The Chin up exercise is a tactical training movement that has probably been performed by men since the beginning of time. It’s a great exercise to strengthen the biceps, while also working the back and chest muscles, especially the lats.
The exercise is performed with your palms facing you while holding a bar overhead, while for pull-ups your palms are facing away from you. Chin ups are slightly easier to do than pull ups and work slightly different muscles.
Muscle Groups Used: Chin ups work the latissimus dorsi, rear deltoids, teres major, rhomboids, lower and middle trapezius, elbow flexors, and pectoralis major muscles.
Here are the reasons why, in my opinion, the pull-up is so much better than the standard barbell or dumbbell curls that most athletes perform:
Build functional strength. that will translate into daily activities, sports, etc.
It is a workout for the entire upper body. that seriously shocks your system, triggering an anabolic hormonal response. This just doesn’t happen with bicep curls! The pull-up exercise can be categorized alongside great compound exercises like the squat, bench press, and deadlift. Clearly, curls don’t work as many muscles as the pull-up exercise.
Build your chest and back. The pull-up exercise will not only make your biceps grow rapidly, but it will also strengthen your chest and back. This exercise will strengthen your entire upper body as you have to tense all your muscles while doing it to keep yourself stable.
It teaches you to control your own body weight. If you can’t handle your own body weight, then you’re never going to excel in sports and you’ll never be able to call yourself truly fit. While fat people can often bench press a lot, I have yet to meet a fat guy who can do twelve pull-ups.
It will improve your sports performance. Dumbbell curls are joked about in the locker room to build beach muscles that look good but have no strength. By getting good at the pull-up exercise, you can greatly improve your upper body strength and this will clearly help you perform better in a host of sports.
Allows you to lift a heavy weight. When you perform the pull-up exercise, you always lift a heavy weight (your body) instead of the lesser dumbbell weights you would be lifting. It’s no secret that lifting a heavy weight forces your muscles to grow much faster than doing high reps with a lighter weight.
Chin up prevents injuries from doing heavy pressing exercises. It’s important to perform pulling movements like the pull-up exercise if you regularly perform heavy pressing movements like the bench press or incline bench press…otherwise you’ll create muscle imbalances that can lead to injury.
It is easy to increase the level of difficulty. You can add weight by using a weight belt or backpack that contains weights. Alternatively, you can have your training partner lightly hold your legs to provide more resistance. Granted, it’s also pretty easy to gain weight when doing barbell or dumbbell curls.
It can be done outside the gym. All you need to do pull-ups is some kind of bar or beam to hold on to. You may find that you already have access to something suitable in your home, garden, or local park. If the rack you have is better suited for pull-ups, build on that and be happy to know that strength gains from pull-ups translate well into chin-up strength gains.
Work the biceps through the full range of motion. Pull-ups require you to fully extend your arm at the bottom of one rep, then fully contract your biceps at the top so your chin is above the bar; this works the biceps muscles fully. Many people perform barbell and dumbbell curls incorrectly so that they don’t fully straighten their arms at the bottom of one repetition; this is why you see men with weird bumps in the middle of skinny arms.
It’s cheaper. Even if you don’t have a bar or beam to use around your house, garden, etc., it’s much cheaper to buy a chin up bar than it is to buy a complete set of dumbbells. These bars are also quite easy to install.
Improve grip strength. Better grip strength will help you in real life sports like rock climbing and will help you perform other serious exercises like deadlifts where the limiting factor on how much you can lift is often how powerful your grip is.
By the way, I’m not saying you should stop doing curls. Consider doing your curls after the pull-ups. Obviously, they will be more difficult when you are already tired, but this is a good thing and it will increase muscle growth.
Thank you for reading
Jay Farrant Personal Trainer Dublin
Member of the Dublin Group of Personal Trainers
