Bodyweight Chin up/Pull up cues

[Ryan T]

Read this T-Nation article about chin ups vs. pull ups.

Pull-Ups Vs. Chin-Ups | T Nation

What I found most interesting were the cues that I’ve never really known before. Video below is embedded in the article but I thougtht I’d share it in case you didn’t want to read through. It doesn’t look like he’s holding a hollow position though. I’m still able tilt my pelvis, engage my abs and squeeze the glutes but the height and construction of the power tower forces me to bend my knees.



I’ve always liked chin ups more, but that’s only due to the fact that I can do more, but perhaps not at as wide a grip as the gentleman in the video.

 

[Steve Freides]

There are two broad types of pullups. Around here, we call them bodybuilder (your article) and tactical (hollow position). They're really pretty different and good to treat your pullup practice as one or the other. Speaking personally, I'm pretty good at the tactical kind (have done bw + 40 kg, and have done chinup grip @ bw + 48 kg) and have never been good at the kind in your picture, so I've added those in small doses to my training.

-S-

 

[Marc]

The tactical pull up (hollow body pull up) involves your abs due to the hollow position. This also activates the muscles of the anterior chain to a greater extend. The downside of that is it's lesser activation of the posterior chain's muscles. So, if you want to focus on your back muscles as much as possible you are better off doing pull ups with an arched back (chest out).