Toes-to-Bar Made Simple: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering This Key CrossFit Skill

This article is the second in our series with gymnastics athlete and coach Pamela Gagnon. The first was on kipping pull-ups. Now, let’s move on to toes-to-bar.

One of the most common and frustrating skills athletes often encounter in workouts is the toes-to-bar. Since the inception of the CrossFit Open in 2011, toes-to-bars have been a part of 86% of the CrossFit Open seasons, making them a recurring challenge for many. So, why do so many athletes find it difficult to do toes-to-bars as prescribed, and if you’re one of those athletes, how can you overcome this hurdle?

The Skill

To understand why you may struggle with this skill, let’s break it down into parts by looking at kipping toes-to-bars. The skill involves 1) the kip swing and 2) lifting toes to the bar. The primary muscles needed are grip strength, lats, hip flexors, and core. You initiate the skill through extension and flexion as you move from the arch into the hollow for the swing. On the “press back,” also known as the hollow, you fire up the hip flexors, lats, grip, and abdominals to bring your toes to the bar. The return to the arch position happens quickly as you reset for the next kip portion of the skill.

The Issues

Kipping your toes to the bar requires three main ingredients, and if you are missing one of them and don’t make a concerted effort to work that weakness, you may get stuck scaling indefinitely.

#1 – Coordination

You must press back on the bar to send your hips behind it while your hips move into flexion so the toes can rise toward the bar. The lowering phase of the movement is equally as important as the lifting phase when trying to perform multiple reps consecutively. Focus on ACTIVELY pulling your feet back and down as you move the chest forward into the arch position. Performing this correctly will help avoid unnecessary swinging when returning underneath the bar.

#2 – Strength

You may have the strength to complete the movement but are unsure how to fire up the primary movers, specifically lats, hip flexors, and lower abdominals. The tension created is the power behind the skill, which is equal to muscles “doing work.”

#3 – Spatial Awareness

This may sound like a simple concept, but if you cannot “feel” your body move through space as you kip through this skill and lack awareness of where each part is during each step, it will challenge your coordination, and tension will be more difficult to apply.

Approaching Toes-To-Bar In A Workout

There are plenty of scaling options for toes-to-bars you can do in workouts while you continue to build the necessary components to complete the movement. By working on strength and timing while also recognizing and celebrating your progress, you will get toes-to-bar before you know it.

To put your toes-to-bars to the test, let’s break down Open Workout 12.3:

Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 18 minutes of:
15 box jumps (20/24-inch box)
12 push presses (75/115 lb)
9 toes-to-bars

Beginner Athlete

Each round, in place of the toes-to-bars, complete 9 hanging shrugs and 9 alternating V-ups.

• The hanging shrugs work on the muscles to control and activate the kip swing.
• The alternating V-ups will help you focus and build hip flexor and lower ab strength.

Intermediate Athlete

Each round, complete 9 alternating leg toes-to-bars.

• This combines the kip swing and the hip flexors but doesn’t require full strength and coordination.

Intermediate Plus Athlete

Each round, complete *9 snap-down toes-to-bars.

• You will need to press down on the bar to activate your lats and send your hips behind the bar, mimicking the Rx’d version, and using full hip flexor and ab strength built from the previous two versions.
• The “snap down” portion teaches you to return to the start position quickly, which is needed to reset for the next rep. This rapid return is a key aspect of the toes-to-bar movement, and mastering it will significantly improve your performance.
• This should be done CONTROLLED, with a slight pause before each rep, as you build tension in your muscles for the next rep.

*Note: Safety issues may arise when performing movements with a box below you and the bar. Ensure you have adequate grip strength and coordination to perform the movement safely over a box.

Each option builds upon the other, working on the key issues of coordination, strength, and spatial awareness. No matter your option, you should finish the workout knowing you’re building the skill.

While these options are helpful in a workout, here are a few other ways to begin working on toes-to-bars. 

Practice

Success in the gymnastics portion of CrossFit requires regular practice, not just attempts during the workout. Therefore, doing drills and warm-ups outside class will help you feel even more prepared the next time toes-to-bars show up in the workout. 

Day 1

6 rounds (3 rounds of each skill below) of 30 seconds work/30 seconds rest: 

• Beginner – Alternate between V-ups and kip swings
• Intermediate – Alternate between V-ups and alternating leg toes-to-bars

Day 2

6-5-4-3-2-1 reps, rest as needed to be successful at all sets (approx 30-60 seconds):

• Beginner – Strict hanging knee raises
• Intermediate –  Snap down toes-to-bars

Day 3

3 rounds, 1 minute of rest between sets:

• Beginner – Max V-ups
• Intermediate – Max alternating leg toes-to-bars

Drills and Warm-Ups

A few quality drills and warm-ups include:

• Scap pull-ups
• Banded pull-aparts
• Banded lat pull-down
• Hollow rock holds
• Strict single- and double-leg raise
  
• Alternating leg cross toes-to-bar
• Toes-to-rings
• Seated toes-to-bar
  
• Hamstring stretches 

I feel confident that toes-to-bars will show up in this year’s Open and/or the Community Cup, so now is a great time to practice these drills, and even if you don’t reach the Rx’d version this year, you’ll be closer than you were last year!

Are you all in for the Open? Click here to register.

About the Author

Pamela Gagnon is the co-creator of Performance Plus Programming and the free e-book “5 Key Points to Great Toes To Bar.” She is a four-time Masters CrossFit Games athlete and a former D1 Gymnast. As a CF-L2, she was a lead coach for eight years with the CrossFit Gymnastics Course. She also currently writes gymnastics programming for CrossFit Mayhem.