How long did it take you to learn kipping pull-ups?

[EvilYoda]

So we did Mary yesterday (20 minutes for rounds of 5 hand-stand push ups, 10 1-legged squats/pistols, 15 pull-ups) and it sucked for me. The HSPU were easy for me, squats were okay (ankle flexibility isn't great) but I still haven't learned kipping pullups so that basically killed it for me.

After the workout and some time to cool down, I got some instruction from one of the trainers and learned the basics of a kipping pullup pretty quickly. I wish I could see what my form looks like, but I was able to do one pretty well. I haven't tried linking them yet, so that's the obvious next step.

How long did it take for you to learn kipping pullups and how to tie them together? I'm pretty good at learning new moves quickly so I'm hoping to have it down within a week or two...hopefully before my next pullup-intensive WOD.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
So we did Mary yesterday (20 minutes for rounds of 5 hand-stand push ups, 10 1-legged squats/pistols, 15 pull-ups) and it sucked for me. The HSPU were easy for me, squats were okay (ankle flexibility isn't great) but I still haven't learned kipping pullups so that basically killed it for me.

After the workout and some time to cool down, I got some instruction from one of the trainers and learned the basics of a kipping pullup pretty quickly. I wish I could see what my form looks like, but I was able to do one pretty well. I haven't tried linking them yet, so that's the obvious next step.

How long did it take for you to learn kipping pullups and how to tie them together? I'm pretty good at learning new moves quickly so I'm hoping to have it down within a week or two...hopefully before my next pullup-intensive WOD.

Took me about 3 sessions. To put them back to back, you have to push away from the bar. That helped me out a lot in learning how to do them consecutively. They help out A TON for those workouts. I went from having to break everything down into sets of 5s and 3s to doing 15 pullup sets. Saves you from destroying your lats entirely.

 

[StageLeft]

Never heard of them, so I just youtubed. Link

Looks like a normal pullup but with obscene amounts of swing. I would have called these cheating pullups. I suppose if you do enough you get some benefit to the rest of the body, though.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Never heard of them, so I just youtubed. Link

Looks like a normal pullup but with obscene amounts of swing. I would have called these cheating pullups. I suppose if you do enough you get some benefit to the rest of the body, though.

Most people call them cheating pullups until they do 100 of them. CF is based on functionality and is popular with the military. You get up a wall or over a fence however you can. A kip is natural in this case, especially if you take wearing a pack into account. They're nice because they help with hip explosiveness and keep your heart rate fairly high. You still blast your back, but you have certain benefits from the kip.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Never heard of them, so I just youtubed. Link

Looks like a normal pullup but with obscene amounts of swing. I would have called these cheating pullups. I suppose if you do enough you get some benefit to the rest of the body, though.

The kipping pull-up is a different exercise than the dead hang pull-up. It's not "cheating" any more than a push press or a push jerk are "cheating" version of the OH press. They are simply different exercises with different goals and effects. The goal of the kipping pull-up, and indeed, one of CF's goals, is to increase work capacity. In a kipping pull-up, your body travels the same distance as a normal pull-up, but you can do far more of them in the same amount of time, so you're doing more work. One other benefit of the kipping is that it teaches you to do pull-ups explosively, which is tremendously helpful for weighted pull-ups, muscle-ups and other exercises. Finally, it's a functional/real world motion: if your life depended on doing a pull-up (e.g. edge of a cliff), you'd kip. Since CF is all about functionality and used by military/police/firefighters/etc, it's a good motion to learn.

Anyways, to answer the original question, my abilities at the kipping pull-up progressed through stages, roughly like so:

* Basic ability to kip: ~1 day. It's really not that hard to get some veritcal drive going with your legs.

* Basic ability to chain together kips: ~1 week. I was able to get 3-4 in a row, after which I'd usually have to fight to stop my body from swinging. This is roughly the point where doing kipping pull-ups really began to show its benefits over dead hang pull-ups for metcon workouts.

