4 Great Ways to Do Chinups – For Those of You Who Can’t Do Chinups! By Eugene Thong CSCS
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4 Great Ways to Do Chinups – For Those of You Who Can’t Do Chinups! By Eugene Thong CSCS ..................................................................................
There’s no disputing that the simple chin-up is a king among upper body exercises. However, if you’re overfat, weak, and/or just plain out of shape, how can you reap the benefits of this exercise?
A little explanation is in order before we jump right into the nitty-gritty.
The reason chinups are so valuable is two-fold:
First, chinups build upper body strength in short order, mostly because they require a high level of effort for most trainees to complete.
Second, chinups involve a great deal of upper body musculature; they work the lats, biceps, pec minor, shoulders, and abs (in fact, chinups are one of the BEST ab exercises you can do). As you know, exercises that maximize the amount of muscles worked are great for fat loss, which puts the chinup high on our priority list.
Whats the difference between chinups and pullups?
Incidentally, you may be wondering about the difference between chinups and their close relative, pullups. Chinups are performed with your palms facing you, with what’s known as an underhand or “supinated” grip, while pullups are done with the palms rotated away from you (an overhand or “pronated” grip).
You may also be wondering why we advocate chinups over pullups. Well, we advocate pullups as well – however, because the biceps have little leverage in pullups, they are harder to perform than chinups. Since this article is geared towards folks who can’t quite do chinups yet, we’d like to make the progressions as easy to perform as possible – trust me, they’ll be hard enough!
1. Reverse Pushup
I know what you’re thinking – “What the? I thought this article was about Chinups!” Well, it is, and the reverse pushup is the first progression of chinning we teach. Despite the name, the reverse pushup is actually an upper body pull, as you’re pulling yourself up to the bar. It’s best performed on a Smith machine (one of the few valid uses of a Smith machine), but can also be done by placing a bar between two benches or during a rest period while bench pressing.
Work up to a set of 8-12 reps. Once you can do that, lower the bar.
2. Negative-Only
Reverse pushups are a nice substitute exercise to help strengthen your “chinup muscles”, but let’s jump into being able to do the real thing. By performing just the negative, or lowering phase, of the chinup, you can slowly build up enough strength to both lift and lower yourself.
Here’s a little known fact: You can use as much as 40% more weight when performing the negative vs. the positive (or lifting). How this happens is physiologically complex, but you needn’t just take my word for it, try it out for yourself: Grab a dumbbell that’s difficult for you to curl. Curl it once – notice how much easier the lowering phase is?
Apply this trick to the chinup:
1. Find a chinup bar that has steps (i.e., a chinup station at the gym) or alternatively, grab a bench or some other step and place it below the chinup bar.
2. Stand on the step and use that to position your body in the top position of the chinup (i.e., the “contracted” position).
3. Lift your feet off of the step, and lower yourself by extending your arms. Do this as slowly as you can. Repeat until you can perform 5 slow, smooth reps.
Progress on this exercise by adding weight to your body. Some good ways are by attaching plates to a dip belt, wearing a weighted vest, or simply slipping the additional weights into your pockets (not recommended with 45 pound plates).
3. Isometric Holds
The next step up from Negative Only reps would be isometrically holding yourself in the top position of the chinup.
Little-known fact #2 – You can support more weight in an isometric hold than you can lift.
Let’s go back to our earlier example of the simple dumbbell curl. While the dumbbell may be quite difficult for you to curl, holding the dumbbell with your arm bent at 90 degrees (i.e., the “midpoint”), while not easy, is far easier than curling it. In fact, you’re likely to find that you can hold your arm in that position for quite a long time.
Holding a weight in a static position is easier than lifting it, but not as easy as lowering that same weight. So in terms of strength,
You are strongest in the negative (or lowering) phase, You are weaker in an isometric (or static) hold, and You are weakest in the positive (or lifitng) phase.
We can apply that knowledge to our chinup progressions by adding a 5-10 second isometric hold at the top of each rep. This will allow us to derive more strength benefits from each rep.
Progression on this variation is the same as in Negative Only: Add weight as you get stronger.
4. “McKean” Chinups
This final variation is for those of you that can manage none of the other variations in this article. I’ve personally used it successfully with an elderly survivor of three heart attacks, so I’m fairly certain most anyone will be able to progress using this exercise (Hat tip to John McKean for this exercise).
“McKean” chinups could also be rightly called “One-legged” chinups. They are also slightly embarrassing to perform, but it’s ok. You’ll be laughing at everyone else in 6 months when you’re doing chinups and they’re still waddling about on a treadmill wondering why they aren’t losing any fat.
This exercise is best done using a Smith machine, but setting up a bar in a squat rack or power cage will work as well.
Work up to two sets of 10 reps. Stand on your left leg for one entire set, then stand on your right leg for an entire set.
Silly? Perhaps. Effective? No question.
The chinup is a great exercise, but not readily accessible for everyone. These 4 chinup progressions will help you on your way to being able to perform chinups and accelerate your upper body development.
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