Chin-Up
Trains the Lats.
- Equipment
- A pull-up bar
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Take an underhand grip on a bar, hands about shoulder-width apart, palms facing you.
- Hang with your arms straight and let your shoulders rise toward your ears. This full hang is the starting position.
- Draw your shoulder blades down and back before you pull, so the movement starts from the back rather than the arms.
- Pull by driving your elbows down toward your ribs, keeping your body still — no swinging or kicking.
- Continue until your chin clears the bar, then lower under control all the way back to a full hang.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a chin-up is a biceps exercise because of the grip. The underhand grip does give the biceps more work than a pull-up does, but the latissimus dorsi is still the muscle moving you. Thinking about driving the elbows down rather than pulling with the hands keeps the emphasis where it belongs.
- Stopping short at the bottom. A half-range chin-up avoids the position where the lats are longest and under the most tension, which is the part of the range worth having.
- Swinging up. Kipping turns the movement into something else entirely; if strict repetitions are not yet available, band assistance or a lat pulldown builds them honestly.
- Letting the shoulders shrug up at the top. If the shoulders travel toward the ears at the end of the pull, the upper traps have taken over from the lats.