The chin-up is one of the most complete exercises to develop strength and induce hypertrophy of the upper body muscles. Adding chin-up variations to your workouts will provide a different boost and help you improve your marks in the gym.
What muscles are worked in a chin-up?
In the chin-up, the main muscles involved and on which most of the effort falls is the posterior trunk muscles . From a simplistic point of view, we could say that the main muscles that work in the execution of the movement are the latissimus dorsi, the trapezius and the teres major.
However, we cannot mention these three muscles only as responsible for the movement, since, being a multi-joint exercise , it also requires the involvement of smaller muscles when pulling our body to the bar, such as the biceps or the brachialis.
In addition, it is necessary to activate the stabilizing muscles of our trunk, the core , which will allow a good alignment of our body when executing the exercise.
6 chin-up variations you can do
Towel dominated
If you are looking to do the exercise more complex, improve the strength of the grip of your hands or a greater work of the muscles of the forearm, this is your domination.
This is a variation that is usually used to improve arm strength , since in most cases the main difficulty is usually due to pull-ups is due to the low grip strength that limits us to be able to hold the bar.
To correctly perform this variant, you will need to run a towel over the typical chin-up bar. Once you have it in place, hold each end of the towel tightly and try to raise your chin above the bar.
Dominated command
With command chin-ups , work on the scapulae is emphasized . It requires less force from the back muscles, since we help much of the muscles of the arms, which is why it is one of the most common variations that are usually seen in gyms.
The main difficulty when executing this exercise lies in controlling the balance of our body . So you should keep the core muscles tight so that it allows you not to swing to one side or the other.
Supine chin ups or chin ups
The chin up or reverse chin is done with the grip of the bar opposite to that of a normal chin up. The prone grip should be varied to hold the bar pointing the fingers towards our face. This is a supine grip.
Once the hands are correctly placed, we only have to perform a traction that allows us to raise the trunk to bring the bar to the part closest to the sternum.
With this variation, the effort demand of our arms increases, which is why it is a very indicated exercise if you are looking to improve the strength of the extremities.
Isometric pull-ups
With isometric chin-ups, the work of the muscles is very different from any other of its variations.
This exercise works the muscles by maintaining tension on them at all times, since being an isometric exercise, we will be adding constant tension to the muscles without them having to perform any of the phases of the muscle contraction movement itself (concentric phase-phase eccentric).
You should raise your chin above the bar and, once there, hold the tension without lowering your body. This exercise, unlike the others, is quantified by time, not by repetitions.
Eccentric chin-ups
This type of chin-up works mainly in the eccentric phase of the exercise , so you should keep your body in check on the descent.
It is an exercise a little used in gyms but, without a doubt, it can make a difference when it comes to achieving a greater number of repetitions in your pull-ups. It could even be a highly recommended exercise to improve strength for both novices and more experienced users.
Dominated with ballast
Once you have some dexterity in the execution of the chin up, it is advisable to use ballast loads to improve strength . Work with load will help you increase the stress caused by exercise, so you will be demanding a greater effort from your muscles. It's a great way to progress in exercise.
To do them correctly and to be able to incorporate the load, help yourself with a weight belt or a heavy vest.
