How to Get Strong On... Chins

 

Part One of a "How to Get Strong On (fill-in-the-blank)" Series

     Based on a whole slew—or, well, at least a handful—of emails that I’ve received in recent weeks, I thought it might be a good idea to do a series dealing with how to get strong on various lifts and exercises.  I don’t know how long or short this series will be.  It depends on how many exercises I end up covering, and if there’s interest from readers for additional tips about exercises I don’t cover at first.  So, hell, this thing could just be two articles or it could be five or six.  We’ll just wait and see.

     Questions I receive regarding getting stronger on certain exercises come in, generally, two forms.  Some readers will ask about specific powerlifts or quick lifts; stuff such as how to get stronger on the bench press, the squat, the deadlift, the overhead press, the power clean, or some variation of those seem to be the most common.  The other questions deal with how to get stronger on different bodyweight-centric exercises, such as chins, dips, push ups, or even an exercise such as the pistol squat.  (I’ve never done pistol squats, except for brief lapses into trying them a few times in my lifting career, so I’m not qualified to discuss that last one—I usually just redirect those questioners to one of Pavel Tsatsouline’s books or articles.)  In the first type of questions, the reader generally wants to know how to get strong for a max triple, double, or single; they want to know, in other words, how to lift genuinely heavy weights.  In the second type of question, it's usually geared toward repetition training, such as how to get strong enough to do one set of 50, or even 100, reps in the push up.

     With the exception of the three powerlifts—which we probably won’t cover in this series; I have plenty of articles that have those covered already—I think the main exercise I get asked about is the good, ol’ fashioned chin (or the pull-up—I don’t make a distinction between the two lifts; I know some trainers and trainees do).  It makes sense, chins are an exercise that almost anyone who ever exercised at all has done at one point or another, or tried to do.  When I was a kid in the ‘80s, our chinning strength was routinely tested by our P.E. coaches.  In the various branches of the military, pull ups are a regular part of their fitness tests.  It’s an exercise that can be done by almost anyone anywhere due to the minimal equipment that’s required.  You can go down to one of your local “marts,” for example, and easily purchase a set of chinning/pull-up bars that can go in almost any doorway of your home.  And if you don’t want to do that, and even if you don’t have a gym membership, you can just venture to almost any park or playground in America, where you’ll find easy access to some monkey bars or other playground equipment ready-made for chins.  So, yeah, I guess it makes sense that I get asked about chins with relative frequency.  It also makes sense that it should be the first exercise covered in this series.

     Often, a reader will say that he can do only one or, at the most, two chins.  As long as you can do at least one chin up, my first set of instructions is for you.  Afterwards, I’ll give some advice for those of you who can’t even do one chin.

     Okay, first things first, however.  Some people can’t do a single chin because they’re overweight.  That’s okay.  In fact, one great thing about the chin is the fact that when you combine training for pull-up strength with losing weight it makes the results come all the faster because you’re both getting stronger on the movement and you’re consistently using less weight.  This means the weight used (your bodyweight) decreases as your strength increases, and your reps on chins seem to skyrocket in no time flat.

     Now, on with the training.

     If you can do at least one chin-up, start by doing singles, resting several minutes between sets until you can’t do another single—or until the singles get damn tough.  Do one set of chins.  Rest three to five minutes; that’s correct, that much!  Even though you’re using your bodyweight, this is still strength training, which means that you need to make sure you’re completely rested between sets.  Probably more than 5 minutes isn’t necessary, but, heck, you could rest as long as 10 minutes between sets if you wanted, though I don’t really recommend that much rest.  Do another single.  Rest.  And so on and so forth.  Although you could stop when you can’t get a rep, I would stop at the point that you manage to get the repetition, but just barely.

     Train in this manner 3x per week.  If you’re doing a full-body workout Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, then this slots in perfectly.

     Once you manage to get 10 singles with ease, add reps at the next session.  At this point, you would do sets of 2 until 2 reps gets tough, but still make sure that you get 10 sets.  This means that the first workout might only have one or two sets of 2 reps, followed by 8 or 9 singles.  Continue in this manner until you can get 10 sets of doubles.

     A few weeks of workouts might look something such as this:

Week One

Monday - 3 singles

Wednesday - 4 singles

Friday - 6 singles

Week Two

Monday - 8 singles

Wednesday - 8 singles (that’s right; sometimes you’ll be stuck at a certain amount of singles for a workout or two; sometimes your sets might even go down; don’t fret, just stick with the program)

Friday - 10 singles

Week Three

Monday - 1 set of 2 reps; 9 sets of 1

Wednesday - 2 sets of 2 reps; 8 sets of 1

Friday - 2 sets of 2 reps; 8 sets of 1

Week Four

Monday - 4 sets of 2 reps; 6 sets of 1

Wednesday - 3 sets of 2 reps; 7 sets of 1

Friday - 5 sets of 2 reps; 5 set of 1

     And so on and so forth.  Once you get 10 sets of 2 reps, at this point you may want to switch to something different.  Or you may have to change at the 6-week mark of running the program, even if you’ve not quite reached the goal you may have set for yourself.  Sometimes your body just needs a change of pace, and 6 to 8 weeks is usually but not always the limit for how long you should stay on the same program.

