Deep Chin-ups on a Straight Bar

[spiderman]

I've been doing chin-ups on a straight bar. I've been trying to sink all the way down to the very bottom on every rep. When I go this low, the torque is high in my elbows, forearms and wrists to keep such strictly supinated palms. My biceps insertions have been paying the price and have been a bit sore for about a month. I'm even holding the bar with my pinky and ring fingers almost off the bar so that my hands are not quite as supinated to reduce some of the torque. That helps my biceps insertions but not enough apparently.

I want to go full depth because I want to get stronger at setting my shoulder and the first part of the pull. Eventually I'd like to be able to do a one-arm chin-up and this shoulder setting is a big part of success with that circus trick.

From what I gather, some people have problems at the bottom of barbell bicep curls because of the strict supination. Some folks use an ez-curl bar to reduce the torque even at the cost of some bicep contraction. At least for me, that torque at the bottom of a curl is nothing compared with the torque when hanging at the very bottom of a chin-up. I'm wondering if I need to use something like an ez-curl bar as my chin-up bar so my hands are slightly more neutral to reduce the torque.

Another option would be using gymnastics rings as they could rotate but I'm not as keen on that idea as it requires more stability work and I want to focus on pulling up with heavier weights attached to me. I believe this is the same argument for barbell bench press rather than dumbell bench press.

Anyone else have similar experience with chin-ups on a straight bar and any advice?

Thanks.

(I'm also doing pull-ups on a straight bar but have no issues with them.)

[Carlos Daniel]

There are those parallel handle chin up stations, but I have never seen one for home use.

[Subsistence]

Well, EZ curl bars reduce the amount of work the biceps get in curls, I assume the same could be said about similarly oriented chin up bars. Not sure how much this matters to you, but I would imagine this would be the main reason not to use such bars.

If a slightly angled bar removed your wrist pain, I would imagine that a good reason to use it.

[spiderman]

Yeah I'm not too worried about reducing biceps work a little. In fact, a one arm chin-up starts at the bottom with a neutral grip and finishes at the top with a supinated grip. The body rotates as it rises.

[Regin Smidur]

I have the same problem. My "solution" was to move to rings and use a neutral grip. Fully supinated doesn't hurt like it does on a bar but still causes issues. I can say from experience that stability is not an issue when doing pull ups on rings. Like, at all. My rings are suspended only by an inch of rope though. More then that and maybe there is a stability componant.

[spiderman]

I have the same problem. My "solution" was to move to rings and use a neutral grip. Fully supinated doesn't hurt like it does on a bar but still causes issues. I can say from experience that stability is not an issue when doing pull ups on rings. Like, at all. My rings are suspended only by an inch of rope though. More then that and maybe there is a stability componant.

Regin, thanks for the information. Great to get infro from someone else who's encountered the same problem and can offer some advice.

I was thinking that perhaps a short rope would help. Also I was thinking that a rope looped around the ring several times to make a wider support for the ring or with a wide flat piece of webbing. That would help the rings stay in the supinated position but allow for a bit of rotation. Either way I'll give it a go.