My first clean muscle up

Yes! The moment has come, after a lot of fails, bruises on my hands and frustrations I finally managed to do a clean muscle up.

I can't explain that feeling, being able to achieve something you never thought possible for yourself.

Comment below from 1-10 about my form.

2 clean muscle ups in a row

It took me a while, but I started to get more explosive and managed to do 2 clean muscles ups in a row.

This is my current state with my muscle up journey. Soon I will add more content as I improve in the future.

My front lever journey

The beginning of my front lever journey

As I said in my story I had some starting strength before I did any front lever attempts because I was already 5 months into bodybuilding. I could already hold tuck front lever for about 20 seconds at this point.

Front lever progress - advanced tuck attempts

Going into harder progression like advanced tuck was still impossible for me, I was too weak. Especially my rear delts were the ones that failed first. As you can see in the video after my failed attempt I hold my shoulder, indicating the pain.

I was new in this skill and I still haven't figured out what kind of approach works best for me.

Front lever practice - active arch hang

As I got more knowledge about training for this skill I started to experiment things. Trying out different approaches and testing their benefits.

Active arch hang has good benefit in terms of scapula retraction, one of the most important links in this skill.

In this video you can clearly see how weak I am, im not able to keep my arms straight during this move, which is very important.

After few weeks of hard work I have made significant progress I clearly got stronger as you can see in the video below. I could pull higher, straighter arms and hold it longer. 

Front lever practice - dynamics

I started to incorporate dynamics into my front lever trainings. As I got more educated about skill training that has more approaches I decided to start experimenting.

Many said that dynamics are very useful and contribute a lot. As I got stronger in my active arch hang I was ready to try front lever raises.

I haven't recorded my first attempts, so in this video I could already do around 5 reps tuck front lever raises.

Front lever progress - advanced tuck

After 2 weeks of training dynamics I decided to test if I can finally hold advanced tuck. I was pretty satisfied with my results.

It wasn't clean and it was short duration hold, but I was happy that I could extend my knees past the bar.

Front lever practice - negatives

One of the most useful exercises are the negatives. The muscle is a lot stronger doing the eccentric part than the concentric part of the move. So I incorporated them in my training. And I clearly noticed good progress.

These are some of my negatives, my first attempt was of course, fail, I was not strong enough to do advanced tuck negative.

After few weeks of hard work I finally managed to do advanced tuck negatives, I got stronger and I could do them very slow. 

I also tried straddle negative, in which I underestimated myself. I was not strong enough. 

Front lever progress - strong advanced tuck

It took me around 3 months of experimenting and hard work to get to this level. A solid advanced tuck. I could even extend my knees further ahead. And the bar of this table is pretty thick.

Front lever hold - one leg - first attempts

As many may argue about one legged front lever, I decided to try them out. My body wasn't used to that position and I could not extend my leg fully and I had muscle cramps on my glute, quad and my foot. Especially on my right leg, my left was more loose.

Here is my attempt on my left leg. The feeling was strange, but clearly I was not strong enough to hold one leg.

Front lever practice - band assisted training

One of the training variations is also resistance band supported. There are different ways to incorporate bands into your front lever training. Its not good to rely on them completely, I suggest using them as workout finisher.

I will show you few ways of how I used them. One of them is front lever raises. With the band I could pull all the way up with full front lever.

Another way is using them around your waist and do holds or raises or rows. 

Front lever progress - first attempts of half lay pull

After few months of training and experimenting with myself, I gained a significant amount of strength. So I could easly do advanced tuck pulls for about 5-7 reps. And I decided to try the harder variation which was half lay pull. I was pretty satisfied with my result.

That was the highest I could pull at that point.

Few weeks after this attempt, I got stronger and my personal record was 5 reps. 

And I even managed to do one full rep all the way up. 

Front lever exercise variation - ice cream makers

I also tried this variation which many say its not very useful. But I gave it a go just to test it out, as I said I'm a guy who loves experimenting things even if there are some opinions that it is not worth it. So it had pretty decent stimulus on my lats and core. I could do them in full front lever.

