Doing My First Chin Up / Pull Up

Hi everyone. Firstly, sorry for the very late post this week. Work has been crazy for the past few days, so I didn’t get a chance to post anything. Now since I have a bit more time, I decided I better quickly write something, so I decided to write about doing chin ups / pull ups, because lots of people tell me they can’t do it and want to know how to train for it. So here are some tips to help you do your first chin up / pull up soon.

Before we continue on with this, it is important to note the difference between a chin up and a pull up. A full Chin Up or Pull Up is where the body is suspended by extended arms gripping a fixed bar, then pulled up until the elbows are bent and the head is higher than the hands. So that’s what you want to be aiming for. Not just pulling yourself half way up. Though the overall movement is similar, there is a huge difference in the grip which makes one easier and the other more difficult to do. A chin up is done with and underhand (supinated) grip. This is easier to do than a pull up which uses an overhand (pronated) grip. Both movements require tremendous upper body strength so if you still can’t do even 1 chin up or pull up, don’t worry or feel embarrassed about it. When I was younger, I couldn’t do 1 either. Follow these tips and hopefully, you will actually be able to do your first full chin up or pull up soon.

Heavy Weights Low Reps
As you know, doing a chin up or pull requires tremendous strength. In fitness, strength is basically your ability to get the muscles to do what you want them to do over a short period of time. So when it comes to chin ups, you want to be able to lift your body up. When it comes to training for strength, you want to use heavy weights and low reps. This basically helps to condition your Central Nervous System (CNS) to give you that jolt of strength that you need. When it comes to strength, a big part of how strong you are is the ability for your CNS to provide enough impulse to your muscle to act. The more practice the CNS gets at sending signals to the muscles telling them to move with great force, the stronger you become and the way to do that is to keep pushing on heavier and heavier weights. You want to primarily hit your biceps, back and shoulders real heavy as these are the primary muscles you will be using during a chin up or pull up. If these muscles are weak, then you are going to have a lot of trouble doing a complete chin up or pull up.

How heavy should you lift? You want to lift weights that only allows you to complete between 4 to 6 reps. So if you can lift more than 6, the weight is too light for you. Pick up something heavier! So when you train your biceps, back and shoulders, make sure you choose a weight that only allows you to complete between 4 to 6 reps.

Lose that Tummy
OK if you can’t do chin ups and have a bulging tummy, here is another reason to lose that tummy. The point is doing a chin up is hard enough already. So give yourself an added advantage by reducing any unwanted baggage that you are carrying with you and lose all that unwanted fat. Not saying you can’t do chin ups with all that fat around your stomach, but why add a disadvantage to yourself? So watch your diet, do more cardio, but work on reducing your body fat percentage. The leaner you become, the easier it will be to do a complete chin up.

Use the Law of S.A.I.D
Out of all the laws of fitness out there, this one has to be one of my favourites. The law of SAID stands for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. In normal English, what this means is, if you want to get good at something, just keep doing more of it. The closer you replicate your exercise to the actual movement, the better you will get at doing the actual thing. For example, if you want to get good at arm wrestling, doing lots of biceps curls is good but turning every workout you have into an arm wrestling contest will be better because that replicates the actual movement more than a bicep curl.

So when it comes to chin ups, doing bicep curls are OK, doing pulling exercises are good, pull downs are better, weight assisted chin ups are even better, but the best would be doing it with a spot. Now, when you spot someone for chin ups, the spotter doesn’t have to lift you up and down. He just provides a resting place for your feet and you push off just enough with your legs to get you going. In other words, you decide how much assistance you need and who knows better than you yourself. The less assistance you rely on, the better. So try your best to use as little as your legs as you can. As you improve, you will rely less and less on your legs until finally you can do it without any assistance.

Sticking Points
Now as you improve, you will be able to do a partial chin up and somewhere in the middle of the movement, you are going to get stuck and this is what they call the sticking point. One of the best ways to overcome sticking points is to do isometric exercises. So lift yourself up to your sticking point (no assistance), and once you reach it, hold that position as long as you can. Keep doing sets of this exercise and you will soon find you will be able to overcome this dreaded sticking point. Now this isometric exercise should be in addition to your normal workout following the law of SAID and not a replacement of it.

So there you have it. Some tips to help you overcome you inability of doing chin ups or pull ups. If you follow all these tips, I guarantee you will be able to do chin ups in no time. How long it takes is up to you and how hard to train and follow these tips. But remember, everyone can do it as long as you have the right tools…. And these tips help you to have the tools.

Go ahead, try it and I hope those who can’t do chin ups now will be able to overcome this and do chin ups. It really isn’t as hard as you think it is. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments