Getting the chest to the bar in a grind-style chinup

[GreenSoup]

I can easily get my chest to the bar if I start from the bottom of a chinup and pull with full force. To reduce my total rep count to match my current program I added a pause with elbows at 90 degrees in the middle of the rep. Apparently my previous chinups were ballistic because with the new, harder method my chin can still clear the top of the bar but my chest does not touch the bar. I can hold the top position and attempt to pull my chest forward but it does not move at all. It is always two inches away when I use this more difficult grind-style of chinups.

Is there a progression to getting my chest to the bar when using strength instead of ballistics? Or do I just need strength beyond bodyweight? Or more thoracic strength or flexibility?

 

[Abishai]

IMHO if you have strength at the bottom of the movement you can use it to generate a sort of plyo pull that can circumvent any weakness in the middle or end of the movement. a good tell is if your lats are growing at a faster pace than your biceps.
The biceps usually engage the most at the top of a chin and the lats at the bottom.
I can definitively answer your question because I have not seen you do it.

 

[bluejeff]

Is there a progression to getting my chest to the bar when using strength instead of ballistics? Or do I just need strength beyond bodyweight? Or more thoracic strength or flexibility?

You can start from the top and do slow negatives, you can practice holding the lockout at the top, or you can try doing bodyweight rows from rings or a bar. I think the rows might stand a good chance of helping with that end range shoulder extension you need. You can also experiment with hand width. The wider your hands are in a chinup/pullup, the harder it will be to touch the chest.

Personally, unless you have serious mobility deficits, I doubt that mobility is the issue.

 

[Ege]

I did from top to down progression. Two tips that I can share which worked for me. First one is, To get to the very top, I used a box high enough to that enables me to be in the top with shoulders packed, shoulder blades pulled in, so I tried to really mimic “the perfect” form. Second one is, I believe I have stolen this one from SF’s Karen Smith, I tried a flexed isometric hold at the very top. Btw her pull up articles at SF are great sources.

I used singles or doubles, and unlocked that part of the “pull” in a few months. It is not as challenging as pistols or OAPU.

 

[GreenSoup]

Bluejeff and Ege, working from the top was magic. I chose to pause the chinup at the mid point just to make it a lower rep exercise, but it was as if the loss of momentum made me forget how to move. Spending time up at the top of the chinup seemed to allow me to work out the kinks in one day. It was almost like relearning the movement but I am now able to get the chest to bar while being comfortable having my elbows pull back after the lifting is 95% complete. Maybe it was a matter of being accustomed to a different groove, since the style with a fast pull from the start all seemed to happen in one move and this needed stages of thought and building muscle memory of how to do it. Actually getting the extra ROM for a lift that you want is nice for one day's work though!

Do I have the same rep maxes of "chin over bar" vs "chin over bar AND chest to bar"? It is still a few weeks to test time but at least I can use the form that I want and get a bit more ROM out of shoulders.

 

[Ege]

Bluejeff and Ege, working from the top was magic. I chose to pause the chinup at the mid point just to make it a lower rep exercise, but it was as if the loss of momentum made me forget how to move. Spending time up at the top of the chinup seemed to allow me to work out the kinks in one day. It was almost like relearning the movement but I am now able to get the chest to bar while being comfortable having my elbows pull back after the lifting is 95% complete. Maybe it was a matter of being accustomed to a different groove, since the style with a fast pull from the start all seemed to happen in one move and this needed stages of thought and building muscle memory of how to do it. Actually getting the extra ROM for a lift that you want is nice for one day's work though!

Do I have the same rep maxes of "chin over bar" vs "chin over bar AND chest to bar"? It is still a few weeks to test time but at least I can use the form that I want and get a bit more ROM out of shoulders.

Happy to hear that, how about hollow body position? Did you ever looked in to that? And then overhand grip (Haven’t looked in to that yet) I worked a bit on hollow body position, together with “to the chest” it really changes the “pull” in to a monster IMHO.

And making a bodyweight move challenging this way is one of the best ways to keep injury free. Pull ups, chin ups look very innocent but elbow problems can easily happen. If I were you, I would very rarely test my max rep, and keep SF stop signs in mind all the time.

I believe ones rep max will always be lower with to the chest but unless you are at a test, your rep max does not matter IMHO.

