How To Pull Your Body Over Bar
Get comfortable with toes to bar and pull ups. Once your toes are at the bar, with enough pulling strength you can pull yourself up and swing your body around over the bar.
Bar pull over is such a good movement to learn because when you can easily pull yourself over the bar, you can do straight bar dips or muscle up negatives much easier rather than jumping on top of the bar from a higher platform. Bar pullovers are also probably a movement that you used to do as a kid in the park to impress your friends or parents. So at an older age imagine how impressive and funny it is to be able to do them again!
A bar pullover will require some core strength and a lot of pull up strength. So I suggest first train leg raises, toes to bar and regular pull ups and get good at those before attempting bar pullovers.
Technique Tips For Bar Pullover
Don’t just hang by your fingertips. To rotate over the bar, a “false grip” or an “over grip” will help you at the top. For this grip, wrap your hands so the heels of your palms are resting on top of the bar and your knuckles pointing almost straight. An over grip makes the transition much easier once you’re upside down on top of the bar. This grip is also commonly used when doing muscle ups. As you pull up, begin to lean your upper body back slightly. This prepares your center of gravity to shift.
The hardest part and the biggest struggle with bar pullovers is getting your hips to the bar and the rotation by swinging your body around the bar. To gain some momentum to help you, kick one leg up and over like you’re kicking a ball over a fence. Use that momentum to drive your hips toward the bar and follow up with your other leg.
If you are a master at toes to bar, you can also just do that and explosively pull up. If you can pull hard enough and get high enough and keep your legs straight, the gravity will do the rest and you will get your hips over the bar. Try to keep your knees as close to the bar as possible to prevent your legs being a long lever, thus adding unnecessary weight.
A very, very common mistake that I myself also struggle with for a long time is that once your feet go over the bar, it’s so easy to lose momentum, stall and get stuck at the top upside down. To prevent this, focus and look at your toes as they swing over, keep your chin tucked and eyes on your feet. The rest of your body will follow the rotation naturally but you need to keep pulling and at the rotation point rotate your wrist and then start pushing. Once you learn when to start pushing the rotation goes effortlessly.
Common Mistakes And How To Fix Them
Leaving the head up will cause you to stall at the halfway point and you will either get stuck or fall back. It’s hard to go over anymore if you stall. Try to tuck your chin and look at your knees during the whole movement.
Another mistake is keeping your arms fully straight. With straight arms it’s nearly impossible to pull the hips up. You need to basically perform a normal pull up while rotating upside down. After pulling up, keep a 90-degree bend in your elbows until you’re over the bar.
Hips can also easily go too far away from the bar. If your hips are not correctly placed, you’ll spin but won’t land on top of the bar and just fall back down. Keep your hips as close to the bar and when you pull up try to try to touch the bar with your belly button.
Why Should You Learn Bar Pullovers?
Knowing how to do and being able to do toes to bar exercises can help and it means you are comfortable with the movement, but it really is about pulling and keeping your legs straight and letting the gravity do some work. Once you pull high enough the gravity helps your body swing around the bar. The important thing is to not lose momentum. At first you will have a lot of momentum but you lose it fast once your legs are straight up and the bar is around your thighs. At this point its is important to just focus on pulling hard. You need to get the bar at your hips when you are upside down. Then the over swing come naturally.
At first it might be easy to get over the bar but you get stuck with the bar on your hips and just can’t go over the full circle. If you get stuck, swing your body a bit to get momentum and use your hand to pull and push your body away from the bar as much as possible and then let gravity do the rest. This might take a few attempts but once you get the hang of it you will be able to keep the momentum from the start so you don’t get stuck at the top anymore.
