Getting your first chin up is a feat of ultimate strength. And the feeling of being able to do more than five chin ups is paramount. Use these exercises to learn how to improve chin ups and land your first chin up or improve your strict pull.
These chin up drills break down the movement and work it at every step to get you fitter, stronger, and well on your way to feeling like a beast on a bar.
If you ask anyone who can do them, getting that first strict pull up or chin up feels like the biggest win in the world.
As a Certified Strength & Conditioning Coach, I have so many women looking to improve their upper body strength, wanting to learn how to do a pull up, and just not sure where to start.
And no matter how many rows you do, if you want to learn to do strict chin ups, you need to train chin ups!
Pull Ups Versus Chin Ups
This is a bit of semantics but it's important because pull ups and chin ups (while they do the same motion and both work the upper body) prioritize different muscles.
Chin ups: these are done when your palms are facing your face. They use much more biceps than pull ups and tend to be a bit easier for females.
Pull ups: are when your palms are facing away from your face. Strict pull ups use much more back and core muscles and tend to be a lot harder.
Neutral grip pull ups: these use parallel bars to perform them which means that your palms are facing each other. Though difficult, they tend to be the easiest on the shoulders.
The reason this is important is that learning to master chin ups won't guarantee you can perform a pull up.
How To Do A Strict Chin Up
Before you begin training for the movement, you need to understand what the movement entails!
- Come into a deadhang position on the bar (shoulders relaxed).
- Engage the core into a hollow body position and depress the shoulders (bring them down from your ears).
- Begin to pull your body up by driving your elbows down so that your chest comes to the bar.
- Pinch the shoulder blades together at the top of the movement.
- Reverse the movement by slowly lowering yourself to the ground and completely relaxing the shoulders.
Dead hang to collar bone to bar is a full range of motion.
Though you can perform a chin up with your knees bent behind you (in which case they will be easier because it makes a shortened lever), this will eventually bite you in the butt for bigger movements.
Hot tip: don't gloss over the hollow body hang. Train your pulls with legs extended from the get-go.
Drills To Improve Chin Ups
The following chin up drills take the pull up movement, break it down, and force you to master it in each section.
Then, once you can do that, you should be strong enough to get your first pull on a pull up bar (or improve the amount you can do if you can already do one).
Hot tip: no matter how strong you are, don't underestimate the basics of proper engagement, set up, and smaller drills. these smaller drills help you bust through plateaus.
Dead Hang
A classic exercise to build grip strength, shoulder stability, and fire up your core! The longer you can hold this dead hang position, the better you'll be when you perform strict chin ups and pull ups (no kipping pull ups here!).
- Place your hands on the bar in a pronated position (away from your face).
- Let your feet come off the floor.
- As you do, squeeze your inner thighs and feet together, bring the toes forward, round your low back slightly and come into a "hollow body" position.
- Hold for as long as you can.
Try to work up to sets of 20-30 seconds.
Scapular Pull Ups
Taking the dead hang one step further and adding movement. Though this is done in a pull up hand position it's still effective.
Scapular pull ups teach you to move your shoulders and strengthen them in the position you need to hold a pull up.
- Place your hands on the bar in a pronated position (away from your face).
- Come into your hollow position.
- Let your shoulders elevate so that they're close to your ears.
- Use the muscles on your back to bring your shoulders down on your back.
- repeat.
Work up to three sets of 10 repetitions.
Isometric Holds
You're going to learn how to hold an ideal chin up position at the three main stages: top of the pull up bar, at ninety-degree elbow flexion, and in your dead hang. Isometric training is a killer way to boost strength - learn more about paused rep training.
- Place your hands on the pull up bar and jump or have someone assist you so that your chin is above the bar.
- Get the bar to your chest, pinch your shoulders together, and get them away from your ears.
- Hold this top pull up position with a hollow position, fully engaged for 5 seconds.
- Lower so that your elbows are now at a ninty degree angle, still in a hollow body position and shoulders down on your back.
- Hold for 5 seconds.
- Release fully to the ground.
Work up to two sets of 8 reps.
Note: play around with this pull up drill. You can work just the top position and aim to hang there for fifteen full seconds. Likewise, work just the ninty degree position at one time.
Training The Eccentric (negatives)
When you're unable to do a movement fully, or when you need to strengthen that movement, work on CONTROLLING the reverse!
In the case of chin ups, you're going to jump to the top chin up position and focus on lowering as slow as possible without breaking form
- With your hands on the bar, jump to the top of the chin up position (hollow hold, fully engaged back).
- Very slowly, lower your body back toward the ground by extending your elbows.
- Do this with control and fight the urge to drop.
- Aim to take 5 full seconds to lower.
Perform for a total of 3 sets and 8 repetitions.
Band Assisted Chin Ups
Bands are an amazing way to train because they let you get the full chin up feeling with just a hint of support.
Plus, there are multiple resistances to choose from so as you progress, get stronger and improve your chin ups, you can use the band less and less.
Grab your resistance bands from Prosource and use code mamabearfit to save some money.
- Chose the band best suited to your level and secure it to the bar.
- Place one foot in the bar and come into an engaged, deadhang position.
- With the support of the band, drive the elbows down and pull your chin above the bar.
- Pause briefly and come back down to the starting position but don't put the other foot down.
Work your way up in reps.
Accessory Exercises To Strengthen Your Strict Chin Ups
Though you need to train strict chin ups on the bar, having strong back and arm muscles will help you perfect the movement.
The exercises before are all great accessory exercises to support your goals (so are these wicked back exercises you can do with a mini loop).
Add any of the below exercises into your training program, just make sure you're training chin ups before you do the accessory work.
- Lat pull downs
- TRX low row
- Inverted rows
- Tricep press downs
- Skull crusher
- Flat bench high row
Other Fitness Tips To Help You Smash Goals
- Tricep exercises for women
- How to do a push up as a beginner
- Exercises to improve your push up
- 3 muscles to always stretch post workout
- Why you should use pause reps
- Best bodyweight exercises for moms
- Follow-along at-home workouts
- Fitness tips
- How to master push ups as a beginner
- The best no equipment shoulder exercises
- How to make at home workouts harder
- Everything you need to know about home workouts
Frequently Asked Questions About Chin Up Training
As with any movement you want to master, you need to do the actual movement. Scale down a full pull up by working on eccentric component, isometric holds, and accessory upper body work like rows and lat pull down.
The safest way to practice a pull up is on a securely installed pull up bar. If that's not an option, the top of a squat rack, play grounds with monkey climbers, and decks with exposed beams can all be used.
When you're trying to improve your pulls or nail down your first chin up, you can train them 2-3 times per week. Two of those days should be "heavier" days with more intense exercises and the third day should be a lighter day that focuses on accessory work and smaller drills. Part of improving strength is getting adequate rest, so make sure you're not training back to back.
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