James Wilson: This is James Wilson with MTB Strength Training Systems and bikejames.com. Today what I am going to do is go over a bunch of different chin up and pull up variations. The chin up pull up is one of those staple exercises that - really when do you not want this in your program. I mean if you can do a chin up, then that should be your first goal. But once you can get to the point where you can do a chin up, then you surely must want to working on them, they are pretty much, you know, almost every workout program that you do and what I want to do now is go over the different variations that you can use because, you want, we like variety, variety is important but you have to understand that you can just make slight variation, slight changes to the same movement and get a different training stimulus and keep yourself mentally and physically fresh and stuff like that. So I am going to go over about a half dozen different variations of the chin ups that you can use.
So the first one is just a regular chin up. So a chin up by definition is your hands, your palms facing you with your hands about 6-8 inches apart, that is a chin up. So this is your first grip right here, your chin up grip. You can also use a wide grip with your chin up as well so it's another variation that you can use. You can also do a pull up and again by definition the difference between a chin up and a pull up is a pull up having your palms facing away from you, so this is a pull up grip. Then you can also do a course grip pull up as well. So that right there is four different variations that you can use just by changing your -- the position of your palms and how large your hands are. So again, I'll show a couple of reps on each one. Another tip that I like to use with people is make sure that when you are doing your chin up, we are not just trying to get the chin over the top and I'll show you why here in just a second. But try to come all the way up until you get your collar bone up to the same level as the bar. That will really ensure that you are using a bit upper back muscles, your lat in generating you need to level on this movement.
So again, let me show you what I am talking about. All the way down, use down by the shoulders, you want to try - down away from the shoulder and bring your collar bone up to the bar. Let me show you the difference here. If you come up, you just go for the chin, I mean look at this, like right there. I am just trying my chin over the bar, I can call it right there. It's not like my chin over the bar as in chin up but look at the difference in the range of motion between and this and that, okay, huge. And the training effect is huge as well. So make sure that you are really driving your shoulders down way from the ears and you are trying to get that collar bone up to the bar. So that's your chin up, that's your wide grip chin up, little wider grip, little wide and shoulder-width. You can go pull up, hands out wide, palms facing away.
Again, trying to get the chin all the - as you can. Then lastly, you can also do a course grip pull up. S there is a four of the variations there. The other one, the fifth one is the mixed grip. So instead of having your hands facing either in or out, you are one facing in and one facing up. So hands again need to about shoulder-width, may be a little wider of shoulder-width for this and you're going to poise over and back down. You got to watch on this one. You're going to feel a tendency to want to twist. So whatever is facing you, that one is going to have the mechanical advantage, it's going to be stronger on that side and so there will be a tendency as you do this to kind of twist over and cheat over towards that stronger side. So you have to really work on resisting that, that twist to keep yourself settled with the mixed grip chin up.
So that one you can do half reps with your palms facing one way and then -- your hands facing one way and then switch midway through your set or you can switch each set. Just remember which way you had your hand at the first time, some times I forget, which is why I usually like to change the mill in my reps so that way I don't have to remember I have been this way or that way. So that's your mixed grip.
The other one that you can use is the towel. Now this is a great variation because it's going to really help our grip strength. It's well so just throw you like a small towel or a t-shirt or something over the bar. Then aim, on your sofa, on your sofa. So that's the towel chin up right there, again a great variation for mount bikers. It emphasizes that grip strength.
Another one that you can do is a weighted chin up or pull up, pretty much anything that I am showing you right now, you can strap some weight to make it tougher. But I like to stick with the weighted chin up and really you know, I really encourage you to work on getting strong on that particular movement. So it's really easy, just change your dumbbell, put it between your knees, cross your feet, you got it nice and secured, keep yourself set, down, pull yourself up, back down. So that's a 40 pound dumbbell right there, I mean, you know, realistically you should be rippling out reps with 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds start to you. That's getting strong. Body weight is great. But once you've mastered your body-weight, you need to start to get strong with it.
So then the last variation I am going to show is a standing chin up. This is probably the toughest chin up variation out there to execute so. What you're going to do is start with your palms facing you. I want your hands about shoulder-width and then move it wider apart, dead hang, this is standing chin up. Come up, you're going to touch the -- , midchest area right here. You're going to come up, you have to lean back slightly, and pull yourself up until you touch the bottom of that, standing like this, I will show you again. Come up, touch the - so again this is something you have to pull up a lot higher than you normally do with regular chin up. So that's your standing chin up.
Then we going over the chin ups, like your chin ups, pull ups, and - pull ups, towel, mixed grip, weighted, standing, when we just go like seven or eight different chin up or pull up variation. No one should ever write me or tell that they are bored of chin ups, because all that tells me is that you are trying this different variations, you are not challenging yourself by using weight and trying to get strong on these movements. It's extremely important for mountain bikers for two reasons, so work this movement in. First one is - any sport is going to have cause of balances in the body. A cyclist organize his position a lot and so we get this forward shoulder - we get type in the backs of the shoulder, we get weak with those upper back muscles.
So besides just working all over you, you know, really this does look attractive, I mean seriously. So having your shoulders back and down, not only looks better, makes you look healthier. It's also healthier for your shoulders. So for long-term shoulder health, it's extremely important that you are working chin ups in constantly to counteract being in this position on your bike a lot, okay.
Now the next thing that's going to - it will help you through your performance. One of the main ways this is going to help you with in on steep climbs. And that sounds like, what does that have to do with steep climb but let me explain. This movement that we're working on right here pulling the arms down like this, okay. If I just pull my hands on a little bit different position and did this again, push it down the front end of my bike. Now what happens when you are on a steep climb, you are on the back of your saddle, going up the climb, trying to get up, what we're always trying to do, trying to keep that front end of our bike down. You are seeing kind of pop up, you flowing on, so the steeper more technical the climb, the more you have to work on that. And so your lats, those upper back muscles are really what you want to be using to keep that front end down. You want to be feeling the tension here when you are trying to do that. You don't want to just be trying to use the chest and shoulders to do that, it's going to put you in a weird position on your bike, using those lats to push that front end down is really going to help you keeping control of your bike and keep traction at the front tire on steep climbs.
Now that's not the only place that will help. It will help you in a lot of different of different areas on a drill but that's part one, primary ones that I think the chin ups helps us is mountain bikers. It helps us maintain stronger health and it's going to help us on the steep climb, so that's why it's important for us to incorporate so. Anyways hope you guys have enjoyed this. Once again, it's been James Wilson with MTB Strength Training Systems. You can find more great tips like this at bikejames.com, it's pretty much the premier mount bike training website on the internet right now. Go there and get tons of free info, tons of free demos and stuff like that.
Anyways hope you guys have enjoyed this. I'll talk to you guys next time.
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