Technique Thursday: Toes to Bar

Lucas Barge
Sep 5, 2019
2 min read

Do your Toes to Bar look like this?

Toes to Bar has to do with core strength, Lat strength, how you kip, timing, etc., But we're going to cover only a couple topics today. I have two drills for you that will help you master a more consistent kip in the Toes to Bar and teach you what it feels like to press the bar down using your Lats.

First off, if you can do what is shown in the video above, I'm confident you can rattle off a few good toes to bar. You have the strength to press and rotate through your shoulders to get your toes to the bar. Now we're going to make it a little easier by helping you engage more muscle and kip.

This first drill will teach you how to stay tight in your core hollow, and use your Lats to press the bar down.

- Strap a green band to bar.

- Wrap the band around your torso.

- Hop up, hands on the bar, active shoulders, and hold core hollow position.

- Complete 3-5 reps by pressing the bar down. You will almost lay back behind the bar.

Now that we know how to use our Lats. Lets think about your kip. Most people when starting to figure out toes to bar try their hardest to get to their feet to the bar, using every muscle possible, and they do it, which is great but what happens once you get there? You relax, your legs drop and you start swinging. You're active on the way up, but not active on the way down.

See when you're doing some normal shoulder kips, like what we do in our warm ups, hollow, arch, hollow, arch,.. you actively put yourself in a hollow and actively put yourself in an arch. Same rules apply to the kip in a toes to bar we're just creating a bigger kip and closing the angle at our hips. You must actively bring your toes to the bar and actively press your legs down and create that arch position.

For this next drill create a target for how high your legs are going to lift. Grab a coach or somebody in class to help you out by holding their hand out in front of you. You are going to kip your legs up to their hands and they are going to quickly push your legs back down. Them pushing your legs back down will tell you to pull your legs down and extend at your hips, creating an active arch. The key is, once you have extended your hips(arch position) you cannot pause there or you will start swinging. You need to go again, use your lats, press the bar down, core engaged, lift your legs. Check out the video below.

I didn't have anybody in the gym, so I grabbed a green band as my target and resistance shot my legs back down.