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Old Forum long-term weighted chin specialization

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Matt604

Matt604

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My long-term goal is a 1-arm chin. I'm over 40 and never got anywhere close to a 1AC in the past. So I plan to specialize in weighted chins for the next year or so, with the hopes of getting to +105lb for reps, before focusing on unilateral work. I currently weigh 185 and can do +25lb for sets of 5, +37lb for sets of 3. So I have a long way to go. Part of the plan is to slowly cut body weight to 170 or so.

I have seen many short-term programs for increasing weighted chins, but I would prefer a simple program that will just keep working, rather than having to look around for a new program every 6-8 weeks. My thought is to do the ROP ladders as written, testing and increasing weight according to that plan, but only for chins. (I will do a skeleton program to maintain press, pistol, and DL. I want to keep the goal the goal, as they say.)

My question is whether anyone has come up with a good way to structure a long-term program for increasing weighted chins. I like ladders, and the ROP seems ready-made, but I know it was designed as a press specialization program with chins just thrown in as an option. Maybe if we don't have to worry about increasing the press, we could/should plan for lower volume? Any thoughts greatly appreciated.
 
You may have already found this guy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6E41GuKDyzapd9wN4xXYUg
[He's over 200lbs]
The hard part (nearly impossible?) will be losing 10% body weight while getting stronger, unless you have a lot of body fat. Then, still hard.
 
Like you said, this is a long term goal, so I would definitely recommend spending a lot of time building volume. How many bodyweight chins can you currently do?

ROP definitely seems like a good method for building up volume, and could be easily turned into a chin up specialization program with presses thrown in. I would start with bodyweight, once you get to 5x1,2,3,4,5 ladders with bodyweight, then start with whatever weight you can manage for 5x1,2,3 ladders and milk that as long as you can.

Mike is definitely right that losing weight will be tricky, but it will also have a big impact on your goal. For now just work on cleaning up your diet and see how it goes.
 
I recommend to check out the gymnastic body stuff. I remember Christopher Sommer talking in a podcast* about lots of static holds to prepare the body that is tendons and bands for the stress of one arm chins. He seems to be very big on this topic and thus his progressions are rather slowly, but he definitely knows what he is talking about.

*he gives several interviews on the Paleo Solution podcast with Robb Wolf. Lots of interesting information.
 
Thanks for the quick responses, everyone. Andy, I can do 9 or 10 BW chins now. I'm sure I could do 5x(12345) today, given long enough rest periods. But I take it you would have me build up to that over a few weeks, starting with 3x or 5x(123)?
 
Matt, I would definitely advise building up over at least a couple weeks. You could probably start with 5x1,2,3,4 and then add a ladder or two of 5 every week. At that point you will be doing 155 pull ups over the three sessions, which is a pretty solid base to work from.

Good call on the rings.
 
I'm also thinking about getting involved with heavy pull-ups as a good foundation for OAC work. However I have a question.

In the ROP, you work up to 5x1,2,3,4,5 mainly because KB weight jumps are large, so the best way to ensure you can press something heavier, is to get a large volume with something lighter.

However, for weighted chins, adding any weight is possible (5-10 lbs). So would it be a better idea to maybe work up to 5x1,2,3,4 instead, before adding weight and starting at 3-5x1,2,3? Even 50 total reps of heavy chins in a session seems quite high. I wonder if progress will be smoother if we stick with slightly less volume than in the ROP, by adding smaller weight increments more often.

Hope that's not too confusing. Any thoughts?
 
Matt,

Are you familiar with Plan Strong style programming? If so, that would be a great option to consider. If you are not familiar with it, unfortunately it is way more complicated than can be explained on the forum, but maybe look into a coach to help you put together a program.

-Tony
 
Tony, thanks for your comment. I'm not familiar with Plan Strong, other than the fact that SF gives a seminar on it. It sounds complex (and expensive) to implement compared to ROP, so I'll stick with ROP until it stops working. Then, I'll come back here to explore all the options.

305pelusa, best of luck to you, fellow traveler! I think it is a worthy goal, even if we never get there.

I'm going to build to the full volume and make larger jumps, 10 to 15 pounds at first. I find that more satisfying than lower volume and micro-loading, and even 155 chins doesn't feel like a crazy amount of volume spread out over a week (remember I'm not pushing hard on anything else).

Hopefully someone who actually knows something will respond to your post -- I'm certainly not qualified to do so.
 
155 chins in a week doesn't sound bad. But 75 weighted chins in a day certainly seems excessive to me.

I get it for the one arm KB press. Going from the 24 kg to the 32 kg is a 25% increase in weight in just ONE ARM. That's like going from pressing 105 lbs to 140 lbs. So obviously, the only way you can make it, is by absolutely, totally owning a weight with high volume.

The Starr method of H/M/L has the athlete doing 5x5 all of those days. But going heavier/lighter depending on the day. Do you think that'd be a more effective way of getting stronger with weighted chins (since modifying the weight is very easy) instead of sticking to the same weight every set, every day, but changing the volume instead? Pavel?

Just trying to figure out what will get me strongest without risking an overuse injury or having form go to heck from doing too many reps one day.
 
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