Has anyone tried Thib’s Keep your chin up , chinning program .
I would like to see what kind of results people have had. I think I might give the program a go regardless.
Current best is 14 dead hang super strict pull ups pause at top as well. I also did a 1RM with 100 lbs. Would like to get 20-25 pull ups.
I tried it to the letter and it didn’t help me at all, went from 14 chins to 14 chins.
But to be useful, I was able to get 16 chins by adding really heavy farmer’s walks to my workouts. Like 100lb db’s x 60 sec for multiple sets. Stuck at 16 right now, I’m doing farmer’s walks with heavier weight (105-115) to see if it will help. Good luck!
I did the 5 x 20-22 negative chins and went from 8 chins to 9 balls to the wall chins.
I thought there might be people who had gotten results with this chin up program . I wonder how many guinea pigs thib tried this program on and what where the results. Or if there is any changes he would make
I tried it, but unfortunately, I had to alter it so much that it no longer resembled the program. I was never able to complete 5 sets of 20 negative chins. The most I completed is 3 sets. I don’t have grippers, so I had to eliminate that exercise. I found the paper crumpling too easy. So anyway, by the end, I stayed at 11 chinups.
But if you’re looking to increase your maximum number of chinups, I found a slightly modified version of Pavel’s Greasing the Groove very helpful. That was what took me from 11 to 23.
OK put us out of our misery. How did you modify it to achieve those numbers?
Oh, it’s very simple. I just cycled the amount of weight that I chinned.
Here is what the program looked like:
Weeks 1 and 2:
Do 50% of your max number of bodyweight chinups 4-7 times throughout the day (not on weekends, in my case).
Weeks 3 and 4:
Same as above, but add 10 pounds when you chin, and adjust the 50% accordingly. Here, I was doing 7 chins.
Weeks 5 and 6:
Same as above, but add 20 pounds, and again adjust the 50%. By now, I was only doing 3 chins.
Test new number of bodyweight chinups. Repeat.
On your second cycle, extend it by 2 weeks, and on weeks 7 and 8, add more weight, so that your 50% is below 5 reps.
Forgot to add: a second cycle may not be necessary, if you achieved your goal after the first cycle. But on the other hand, you may want to add a 3rd and 4th cycle if you really want your chinups numbers to soar.
Last note: take 1 week off from chinups between cycles.
Just keep in mind the principle of diminishing returns. Your most impressive gains will be made during the first cycle. With each cycle you will gain less and less. To give you an idea of numbers, I started with 11 chinups, and after the first cycle, I got up to 18 chinups. After the second cycle, I was up to 23. I’m satisfied with that, so I didn’t go on a third cycle.
As for maintenance after you’ve all your cycles. If you include chinups in your regular program, the numbers should stay. I would test my max (after you’re off the program) once every 6-8 weeks, to make sure you haven’t slipped.
[quote]mattrose wrote:
Has anyone tried Thib’s Keep your chin up , chinning program .
I would like to see what kind of results people have had. I think I might give the program a go regardless.
Current best is 14 dead hang super strict pull ups pause at top as well. I also did a 1RM with 100 lbs. Would like to get 20-25 pull ups. [/quote]
No. Haven’t tried it, but I did read it and wondered.
Curiously, by following Chad Waterbury’s GPP ASAP and his Waterbury Method strength-training program for a month, my chin-ups went from about 12 to 14 (and 3/4!). It might be worth a look for you? In the Waterbury Method, I went from pull-ups with 25LB extra weight to 45 LB extra weight. But I also went from doing about 50 pullups in the GPP program to 75 in the same time - so go figure which one really made a difference to my max body-weight reps?!
Regards,
WiZ
Thanks for taking the time to post your interesting and well thought out approach.
I take it that in weeks 3/4 you could already do 14 reps with weight attached to bring you to sets of 7 during the day for training?
I guess my only reservation is that most of us at work simply do not have the facility to carry out multiple sets throughout the day.
Thanks again.
A few months ago I could only do 11-12 chins max. I started doing 10 everyday, sometimes a few times during the day if I felt good. After a week or so, 10 was so easy so I started doing all sets of 12. I now do sets of 14-15 and could max around 18.
I think ZEB’s the resident chinning expert. I haven’t ever dedicated myself to chins to that degree, but implementing a few of his tips helped add a lot of chins for both me and one of my friends.
[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to post your interesting and well thought out approach.
I take it that in weeks 3/4 you could already do 14 reps with weight attached to bring you to sets of 7 during the day for training?[/quote]
Correct! The fastest progress came in the first two weeks. After that, I just estimated the values for the weighted chins. I feld the estimates were fairly accurate.
You’re right. I guess that’s the nice thing about being in high school, and having your basement as your gym. You get summers off, and the “gym” is just downstairs, so greasing the groove is a very convenient method.
However, if you have a chinup bar set up at home, along with the necessary weights, you could still partially perform the program, and get very decent results.
During the school year, I wanted to grease the groove (with a different excercise), so I did a set upon waking up, another set when coming home from school, one more set 1-2 hours after dinner, and a final set right before going to bed. Granted, I did not get the results I would have gotten had I included some 7 sets per day sessions, but the outcome was still very favourable.
Another time, I just didn’t have time for even 4 sets (exam time), so I modified it further, and still got good results. I did 1 set every weekday, but instead of 50%, I used 70-80% of the max reps.
So if you don’t have a chinup bar at home with the appropriate weights, I would recommend the latter approach. If you do, I would recommend the former.
I hope this helped.
Good luck.
Thanks. I don’t have the facility but
persuasive evidence in support of GTG.
Your modification looks an interesting advance on the standard protocol. Perhaps I will try it with press ups!
[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Thanks. I don’t have the facility but
persuasive evidence in support of GTG.
Your modification looks an interesting advance on the standard protocol. Perhaps I will try it with press ups! [/quote]
GTG works great for pushups! I haven’t tried my modification with pushups, but I’ve tried the standard GTG (back before I knew what GTG was), and got my pushups up from 32 to 65 in only 5 weeks.