Three Reasons Why You Can’t Link Toes To Bar - By Coach TJ
“Toes To Bar”. They are a basic movement that lend themselves terrifically well to all of our other gymnastic bar movements. Controlling, or “linking”, our T2B is a great starting point for those butterfly pull ups, butterfly chest to bar and linking bar muscle ups.
In my coaching the past few weeks, I have been trying to implement different variations of scaling for the T2B in order to help work towards the goal of “linking”. Many people have exhibited the strength to be able to link but lack the motor skills or rhythm for it. While these three tips are addressing T2B specifically, the same tips can be directly applied to pull ups and chest bar.
1) Remember, it’s a KIP, not a SWING
In a kip, we move between two positions – hollow and arch. We move fluidly between these two points of tension and it creates a rhythm. If you are swinging (uncontrolled) instead of kipping (controlled) you won’t be able to maintain a rhythm for toes to bar.
2) Turn on your Lats
When you are in the “hollow” position of your kip, your lats are engaged and you should feel like you are pressing down on the bar. When we do this, our hips are behind the plane of the bar. When that happens, we can lift our toes to the bar. However, If we stop pressing down on the bar as we raise our toes, my hips will fall under and be in front of the plane of the bar. You will now be swinging, not kipping.
3) Don’t DROP into the middle of your swing
Let your feet swing out a little bit away from you as they come away from the bar. Sometimes I think about the sensation of “pulling my feet away from the bar” rather than just “letting them fall”. As your feet come down from the bar, they should pull you back into your “arch” position of your kip. Then you’ll be ready to press down on the bar again and move back into your hollow body position.
These three tips above will help with “staying engaged”. I have addressed this specifically in my coaching. The “down” portion of the T2B should be just as much, if not more, controlled than the “up” portion. Once the core becomes loose or weak on the down portion, the kip will be lost and you will get out of rhythm for the next rep.
Stay tight and stay engaged! Up and down. The linking will soon follow.