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CrossFit Journal: The Performance-Based Lifestyle Resource

He just sits... and watches the people in the boxes
Everything he sees, he absorbs and adopts it


 

Entries in kip (8)

The Long Awaited Dip Post

About a month ago, we had a workout with some lovely knees to elbow in it. It was a 5 round workout with 35 of those suckers. We went with a modified version- bring the knees up as high as you can while remaining hollow. The knees went less high each round, but the midline stabilization principle was there. Not to mention there was 175 in the workout. After round 1, Ry Guy starting doing something a little different then everyone else. Chris demonstrates it in the video below: 

Ryan, in his unexplainable Ryan-ish way, was applying a butterfly kip to the movement. Most of you have seen the butterfly kip, commonly utilized in pull-ups. Then, a couple days later, we had a dip workout. As it progressed, I saw Jacob start doing this:

It might not be the best example (he had already done about 80 that day) but Jacob was using the same kip. The butterfly kip is good, bad, and sometimes ugly.

The good: the butterfly is a natural progression from a strict kip. A lot of coaches teach it as a backwards bicycle kick. We look at it a little differently, and think of it more as going from global flexion to global extension in one step, very fast, over and over. If done correctly (in a pull-up) it will look like this. Seeing Ryan and Jacob perform this skill on knees to elbows/dips was pretty cool. Ryan is fairly proficient in the movement and has been coached in it before. Jacob hasn't been coached on the skill (as far as I know), he just found a more efficient way for him to kip at the time. It’s almost like your body is looking for ways to become an expert cheater without you.

The bad/ugly: whenever we apply skill, things become more complicated. Adding skill is one way that a coach can challenge you. A butterfly kip is faster than a regular kip, but also much more difficult to remain hollow. A strict gymnastic kip is focused on one prime mover: the shoulder. The shoulder is still the focus of a butterfly kip, but often the hips will go through a greater range of motion as well. That’s two prime movers at the same time! Not to mention that the knees go into some flexion as well WHILE you’re hips are in extension. It’s complicated to type, I’m sure it was hard to read, and it sure is hard to perform correctly. 

Bottom line: Butterfly kipping is cool skill that you might accidently use every once in a while. But also easy to mess up.