What Up With Kipping Toes To Bar?

AMRAP 20 Minutes:
18 Box Jumps 24"/20"
15 Toes to Bar
12 Pull Ups

Laurie Galassi 9 rounds + 9 jump, Lucas Zepeda 8 rounds + 12 T2B, Tyler Hinz 8 rounds + 6 jump.

Toes to bar is one of the gymnastic movements that it is common to see people struggle with.  The keys are a tight mid-line, lots horizontal movement and speed.

Start just like a kipping pull up.  With a tight body, open the shoulders and swing your chest forward.  The farther forward your chest goes, the more momentum you can develop.  Just be careful not to let your mid-line go loose.  A tight set of abs will return stored energy from the negative like a spring where as a loose midsection will dissipate the stored energy. Loose mid-line equals lack of power and control.

When learning, take a couple swings to feel your rhythm and power, then throw your feet up at the bar while pulling your body back behind the bar.  The farther you translate forward and back, the more power you create and the easier it is to touch your feet to the bar.  In the picture you can see how far back and forth the torso moves.

Many athletes can get their toes on the bar, but they find themselves out of place for the next rep and have to take an extra tap swing at the bottom of the rep before throwing the next one.  This happens for two common reasons.  One is that instead of pulling their body back behind the bar as their toes went up, they instead swung the legs in a big arc and their body stayed right under the bar.  This will cause you to be out of position to kip again when your feet come back down.

The other reason you will find yourself out of rhythm for the next kip is if you did the rep too slowly.  Your body is like a pendulum and it has a certain rhythm that it wants to move through a range of motion at.  On toes to bar, this is a quick springy rhythm.  If you take too long to get your feet up, or are too slow on the way back down, you have lost the rhythm and power required for a consecutive rep.

If you struggle with this movement, always start by squeezing your body tight and hollow.  Practice developing a more powerful tap swing.  Then take that tight powerful tap swing and see if you can stay in rhythm while progressively pulling your body further and further back as you throw your feet higher and higher.  Rhythm is key.

When you are strong enough to get your feet all the way up to the bar, focus on forcing yourself to do consecutive reps even if you feel out of position.  Most people will find the correct rythm and posiotion on the 3rd or 4th rep.  If you always stop after the 1st rep, you may never attempt that awespome 3rd or 4th rep it takes to get the true feeling of the movement.

Pictures stolen from GymnasticsWOD.com
Kipping Toes To Bar
Tap Swing

Comments

[Ashley Latimer]

Thank you for this post Justin! This is priority 1 this week for me. Nothing frustrates me more than these damn things.

[Justin Riley]

Alright, we have 1 who can read and admit their goat. Should be more.

[brother mike]

http://beastllc.com/?attachment_id=2181

Best picture of weakness leaving the body I have seen in a while.

I do the extra swing while doing T2B. It is by sheer stubborness and/or stupidity that I will hold on to the bar to do 10 T2B with an extra swing in the middle just so I can speed up the WOD a little.

[Steller]

I have so many goats, I should have a farm. "This one's name is Handstand Pushup, and this one's name is Ring Dip, and this big ugly one over here is named Muscle Up..."

[Scott]

Dude: I have so many things to work right now. Double unders, front squats, etc.

Ashley: good for you that you have so many things under control that you can focus on TTB.

[Donna]

Ha ha, Sabrina! I just got your comment . . or should I say that you got Justin's goat! ;)

Justin, thanks for the tutorial. Toes to bars are really weird.

[Brooke]

Come on Scott! Get those double unders man! I remember seeing you practice those everyday. NOW is the time!!!

[Scott]

Brooke: thanks! I'm still practicing. I have to confess it's a slow process (for me anyway). I guess it's a skill, not a talent. In any case I did make some improvement: used to be I would do 5 singles and 1 double, now I can alternate 1 & 1. Sometimes I can do 10 unbroken that way. But I've never got up to 25 (or even close). But now is the time!

[Scott]

Chis: regarding adaptations, it seems to me what's happening is we added more work. Which is OK. But I was hoping what would happen is that I would change what I was doing and stick to the same schedule. Am I missing something here?

Thanks.

[North Face Outlet]

I'm saying be like Angela. Grab the heavy rope and figure it out. There was a day when regular double unders were hard, right? But people get over it.