You’re doing less damage than you’d Do with one high rep set, and mostly just improving your body’s efficiency at performing the movement. We had this discussion when you were doing high frequency pullups (a few every day) and began to find them much easier. Your “max” isn’t one pullup - you wouldn’t be able to do that 8 times in a day if t was - it’s just all your body can handle doing at a time right now, so it’s not that taxing.
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So how did you get to that point? Maybe more of the same gets your to 2 chin-ups.
I started trying to do a chin almost everyday and after about 3 weeks I finally got so I could actually do one. I did one almost every day, sometimes I’d miss a day, and then last week I decided to see if I could do more if I spaced them apart. I did about 8 that day doing one every half hour or less. Now I took off two days so we’ll see if I can still do one tomorrow , ha ha !
This chinning stuff seems to be very temperamental . One day it almost seems easy and another day I can hardly get close.
Scott
I agree with using bands to assist and negatives. Don’t try to take any short cuts with the bands, buy enough resistance levels so you can incrementally progress (at least 4) and a few very light resistance ones to use in combination to give you better precision on your increments. Start easy, so a band that allows you to do 1 X 12-15, and shoot for 3 X10 and finish with one single unassisted negative or static to failure. When you can do 3 X 12 with that band, move down to the next level of resistance (maybe using a combination of bands to keep the difference minimal) and repeat until you are done with the bands. Do them every other day.
== Scott==
Boy I think it would take a heavy duty band that would allow me to 12 — 15 reps? Ha ha !
They make them, and as mentioned you can use more than one at the same time.
I’ve had female clients (heavy) who were able to use them to get plenty of reps.
Do you have a good brand to recommend . I see them on eBay but who knows if they are junk? If I recall the black are the toughest ?
Scott
I actually bought some cheap ones off Amazon to try before I bought the nice ones… never bought the nice ones as Atleast one of these got daily use for over a year and kept on going strong.
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Of course make sure they are loop bands. Serious Steel makes good stuff. Not cheap though.
I have 2 sets of the heavy band set from SuperFlex. I’ve had then for almost 7 years now, and they show minimal signs of wear and tear. Highly recommend them.
I have some Rogue bands that have help up very well. Might be expensive - I’m not sure how they compare to other brands.
As far as color, depends on the brand. One company could have black as e strongest, one could have black as the weakest, and one might not have a black. I’d check out the website that you’re buying it from to get the most accurate info.
I got ten dead hang chins after one whole year, doing chins and dips twice per week. I used a ladder method, ie 108642, then 54321, then 321, then some singles.
Also lost significant weight over that year. Hmmm.
When you started this routine how many chins could you do? Around a year or more ago , I can’t remember any more, I got really into trying to get up to just doing one chin. Since I couldn’t even do one chin I started out just doing several sets of negative chins with long breaks between sets. Ok After several months of this I got up to doing one chin on a good day. I got tired of this routine and went back to my usual upper body routine of pullovers, BNTA, double chest press, laterals , curls and tricep extensions or similar exercises. I’ve been at that pretty consistently now for almost a year now and two weeks ago I went back to tying some chins. It was like I’d never tried one. I could hardly get half way up. The machine exercises didn’t carry over one bit. Same for dips. All the pressing movements I’d done for chest and triceps didn’t translate into any help on the dips.
It was clear that the negative chins and dips took way more out of me than the machine workouts. It took me much longer to recover from the chins and dips. Even though the chins and dips were much more demanding on my system and I was probably gaining muscle faster, the workouts were just not very satisfying . I love using my Nautilus machines to much. If I tried adding chins and dips to my regular workout I just got too beat down. For a while I tried doing one workout with my machines and the next one with just chins and dips. I didn’t seem to get any stronger on the chins doing it that way. At this point I think I’m just not destined to get much better at chins.
Scott
I could do between 1 and 3 reps in the beginning that’s it.
I attribute 99% of my success to losing weight.
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I attribute 99% of my success to losing weight.
Wow, that doesn’t say much for your workout routine? I have never been overly concerned with being ripped and body fat percentages. When I’m active my body weight pretty much stays at a good level with out much thought as to what and how much I eat. During the last two years of this damn pandemic I became less active so I’ve put on more weight than I’d like and when I lose some of this lard it will be for health reasons, not so I can do more stupid chins, ha ha!!
Scott
It is all about diet…show me a fat bodyweight master, you cannot.
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Okay, for practical advice.
1.Do machine heavy machine work.
2. 3-5 reps.
3. UNRESTRICTED speed of movement.
That is what worked for me. Going for ten reps Monday.
Could you explain exactly what you mean by this ? I’m not disputing this , just curious if you’re thinking that doing extremely slow reps is detrimental to getting stronger in a particular movement.
Do you mean ‘unrestricted speed’ as moving too slow … as in counting the speed of a rep or watching a clock, etc ? Just wondering, as I believe that counting "one thousand one, one thousand two … " could be helpful for an injury / rehab but an un-natural way for your body ( and mind ) to work and train against resistance.
For strength development in the chinup I would prefer an explosive intent on the concentric, and 2-3 secs on the eccentric. That’s a rep.
Btw, Nautilus made these chinup “machines” where you put you legs on a weighted lever and thus can reduce the bodyweight being pulled. Assisted chinup and dip station. Obviously @entsminger knows what I’m talking about. Perhaps something to add to your park of machines?
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