Front lever hold - one leg personal record

This is my current level, so far with the knowledge I gained and the experiments I made I reached 12 seconds hold one legged front lever. I'm feeling stronger than ever. I'm also pretty satisfied that my both sides have been balanced and I can hold it the same with both legs.

In this video I will show you my previous progress where my sides were imbalanced. With my right leg I could hold it for about 8 seconds, with my left leg around 6.

You can clearly see that my left side was weaker and that it was maybe true that like many people say, one legged front lever is not a proper progression. But as you already know me, I'm a guy who likes to experiment and test things to see if they are really as others say. 

One arm front lever variations - band assisted (currently testing)

"The true method of knowledge is experiment" - William Blake

As I said in my previous posts I like to experiment and try things out by myself despite what others say and have proofs that only certain methods work. Everyone is different and if something works for one person it doesn't mean it will work the same for another. 

So in this post I will show you variation of assisted one arm front lever row and assisted one arm front lever pull. 

It gives amazing intensity and good stimulus to the muscles and you can also control the intensity with your assisting hand to make the most out of every rep and its good for fixing strength imbalances. 

My planche journey

The beginning of my planche journey

As I said in my story my pulling strength was better than pushing, especially with straight arms, I was very weak.

Genetically my upper body is smaller that my lower body and I have long legs and very small shoulders which makes the move a lot harder.

So I started with planche leans, there was no way I could do tuck planche even on paraletes which was easier than the ground. I was too weak.

These are my first ever attempts of planche leans on paraletes, I could not them on the floor properly yet.

Planche lean progress

At this point I started to understand the proper mechanics and how to engage the right muscles in order to execute the move correctly.

I got small progress here, at least I could lean a little bit more forward and hold it longer. Also I could control my breathing better.

Planche lean on the floor - first attempts

Since my wrists have improved after a month of doing short warmups before every training I felt confident enough to try planche lean on the floor.

It's way harder on the floor because there is not good grip and the muscles in the forearms are not engaged entirely which leaves more stress on the elbow tendons and the shoulders.

This is one of my first attempts, and I was pretty satisfied with my form.

After few weeks I got stronger and my lean and hold duration has increased significantly. My wrists got stronger I didn't felt any pain at all at this point. 

My first tuck planche attempt - paraletes

After a month of training planche leans on the floor and on the paraletes I decided to try to hold tuck planche on paraletes. I finally cold lift my feet of the floor and hold it for few seconds. But I was not satisfied with my form and I felt slight pain in my left forearm.

Here is my attempt, a lot of hard work and such small progress. It was very frustrating.

Planche lean pushups - negatives - first attempts

As I got more knowledge I learned that dynamics are very important factor in skill training which I also used them in my front lever training. But in this case, my level of strength wasn't enough. So I started with negatives.

Negatives are also very important approach especially in terms of skill training. These are my first attempts of negative planche lean pushups.

It was extremely hard for me, I could not control my breathing and I was feeling big pressure in my head. I could only lower down. Pushing back was impossible. 

Planche practice - band assisted dynamics

In this period I was frustrated a lot, because planche was one of the hardest things I tried in my life. I was unaware that I started to force things and after that slight pain I felt on my forearm on my first tuck planche attempt, I continued to do it.

Read more about it in my injury report.

After I recovered from my injury and got more educated about this skill, I started with safe approach. In this post I will show you few videos of assisted tuck planche pushups and assisted planche lean pushups on the floor.

These exercises help you get a feel how the move should be performed correctly and also will improve your strength enough to overcome the platoe and continue with the progression without the band.

Tuck planche - 7 seconds hold PR

After 2 months of training negatives and band assisted work I came back to test my hold on paraletes. I finally could hold it longer this time I got to 7 seconds.

But, something was wrong here, that pain on my forearm was getting back. There wasn't any pain doing them on the floor. So I started to investigate. 

Tuck planche - first attempts on the floor

As I said in my previous post, the pain I was feeling in my forearm was from the paraletes. They were not good, very thin grip and asymmetrical.

So since I haven't got any others I started doing attempts on the floor. Last time I tried them it was impossible for me to lift my feet of the floor.

So I had small progress fortunately, 1/2 of a second.