Exercise Essentials, Part 3: Chin-Up

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Exercise Essentials, Part 3: Chin-Up


What is a chin-up?

Like the exercises discussed earlier in this series, the chin-up is another one of those very simple exercises. The pull-up is the king of upper body exercises. It builds strength and muscle in your forearms, biceps, lats, and upper back better than any other upper body strength exercise you’ll find. To perfom a chinup it doesn't get any easier grab a bar hanging at arms length. Then pull yourself up so that your chin is over the bar, lower yourself back to the starting positionÂ

Why chin-up?

As mention earlier the chin-up truelly is a great upper-body muscle builder. Â When a chinup is performed correctly it works the forearms, biceps, lats, and upper back, as well as many core/abdominal muscles as stabilizers, it also hits hte rear delts, and other back muscles (middle and lower traps, rhomboids) .Many consider the chin-up to be the “upper body squat.”
As the chin-up requires you to lift your own body-weight, a heavier person has to be that much stronger to lift their own bodyweigh. Â A person who can hitrep after rep of perfect chins probably isn’t carrying a lot of extra body fat.
Types of chin-ups

There are many variations of the chin-up. Â Here are some common varieties.

• Standard Standard dead-hang pull up is grasped with an overhand/underhand/alternative-hand grip. Then the body is pulled up until the chin clears the bar, and finished by lowering the body until arms and shoulders are fully extended. Stricter standards would only consider a full repetition to be one in which the elbows pass behind the coronal plane.
• WeightedWeight is added using a dipping belt, or grasping a dumbbell with the feet, or weight vest/shorts
• Behind-the-neck pull-upThe chin is dropped. The goal of the pull-up is to touch the bar with the back of the neck.
• One arm A one arm pull-up is performed by grasping the bar with only one hand while pulling up. This is difficult due to the considerable strength required.
• Muscle-up The muscle-up is performed by pulling up, but rather than stopping with the chin or chest touching the bar, the arms are straightened, raising the body above the bar. Generally the initial pull-up uses an overhand grip to make the switch easier and is more explosive in order to take advantage of momentum from the first half of the exercise to aid in the second half.
• Supine row Sometimes called an "Australian pull-up", "reverse push-up", "inclined pull-up" or "inverted row", this is performed with the bar 2 to 3 feet off the floor. The user lies on the ground under the bar, face-up, and grasps the bar with extended arms. The exercise is performed by pulling the chest up to the bar. The body is held in a rigid plank position while the heels remain on the floor.
• Mixed grip One hand is placed in the overhand (pronated) position and the other is placed in the underhand (supinated) position to provide variation on the elbow flexors used.

Progressing a chin-up

For those who cannot perform full chin-ups, there are several ways to assist the movement, so you can train it anyway.

• Band-Assisted Chin-Ups – Perform chins with an elastic band wrapped from the bar around your knee. Â The band will lessen the weight you have to pull yourself without changing the mechanics of the exercise too much. Â As you get stronger, use a lighter-grade band to increase the difficulty until you don’t need a band at all.
• Object Assisted Chin-Ups – Use a chair, stool, bench, or friend to support your feet while you chin. Â You choose how much to push against said object. Â More leg push makes the exercise easier. Â This method works fine, but can be difficult to judge progress (hard to measure how hard you are pushing off).
• Eccentric-Only Chin-Ups - Use a stool, partner, or strong jump to get your chin over the bar. Â Hang for a moment, then lower yourself slowly to a dead hang and repeat. Â As you gain strength, take more time to lower yourself. Â Strong people can drag this period out to 60 seconds or more!
• Machine Assisted Chin-Ups – Yep, they’ve got a machine for this.  The platform reduces your perceived weight by the amount you select on the weight stack.  As you gain strength, reduce the weight you choose.  This variation is not the best choice because the platform holds your knees still, which alters the movement pattern.

Performing a chin-up (or pull-up) correctly

While the chin-up variation may change , somethings don't change

• Use a full range of motion – Start from a dead hang, arms fully extended,
• Initiate with your scapulae – as you pull your body up to the bar, squeeze your shoulder blades back and down, hard
• Pull through your elbows –
• Keep your body stable and still - Don't swing your body

Summary

Points to remember

• The chin-up is a great upper body muscle builder. It builds strength and muscle in your forearms, biceps, lats, and upper back
• There are many different variations of chin-ups
• If you can’t do a chin-up yet, don't worry there are ways to work on that to progress your upper body strength