     This program works no matter the style of pull-up you want to get stronger on—wide grip chins, neutral grip, thick-bar chins, reverse grip; doesn’t matter.  In fact, one way to make a change after 6 to 8 weeks is to simply go to a different style of chinning movement.  Always remember one of the keys to consistent strength gains: same but different.  Any time you’re trying to get stronger on a certain exercise, and you feel as if your strength gains are coming to a halt, change to another exercise, but not one that is completely different from your current one.  If you’re trying to get stronger on deadlifts, for instance, and have been lifting in a conventional style, then simply changing over to sumo deadlifts or deficit deadlifts will be all you need.  If you change from deadlifts to bent-over rows, even though they’re both back movements, the rows won’t have a carryover to your deadlifts.  So repeat after me: same but different.

     If you’re fairly strong on chins already, but want to get stronger, you can still use a similar pattern to what is above, but, if this is you, then I would probably train a bit less frequently but with more overall workload.  (Your workload will naturally be higher, anyway, since you can do more reps from the beginning.)

     Let’s say that our hypothetical lifter (chinner?) can do 10 reps before reaching failure.  This lifter would do well by starting with 8 sets of 5 reps—half of his or her total reps-to-failure—and training twice per week.  At each session, the lifter will add a couple of sets for 6 reps, and then the remainder of the sets will be 5 reps.  You can continue in this manner for as long as you feel as if you’re getting gains from the program, constantly pushing up the reps over the course of weeks of chins.

     A few weeks of training in this case would look something such as this:

Week One

Monday - 8 sets of 5 reps

Thursday - 2 sets of 6 reps, 6 sets of 5 reps

Week Two

Monday - 4 sets of 6 reps, 4 sets of 5 reps

Thursday - 6 sets of 6 reps, 2 sets of 5 reps

Week Three

Monday - 8 sets of 6 reps

Thursday - 2 sets of 7 reps, 6 sets of 6 reps

Week Four

Monday - 4 sets of 7 reps, 4 sets of 6 reps

Thursday - 6 sets of 7 reps, 2 sets of 6 reps

Week Five

Monday - 8 sets of 7 reps

Thursday - 2 sets of 8 reps, 6 sets of 7 reps

     You can keep this up as long as you want, but you’ll probably want to stop at around the 6-week mark, once again, and try a slightly different program.  You could, for instance, take a break from chins for a few weeks, then return to them but start training even heavier by doing weighted chins but following a similar pattern of sets/reps as the previous programs.

     The beauty of the above program is that it starts off relatively easy.  In fact, you’re going to think you’re not doing enough for the first week.  But then it starts to get tougher as you continue to push your reps upward over the following weeks, yet not so tough that it can’t be performed.  The key is to not lie to yourself about your strength.  If you think you could probably get 10 reps, but really can only get 7 or 8, then the program won’t work.

     Whatever your maximum number of reps are for one set of chin, always start by doing 8 sets of half that number.  If you can only get 6 chins, for instance, then you would start the program on the first Monday by doing 8 sets of 3 reps.

     Okay, what if you want to get stronger on chins but you can’t even do a single repetition?  First, maybe don’t even worry about attempting chins yet.  Is the problem that you’re overweight?  Are you just weak?  Or is it a combination of the two?

     If you’re severely overweight, then start by losing weight.  Yeah, I know it’s common sense, but common sense often seems rare these days, especially in the lifting/training/bodybuilding world.  Once you’ve lost the weight, and can do at least one chin, then you can start on the first program herein.

     If it’s because you’re weak, then you may be best served by starting your weight training journey with a basic, full-body program (I have plenty of them here on my blog).  Once you’ve built up your strength through squats, overhead presses, deadlifts, power cleans, et al, then add some chins to your regimen.

     One mistake lifters make is thinking they can substitute lat pulldowns for chins.  In my experience, that makes you stronger on pulldowns but does essentially nothing for your chinning strength.  By all means, do pulldowns if you want, but don’t live under the impression that it will make your chins stronger.

     If you still want to build up your chinning strength but can’t do a single repetition, then start by either only doing the negative portion of the lift, or by using bands to aid in doing the positive portion of the rep.

     If you have access to bands, then start with them.  Loop one end of the band beneath one of your hanging legs, around knee level, and the other on the chinning bar.  The “heavier” the band, the easier it will be to do them.  Use a program similar to one of the ones above, and slowly start adding in lighter bands until you don’t need one and can do chins with just your bodyweight.

     And if you don’t have access to bands, or simply don’t want to use them, then simply start by doing sets of singles, but only do the negative portion of the rep.  Get a stool or a chair to place yourself in position at the top of the rep, or have a workout partner assist you in doing the positive portion of the movement, then lower yourself slowly for one rep.  Start by doing, perhaps, three sets of singles, adding a single or two at each session.  Once you are doing somewhere between 10 to 15 singles, at the next workout test your chinning strength.  You should now be able to do one, maybe even two reps, and can embark on the first program of this essay.

     The truth is that there are multiple ways that you can get stronger on chins, just as there are multiple ways to get stronger on all exercises.  One thing to keep in mind, however, whether you utilize one of these programs or a program someone else came up with, is to stay away from training to failure.  In my essay yesterday on “To Fail or Not to Fail,” I listed some reasons why you may, or may not, want to take your sets to momentary muscular failure.  And training to failure has its place, but rarely in the world of pure strength training.  If you just go to the gym and start doing set after set—or even just one or two sets—of chins to failure, then that training, by and large, simply isn’t good for strength and you will be doing nothing other than spinning your wheels.

     I hope this essay has, at the very least, given you some food for thought when it comes to increasing your chinning strength.  If anyone wants to see another exercise covered in this series, simply email me or leave your suggestion in the comments section below.  Until next time, good luck and good chinning!