JKConditioning: 4 Tips to Help You Perform Chin Ups

Thursday, 22 December, 2011

4 Tips to Help You Perform Chin Ups

This morning, my client, Phyllis amazed me and herself.

I've been training her since June 2011 and when we started, she had difficulty performing pushups on a massage table (hands on the edge of a table, feet on the floor). Not to put her down at all, but just to give you an idea on where she started.

Well, Phyllis, is a young 62 and has decided to make fitness apart of her life.

She has been very successful over the past 6 months and has hit many milestones along the way.

This morning she hit another - she performed her 1st body weight chin up, neutral grip EVER in her life. I'm sooo proud of her. The look on her face after completing the repetition is why I love my job so much.

It's never too late to start, you just have to want it enough.

I've also helped other female clients achieve great upper body strength, something that women are not known for having much of compared to guys. Check out my buddy and fellow personal trainer and massage therapist Meg Mounce performing a pull up in the picture above. I've helped many female clients perform chin ups including my wife Julia. I've been strength training her for the upcoming track and field season.

This was her last week - let me set the stage first. I've been strength training her since August 2011 consistently. She had decent upper body strength - being able to perform roughly 8 body weight chin ups. She started doing weighted chin ups in August with 5lb.

She flicked on her Beast Mode switch for this:

Julia 33lb Chin Up from Jon-Erik Kawamoto on Vimeo.

"Hey Jon, I'm female - how can I start doing chin ups?"

I'm glad you asked. Here are some tips.

First some lingo:

Chin ups: double underhand grip
Pull ups: double overhand grip
Neutral grip: palms facing together grip

1. Incorporate band assisted pull ups or machine assisted chin ups into your program. In one workout, perform 5 sets of 5 repetitions within a circuit or as straight sets. If performing as straight sets, take 90 second rests between sets.

2. Incorporate pull up negatives in your program. Jump up to the top position of a pull up and go down as slow as you can (called the eccentric phase). Jump up and repeat. Perform 5 sets of 5 repetitions on a different day during the week. Incorporate into a circuit or perform as straight sets.

3. If possible, try to perform chin ups/pull ups on rings. They are easier on your joints. If not, focus more on neutral grip and double over hand grip pull ups.

You can purchase rings here.

4. The more times you can do assisted or negative chin ups during the week, the better and stronger you'll get. Don't worry about bulk - look at the girls in my videos...are they bulky??

Please for the love of Christmas, do not perform kipping pull ups. If you don't know what they are, it's probably better that way. Here's a great quote from Mark Rippetoe from his latest book, Starting Strength 3rd Ed.:

‎"Kipping chin-ups and pull-ups have proven themselves to be useless as a way to strengthen the strict versions of the movement, and in the absence of enough strength to do the strict versions, they have proven to be dangerous for shoulder health."