If you have seen even 1 video of CrossFit there is a good chance you saw someone kipping. Ideally kipping is a controlled “swing” that helps you accomplish a movement such as a pull up. CrossFit likes this because usually the goal in a CrossFit workout is to get done faster than everyone else, or to do more reps than everyone else. So using everything to our advantage helps accomplish this.
Everyone not in CrossFit hates kipping and the internet is filled with opinions on the kip, and it’s flaws.
Unfortunately, people are competitive to the point of self detriment, and along the way the kip was bastardized. I’ll explain.
Keeping the pull up as our movement of choice, when learning to do a pull up the proper order should be: learn to do a strict unassisted pull up, become proficient at these to the point you can do multiple strict pull ups, then if you need to or want to you can learn how to kip them together.
The important piece being, you develop strong enough shoulders, arms, lats to not only do the pull up, but more importantly control your body through the entire range of motion. Now, even a relatively beginner CrossFitter can manage to do a pull up or almost a pull up with a half-hearted kip, but that is where the problem comes in. They can’t control it, and they haven’t built up the appropriate level of strength to not get hurt. This is the reason the fitness community has such a large problem with kipping. People put the cart before the horse and the chance of getting hurt doing so goes up.
So, how many pull ups should a person be able to do strict before they kip? There is no exact science or number here. But the number ranges from about 3 to 10. Personally I think a lot of factors play into learning to kip, such as: how long have you been working out, your age, your weight, your mobility, what your goals are, and of course if you can do strict pull ups.
I remember having to do pull ups in P.E. in grade school and middle school, I did lots of them in highschool and college for fun, and in my early 20’s I started CrossFit. I have never known a time when I couldn’t do multiple strict pull ups, and I have kipped a lot of pull ups over the last 10 or so years in CrossFit. But I am older now, and life changes, things gain or lose importance and priority. I don’t compete in CrossFit, I just do it to stay in shape and have fun, so I rarely kip pull ups and I almost never butterfly them. All of my goals can be accomplished by not kipping them or only doing it to the level of my control.
Now, we talked a lot about pull ups but there are other movements you can kip, toes to bar, handstand pushups, dips, etc. But no matter what the movement is, it is important and intelligent to have the strength and control to do them strict before trying to add in the dynamic of kipping. All of them have the potential to hurt you the faster you do them, but in my opinion the pull up can be the most dangerous because your entire body weight is falling through the air relying on your shoulders to catch it.
Of course it can be done, and done safely, but evaluate your fitness goals before learning the kip.