 

[GreenSoup]

I am working on Geoff Neupert's Easy Muscle which specified the chinup with palms supinated for this part of the program. I'm only testing the RM at the end of the 12 week plan so I think the low testing frequency is friendly enough. For comparison purposes I'll just keep counting the reps but remember which number was the last "full" chest to bar rep for future programming purposes.

That hollow body Strongfirst-style pullup is something I hope to try in the future because it truly is a monster, at least compared to my current abilities.

 

[Steve Freides]

I can easily get my chest to the bar if I start from the bottom of a chinup and pull with full force. To reduce my total rep count to match my current program I added a pause with elbows at 90 degrees in the middle of the rep. Apparently my previous chinups were ballistic because with the new, harder method my chin can still clear the top of the bar but my chest does not touch the bar. I can hold the top position and attempt to pull my chest forward but it does not move at all. It is always two inches away when I use this more difficult grind-style of chinups.

Is there a progression to getting my chest to the bar when using strength instead of ballistics? Or do I just need strength beyond bodyweight? Or more thoracic strength or flexibility?

Good observation and good replies from you and others here, too. You haven't really lived until you've tried a pullup that's 10 seconds in either direction, though - give it a try and you'll certainly find all your weak spots in the ROM. Here's me about 3 years ago. Video is 40 seconds long. 2nd comments mentions that although I call it a 30-second pullup it's actually longer, so a thirty-something-second pullup.



-S-

 

[Ege]

Good observation and good replies from you and others here, too. You haven't really lived until you've tried a pullup that's 10 seconds in either direction, though - give it a try and you'll certainly find all your weak spots in the ROM. Here's me about 3 years ago. Video is 40 seconds long. 2nd comments mentions that although I call it a 30-second pullup it's actually longer, so a thirty-something-second pullup.



-S-

That one is a strict pull up

I know that you don’t think one should keep the personal records in every lift all the time. Did you keep your pull ups? If yes is it due to other exercises carry over or directly working on them?

 

[Steve Freides]

That one is a strict pull up

I know that you don’t think one should keep the personal records in every lift all the time. Did you keep your pull ups? If yes is it due to other exercises carry over or directly working on them?

Thanks for the kind words, @Ege, they're always appreciated!

The short answer to, "Did you keep your pullups?" is "Yes."
The short answer to "Is it due to other exercises carry over?" is "Yes."

StrongFirst's way of doing things always seems to have a big WTH (What The Heck) Effect. You could call that carry-over but it deserves to be called something better - it comes from the way we teach and practice full-body tension. That full-body tension becomes the best kind of GPP - it helps almost any strength-related thing you do.

I train on gymnastic rings now because I enjoy the bigger, more varied ROM my shoulders get and, well, because I can. I'm now up to an almost-decent front lever for 10 seconds or so. My training: every morning do a front lever, rest, then a skin-the-cat and on the way out of that, a set of 5 kip extensions. Since I'm on the rings for a minute or longer doing the StC + KE, pullups just aren't going to be that difficult. My current training is:

PL (SQ+BP alternating with BP+DL)
Morning Rings, afternoon AXE
Off

You also said, "I know that you don't think one should keep the personal records in every lift all the time." I have no problem with knowing the best you've done in any lift. E.g., my best pullups were 19 (maybe it was 20, I don't remember now) PU while holding a 20 lb dumbbell between my feet, and 1RM of a 48 kg chinup and a 40 kg pullup. If I needed to test my bodyweight pullups for reps on a bar, I'd just do a few one day, a few more the next day, then test and probably get a dozen or so. If I wanted more than that, then I'd train them more regularly.

-S-

 

[GreenSoup]

Good observation and good replies from you and others here, too. You haven't really lived until you've tried a pullup that's 10 seconds in either direction, though - give it a try and you'll certainly find all your weak spots in the ROM. Here's me about 3 years ago. Video is 40 seconds long. 2nd comments mentions that although I call it a 30-second pullup it's actually longer, so a thirty-something-second pullup.



-S-

The slowness of that lift is impressive but the controlled stillness of it, as in the lack of visible strain and wobble, is even more impressive.

 

[Steve Freides]

The slowness of that lift is impressive but the controlled stillness of it, as in the lack of visible strain and wobble, is even more impressive.

Thank you, but look more closely and you’ll see me shaking while I’m holding at the top.

-S-