Friday, August 21, 2009

Slow Muscle-ups -> Close to impossible

Here is a photo of legendary bodyweight strength specialist Jasper Benincasa performing what is called the Close To Impossible (CTI for short):



Supposedly this photo was not taken midswing or with Jasper standing on a block, it is a STATIC hold! Now let's put aside for a second whether or not this is true, instead lets take it as a goal (even if it is possibly unattainable). We can try to progress from a slow muscle-up on the bar torwards the CTI first by performing a slow bar muscle-up with a wider and wider grip until we are doing it with the arms almost straight and then once this becomes easy if ever we can start doing it with the arms straight and a narrower grip. Or we can try to progress from a victorian on the bar torwards this goal by gradually lowering the body whilst maintaining distance from the bar.

These progressions are too advanced to be attempted by most anyone I know anytime soon but they illustrate in a general sense another way that torque can be used to make any bodyweight exercise almost impossiblly difficult. For more on torque and bodyweight sttrength check these past posts: Generally, with regard to pistols

3 comments:

  1. I am skeptical it is a hold, mainly because of the grip you would need to prevent the hands from rotating... he just doesn't look strained enough doing it...

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  2. Yeah, but this is Jasper Benincasa, he is a virtual genetic beast, coupled with an amazing determination and workout routine, I have no doubt he could pull this off.

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  3. The late Jasper Benincasa recently passed away on 6 Jan 2012. However, there were additional photos released by his daughter, of him doing this with the whole body in the picture, that show this to most likely be the start of a legit hold.

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