Chin-Ups

Primary Muscles Worked:	Description:
Latissimus Dorsi (Lats)	The largest muscles of the back.

Secondary Muscles Worked:	Description:
Rhomboids, Teres Major, Trapezius	Upper back muscles that move the arm backwards.
Biceps Brachii	Flexing muscles of the upper arm.

How To Do It

Tricks

Common Errors

Variations

The Chin-Up is one of the most effective exercises for your back because it is a bodyweight movement. It can be used to target all the major muscles of your back. The chin-up also has the advantage of being very versatile: it can be done anytime and anyplace there is a bar or branch to hang from.

Take a shoulder-width, palms-up grip on a bar that allows you to hang free and straight.
A designated chin-up bar or a high Smith machine bar works well for this.
Start with everything relaxed and stretched.
Initiate the movement by first raising the ribcage up and dropping your shoulders (keeping your arms perfectly straight).
This action occurs only at the shoulder. It is essentially shrugging your body upward.

When your ribcage is up, proceed to pull up to the bar while simultaneously arching your lower back and leaning backwards. This maximally activates the lats.
You will be pulling up to the bottom of your ribcage. The traditional pull to the chin does not isolate the lats, making the biceps do more of the work.
Lower yourself down slowly, drop your ribcage at the shoulders, feeling the stretch but without losing tension in the shoulder sockets, then continue.

1. Effective versions

The close-grip versions are more effective for lat development and are easier on the shoulders than wide-grip versions.

2. Hands as hooks

Imagine your hands as hooks and try to pull from the elbows - the more you grip with your fingers, the more you activate the biceps.

3. Thumbless grip

Using a thumbless grip will take the biceps out of the exercise more.

4. Spotting

To spot this exercise, have your training partner push up on your lower back, not on your feet. This helps with the correct motion of the exercise.

5. Adding resistance

To add resistance do weighted chins.

Set a dumbell on the floor or on the end of a bench.
Grasp the bar then hook your ankles around the dumbell so that the plates are behind and in front of them.
If you can reach the bar from a standing position, try setting the dumbell between your feet using your hands.
Hold the dumbell tightly. Pull up as before.
A hip belt with the weight hanging between your legs can also be used.
Alternatively, you can have a training partner pull down on your legs.

6. Burning out

To really burn out on chins, do not drop your ribcage after each rep and do not completely straighten your arms.

Rep out as fast as you can in the shortened range of motion, reversing direction hard at about the usual halfway point and coming back up.
You will get a lot more reps.
Do not worry about the negative portion of the reps.
This is a good way to start a chin-up workout while you are fresh. It will get a lot of blood into the lats.

7. Flexed arm hang

Hold yourself in the top (contracted) position of the chin-up for as long as possible, resisting all the way down until you are at a dead hang.

This works best at the end of a back workout to finish off your back.
It works biceps and grip well also.
This is a version of static contraction training.
It can also be done with extra weight.

8. Rigging a chin-up bar

If you don't have a good chin-up bar where you work out, you can solve this by taking a regular straight bar and resting it over top of something high and level.

If you have a power rack without a chin-up bar, simply rest the bar over top of the rack.
There are a lot of things you can use if you use your imagination.

9. Chin-up burnout set

For a chin-up burnout set, start with the weakest grip (wide grip) then, when you can't do anymore with that grip, move to the next strongest grip (palms facing, close grip) then the next (parallel grip).

10. Chins away from the gym

Finding a suitable place to chin in the home environment can be tricky but is very useful for home workouts.

Basements often have rafters that you can try hanging from. If the rafters are too awkward to grip, try placing a strong bar across the top of them.
A portable chin-up bar is a very useful tool for back work.
You may have to find a tree limb or nearby park with a jungle gym (the monkey bars make perfect chin-up bars).
If you have a child's swing set in the back yard, the top cross bar may work (be very sure that it is stable and will support your weight).

1. Going too fast

This includes pulling up too fast and dropping down too fast.

Pulling up too fast reduces the tension you get on the muscles while dropping down too fast can injure your shoulders (when they are forced to absorb the impact of your mass coming down).
If you are so tired that you can't slow yourself down with muscle power, let go of the bar and land on your feet rather than jarring your shoulders unnecessarily.

2. Jerking the body around

This is invariably done in attempt to get to the top of the rep. While it may not lead to injury it does not lead to muscular tension and is therefore not a good thing to do.

3. Relaxing the shoulders at the bottom

In all chin-up, pull-up and pulldown movements, when you allow the shoulder girdle to rise, don't relax your shoulder in the joint.

Just relax at the shoudler blades. This prevents overstretching of the shoulder joint itself.
What this means is at the bottom, stretch the back, not the shoulders.

4. Consistently doing partial reps

While doing partial reps occasionally is not bad, you should primarily do full range reps to develop the back fully.

Don't worry if this reduces the number of reps you can do.
Your results will be greater in the long run.

1. Wide-Grip Pull-Ups To The Front

This is a variation similar to the wide-grip pulldown to the front.

Take a wider-than-shoulder, palms forward grip.
Initiate the movement by first lifting your ribcage without bending your arms.
As you pull up, arch your lower back and lean slightly backwards.
Pull up until the bar touches high on your chest or as close as you can get to that. Lower slowly.

This exercise works the upper lats and rhomboids.
It is often used to build the illusion of width across the back.

These can also be done with an ultra-wide grip with the aim of widening your shoulders.

Take a grip as wide as physically possible and do pull-ups.
Hang at the bottom and feel the stretch in your scapulae.
Do not lose tension in the shoulder joints themselves as this places a dislocating stress on the connective tissue.
The aim here is to spread the scapulae, not destabilize the shoulder joint.
The range of motion on this exercise is extremely short (only about six inches or so).
There is debate on whether or not this type of exercise can actually widen the shoulders.
If you are not strong enough to do these, superset wide-grip pulldowns with ultra-wide grip hangs.

2. Wide-Grip Pull-Ups To The Rear

Same starting position and movement initiation as to the front. Pull up with your head in front of the bar.

This exercise is NOT recommended as it places the shoulders in an extremely delicate position (extreme external rotation).
This movement works less the lats than the smaller teres, rhomboids, and middle/lower trapezius muscles.
Do not hunch your head forward during execution in order to do these.
A good alternative to this exercise that works the same muscles is to pull only up to the top of your head.
Pull straight up and down in that plane, not moving your body in front of the bar but keeping it directly over the midline of your body.

3. One-Arm Chins

This is a very advanced exercise. Grip the bar with one hand then chin.

To make it possible to do, try grasping the forearm of your gripping arm with your other arm.
Grabbing up by the wrist is easier - the lower you grab on your forearm, the harder it is as you progressively decrease the leverage of the non-working arm.
This is a good exercise to do 1 arm negatives with.