t think you’re alone.
It took over a month to completely stop the shaking from the rings, despite having the ability to perform multiple bar muscle-ups back-to-back!
In our opinion, we don’t think the exercises are comparable. Despite having the same motion, they are two separate techniques with different muscle requirements. Therefore, you shouldn’t knock yourself down if you can’t perform one and not the other.
“Learn before you can walk” is relevant in this article. Without the basic bar muscle-up, it’s not worth perfecting an advanced technique ring muscle-up.
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