External video — Strict Toes To Bar by Marcus Filly.
How to do it
- Setup
- Hang from a pull-up bar with a full overhand grip, hands shoulder-width, arms straight, body hanging still with no swing before you start.
- Execution
- Brace the core and drive both feet up in an arc toward the bar, aiming to touch your toes to it, keeping the legs as straight as you can manage. Lower back to a still dead hang under control before the next rep. That is one rep.
- Common error
- Kipping — using a swinging, whipping motion from the shoulders and hips to throw the feet up, then riding the swing back down. Control the swing at both the top and the bottom; this is a strict core movement, not a CrossFit-style kip.
- Feel
- A hard, building ab/hip-flexor burn and a real grip challenge. If you can't yet touch the bar with straight legs, bent-knee "knees-to-chest" reps are the honest regression — still dead still at the bottom, still no kipping.
Hang from the bar, drive your toes up to touch it — control the swing, do not kip it.