chin up help please - and resistance band selection

[danlightbulb]

I'm frustrated my chin ups are so poor. I'm doing the starting strength program, lifts progressing well, but I can only do at most 3 chin ups on the first set (less on some days) followed by just 1 for the next two sets and its slooooow to complete the reps. I can't do a single pull up.

I've tried doing chin ups on deadlift days and on power clean days and they are poor on both.

I've tried doing negatives and it just seems to make my arms sore, and not really helping get my numbers up.

There is an assisted chin up machine in my gym but I've been told that they are not worth bothering with, same with doing lat pulldowns instead.


So I'm thinking about getting a resistance band but I don't know what size to get? These are the available sizes:

Band Resistance
# 1 - Mini (Plain) 5-35 lbs £7.50
# 2 - Super Mini (Red) 10-50 lbs £11.50
# 3 - Small (Blue) 25-80 lbs £14.50
# 4 - Medium (Green) 50-120 lbs £20.00
# 5 - Large (Black) 60-150 lbs £28.00
# 6 - XLarge (Orange) 70-175 lbs £39.00


Is there anything else I can do to help progress my chin ups I'd really like to be getting the benefits from them but doing a max of 3 like I can now isn't going to be helping at all.

Thanks
Dan

[G1981C]

Just do the lat pulldown machine. Nothing wrong with it. Even when i could do 30 chin ups @ 215 lbs bodyweight i still used the pull down machine most of the time. The whole stack wasn't heavy enough for me, but i would simply hang a 25 pound plate on the pin ( which was probably a really bad idea and dangerous ). I would sometimes do real Chin Ups just for the cool factor, both with bodyweight and with added weights but the pulldown machine was always my staple - i preferred it for training, and used the real chin ups mostly to test my strength.

You can use different form both on real chin up and on pulldown machine - it's not what equipment you use in this case, but how you use it. the technique is going to be different on the machine vs real chin ups but the muscles targeted will be mostly the same depending on what form you use. If you cheat a lot the difference between machine and chin up will be large, but if you use strict form it will be small.

the advantage of the machine is you can dial in the exact resistance level. once you get strong enough you will be able to do the same with regular chin ups using weight belt or holding a dumbbell with your knees, but even so the machine is still going to be better for quick weight adjustments, drop sets etc.

[Philbert]

There are many options and many threads about this. The search function as described at the top of the Q&A may be useful. That said, I would work on completing 15 singles every time you are in the gym, then 13 singles and a double, until you are doing 8 doubles, then work on triples, etc. Once you are able to do 3 sets 5 reps start adding weight on one workout and reps on the next. Resistance bands are most helpful for those who cannot complete a single chinup

[danlightbulb]

There are many options and many threads about this. The search function as described at the top of the Q&A may be useful. That said, I would work on completing 15 singles every time you are in the gym, then 13 singles and a double, until you are doing 8 doubles, then work on triples, etc. Once you are able to do 3 sets 5 reps start adding weight on one workout and reps on the next. Resistance bands are most helpful for those who cannot complete a single chinup

I've been researching this for some time, reading many many posts on this and other forums.

How long does it typically take to work up to decent numbers of chins? I mean, my squat has doubled in 5 weeks on the program but I can only do one extra chin than the first day I started (on a good day).

[stuffedsuperdud]

Note: I do pullups, not chins, but I am guessing it's the same type of response. This is a personal topic for me, as I went through high school unable to do one pullup, and that annual Presidential Fitness Test was always a day of shame. Just to rub it in, even most of the girls were able to grind out maybe 2. So it was me and the weakest of the weak girls doing that fucking flexed arm hang.

My second year of college I took an intro class on lifting and got up to all of 2 at BW 190lbs. I finally got fed up and decided to get stronger. I didn't know about tools like bands or chains or weighted belts or whatever. Just bought a pull up bar and several times a day I did 5 sets at a time, all to failure, with about 2 minutes rest in between; this meant that for some sets, I could only do about 2-3, which was fine. I also mixed it up a bit after a while, with wide grips, narrow grips, etc. This got me all the way to 16 pullups total, at the same BW, after a few months. It could easily have been 20+ if I had been doing proper barbell training at the time the way you are now. I think a general consensus is that for high rep bodyweight exercises, volume is king. Building stronger shoulders and lats with barbells helps, but you need to get the ass tons of reps in.

The other detail is this exercise's sensitivity to bodyweight. After LP, my strength was wildly increased, but because my BW went from 190 to 220, my max actually went down from 16 to 12. So if you're carrying extra fluff, dump it for free gainz.

[Michael V]

As another poster noted, singles and doubles can drive up your total as long as you keep the volume high enough. Maybe do as many singles as possible within ten minutes and try to beat that number next time. I remember doing something like that -- it was a while ago -- and it worked well.

[G1981C]

i started with pulldown machine at age 11 - 12 when i couldn't do chin ups. by age 14 i could do 15 chin ups @ 140 lbs. i also had a chin bar at home then, but without the pulldown machine i would be unable to use it.

[m@tty]

Ladders work well for Chins or pull-ups 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2 you just managed 15. If you didn't try 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2 you just managed 15. if that's to much your not resting long enough between rungs take a good long rest between rungs so that you make every rep. once your making these consistently shorten the rest periods. once your doing 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2 with less than a minutes rest between rungs add weight.
If your really struggling start with body-weight rows progress to chin-ups then progress to pull-ups then on to weighted pull-ups.
As your strength grows your pull-ups will get easier.

[Nick Klemetson]

Bands are fine, because they allow you to adapt to the time under tension. You need to adapt to hanging from the bar longer. As for which band to buy... it's hard to tell. If you can, I would buy the black and green band. Eventually, you may want to add the blue as well.

Use the band one day a week. Do three sets of 6 or so. It should be difficult, but not impossible. Adjust band tension as necessary. Increase volume each week.

The other day, do unassisted chins. The first time, try to do 8 total in as few sets as possible, resting about 3 minutes each set. The first week, it might be 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, and that's totally fine. Do more the next week. See if you can work up to 3 sets of 10-12 with the bands and 20 total repetitions in as few sets as possible without them.

If you want to make chins a priority, do them before your barbell training each day. I personally do them after, and it works fine. I would not do them on an off day.

[danlightbulb]

When I first joined the gym a couple months ago I was using the assisted chin up machine (where you stand on the platform). With this I could do 8, 7, 5 with 20kg assistance.

I'll try some of the ideas shown here, singles for 10 minutes sounds quite good as I want to get better at them but don't want to make them last 45 minutes waiting ages between sets.

How long should it take a novice (160lb) to go from 2 or 3 up to 10 chins? I feel if I could just make a breakthrough on it and get the momentum going then it could all come good but at the moment they are pained slow and grinding reps which is no good at all.


As for doing them first, I don't want them to interfere with the main SS workout.