General Training Philosophy
Train the chin-up Often, with multiple variations, weights and rep ranges, but do not train to failure and let your body get “good” at the movement and efficient at it (because you train so often). This is also known as “greasing the groove” in this case it’s not a physical groove but rather a movement pattern in our nervous system.
There are 2 factors at work here. First we want to train as often as possible so the groove gets greased. But if we keep doing the same thing over and over we get over trained, nervous system fatigue, injured, muscle imbalances, and stagnate quickly.
The key is not to go out and do all other kinds of crazy exercises, rather the important thing to do is to do things “the same, but different”. That means instead of doing chin-ups, we will do pull-ups sometimes, which are the same movement but with a slightly different emphasis.
Sometimes we will do chin-ups with partner assistance, sometimes with added weights, sometimes we pull at different angles. All these are the “same” but “different”. It leads to progress with far smaller chance of stagnation or injury. This is the best of both worlds.
Personally I use a similar method through my own year round training program. I can do a 1 handed chin-up and a 2 handed chin-up with an additional 75kg hanging from my body.
This method also works for my clients who may be new to strength training. I had one client who was overweight at 90kg, and has never done a chin-up since his BMT days 8 years ago. But, in just 8 weeks, he can do 4. Training less than 3 hours per week TOTAL, but doing several sets of chin-ups several times per week (perhaps 10% of his training time spent on chin-ups).
Let’s talk about training more in detail.
You will need to do some specific training for weak body parts because they can hold you back from poor performance. You might have the strongest arm and back muscles in the world but weak hands and forearms can keep you from a good performance.
For your hands and forearms, I strongly recommend grippers and forearm rollers. Since you need a lot of static strength in them to “crush” the bar and hang on, train them the correct way. I would get a challenging gripper and do a few sets of 30-45 seconds each time after your chin-up workouts. I would also make my own roller and do a 3-4 sets at home while watching TV. In addition we will use a towel to build up chin-up grip strength. Hook a towel around the chinup bar and grip that instead of the bar to perform your chinups.
Another common area of weakness is the upper back. To do chin-ups and their variations correctly. The main problem many people have is the inability to get their shoulder blades pinched together and down. You will know if this is a weakness for you when you find that you can start a chinup but can’t finish it. We are weak here because many people have slouching and hunched over posture where your upper back is in a constant state of tension. This makes the muscles weak and excessively long. (Despite what the yoga people say, getting your muscles to be “longer” is not always a good thing!). Now when you want them to contract forcefully to get your chin over the bar, oops, they are so weak and long that it becomes impossible.
In Training
When training, be super strict. Arms fully extended. No swinging. Chin as far over the bar as possible. Lower yourself slowly. Pause at the bottom.
Remember that this is training, and you should make it as hard as possible. There are people who encourage kipping i.e. looking like you are having a seizure or being electrocuted on the bar. This may boost your chin up numbers in training, but it does not make you stronger as fast as strict repetitions. In addition, they don’t count in the test!
During the test
Because you have been so strict during training, a bit of swing during the test will make each chinup feel really easy. During the test, do not lower too slowly and do not wait at the bottom. This allows your body to rebound at the bottom and get the next rep more easily. Stop when your rep is counted and your chin has just cleared the bar. These distance and energy saving tips are worth a few reps in themselves.