Exercise guide · Advanced · Compound

Muscle Up: How to Do It & Muscles Worked

The muscle up is a challenging bodyweight exercise that combines a pull-up with a dip, requiring significant upper body strength, coordination, and explosive power. It targets the lats primarily, with secondary engagement of the biceps, triceps, shoulders, and chest.

Primary muscles
Lats
Equipment
Body Weight
Level · type
Advanced · Compound
Demonstration of the muscle up
Front view: muscles worked by the muscle up. Primary: lats. Secondary: chest, biceps, shoulders and triceps.
Back view: muscles worked by the muscle up. Primary: lats. Secondary: chest, biceps, shoulders and triceps.
Primary Secondary

How to do the muscle up

  1. Step 1: Start by hanging from a pull-up bar with your palms facing away from you and your arms fully extended.
  2. Step 2: Engage your core and pull your body up towards the bar, leading with your chest.
  3. Step 3: As you reach the top of the movement, transition your grip so that your palms are facing towards you.
  4. Step 4: Continue pulling yourself up until your chest is above the bar and your arms are fully flexed.
  5. Step 5: Reverse the movement by slowly lowering yourself back down to the starting position.
  6. Step 6: Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.

Sets, reps and programming

Suggested sets, reps and rest for the muscle up by training goal
Goal Sets Reps Rest Effort
Strength 3–5 3–6 3–5 min 1–3 reps in reserve
Muscle growth 3–4 6–12 2–3 min 1–2 reps in reserve
Muscular endurance 2–3 12–20 1–2 min 1–3 reps in reserve

Ranges follow the ACSM position stand on progression in resistance training. Muscle grows across a wide range of loads when sets end close to failure (Schoenfeld et al., 2017), longer rests between heavy sets support strength and size (Schoenfeld et al., 2016), and stopping a rep or two short of failure works about as well as training to failure (Grgic et al., 2022). Estimate your working weights with the strength calculators.

Muscle Up alternatives

More exercises that train the lats as their main target:

More lats exercises

See the best lat exercises, ranked →

Sources

  1. American College of Sports Medicine. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009;41(3):687-708.
  2. Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Strength and hypertrophy adaptations between low- vs. high-load resistance training. J Strength Cond Res. 2017;31(12):3508-3523.
  3. Schoenfeld BJ, Pope ZK, Benik FM, et al. Longer interset rest periods enhance muscle strength and hypertrophy in resistance-trained men. J Strength Cond Res. 2016;30(7):1805-1812.
  4. Grgic J, Schoenfeld BJ, Orazem J, Sabol F. Effects of resistance training performed to repetition failure or non-failure on muscular strength and hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sport Health Sci. 2022;11(2):202-211.

Step-by-step instructions and demonstration media are from the ExerciseDB exercise dataset.

This guide is general fitness information, not medical advice. Stop if an exercise causes pain and speak to a doctor or physiotherapist about injuries or health conditions before starting a new programme.