* Stronger kip: ~1 month. Although a basic kip helps a lot, it took me a little longer to get a really strong drive from it that let me throw my body all over the place. It was around this point that I was first able to do a muscle-up.

* Smooth chaining together of kips: ~2 months. Sometime around this point, I became much more efficient with my kipping pull-ups. No more swinging back and forth, just a very clean motion to open the hips (rather than drive the legs) and propel the body up. The number of consecutive pull-ups I could do and how many pull-ups I could handle in a single workout increased very sharply after this.

In short, I was able to take advantage of the kip within a week, but it was quite a bit longer before I was using it to its full potential.

 

[EvilYoda]

Nice...well I seem to have the general motion down and not just a kicking motion. My lats were dead after the workout, like SociallyChallenged indicated they would be, along with some pretty callouses so I didn't want to try stringing them together so soon.

I'm looking forward to practicing more though, it's a nice feeling. I wish my apartment complex's gym had something I could pull up on...the cable machines have the padded and angled split bars, so I don't know if that'll quite work.

It's amazing how different my soreness feels from CF as opposed to a traditional gym workout.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
So we did Mary yesterday (20 minutes for rounds of 5 hand-stand push ups, 10 1-legged squats/pistols, 15 pull-ups) and it sucked for me. The HSPU were easy for me, squats were okay (ankle flexibility isn't great) but I still haven't learned kipping pullups so that basically killed it for me.

After the workout and some time to cool down, I got some instruction from one of the trainers and learned the basics of a kipping pullup pretty quickly. I wish I could see what my form looks like, but I was able to do one pretty well. I haven't tried linking them yet, so that's the obvious next step.

How long did it take for you to learn kipping pullups and how to tie them together? I'm pretty good at learning new moves quickly so I'm hoping to have it down within a week or two...hopefully before my next pullup-intensive WOD.

Like SociallyChallenged said, you need to push away from the bar as you fall away. Keep your descent in control so you can properly load your body for the next kip. Even though pushing away seems intuitive, it's tough to keep in mind while actually working, so try to work on keeping your rhythm slow and consistent.

Spend a few minutes do nothing but kip swings. Don't actually do pullups, just work on your swing. Learn to control it so that you can stop swinging on a dime. That control is important in stringing together multiple kips.

brikis98, I'd add to your reply to Skoorb, but, uhhh, you've got it covered

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
Nice...well I seem to have the general motion down and not just a kicking motion. My lats were dead after the workout, like SociallyChallenged indicated they would be, along with some pretty callouses so I didn't want to try stringing them together so soon.

I'm looking forward to practicing more though, it's a nice feeling. I wish my apartment complex's gym had something I could pull up on...the cable machines have the padded and angled split bars, so I don't know if that'll quite work.

It's amazing how different my soreness feels from CF as opposed to a traditional gym workout.

My workout yesterday was: 5 rounds for time: 1000 m row, 30 KB Swings, 2 pood, 30 Pull-ups. Needless to say, not only is my entire body dead after 150 pullups and KB swings, but I have virtually no skin left on my left hand.

Is there any way you can arrive 10 minutes early and work on your kips before working out? That's how I get most of my skills work in.

 

[EvilYoda]

Yeah, if I go to the 6PM group I'm usually there a little early. I try to work on one of the many weaknesses in my CF repertoire, such as kipping, cleans, snatches, ring dips, etc. LOL. (tried ring dips for the first time last week...holy crap that's a different experience)

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
Yeah, if I go to the 6PM group I'm usually there a little early. I try to work on one of the many weaknesses in my CF repertoire, such as kipping, cleans, snatches, ring dips, etc. LOL. (tried ring dips for the first time last week...holy crap that's a different experience)

Rings introduce a whole new realm of suck

I know it's overwhelming when there are a million things to learn, but definitely devote your time to kips. Pullups are such a big part of CF that it will hinder your progress not to get the form down.