Comments on: Chinning Bars: Back, Biceps, and Beyond

By: HugeJackedman

HugeJackedman — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:17:30 +0000

“However, overhand-grip pull-ups – especially wide-grip pull-ups – are important, functional, and instinctual, and they shouldn’t be neglected. ”

I wouldn’t recommed wide-grip overhand pull-ups to anyone who does deadhang/full range of motion pullups, explosive pullups or weighted pullups – especially if the trainer has even a minor shoulder injury.
I’d recommend shoulder wide underhand chins for this type of training.
When it comes to training different parts of the upper back muscles, it’s the pulling angle in relation to the upper body that is more important than the grip. So the underhand chins surely stress the lats enough and in full sagittal plane. If you want to train back in transverse plane, do overhand barbell bent over rows(elbows not too far out for shoulder safety).

By: Tyciol

Tyciol — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:39:08 +0000

“Children’s playground equipment is perfect for working out on, but be sure the police don’t give you a hard time about hanging around the playground.”

Lol this is so truth. You can get away with it when you’re a teenager… I think this works better if you do it in groups as adults though. Ideally if you give yourself a cool name like “Bar-barians” and print off t-shirts.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:45:19 +0000

Kipping pullups are not for everyone, but for those who can bang out sets of pullups very easily and quickly, kipping pull-ups are a fun variation. Women, too, benefit from kipping pullups because they don’t have the same upper-body strength as a man of the same weight.

Use your best judgement; it’s not like anyone’s going to do them to exhaustion 3 times per week. Although they appear to be violent in nature, they’re not hard on the shoulders or other joints (in my experience at least).

As to the “cheating” thing, who or what are they cheating? Cheating means “to deceive by trickery”. Kipping pullups are an exercise, nothing more and nothing less. As I mention in the article, unless you’re using pullups as a form of competition, do them however you want. If you can measure your progress, you’re OK no matter how you do them.

Finally, there are several kinds of strength. While kipping pull-ups are obviously not as useful as “regular” pull-ups for kids who want to bulk up and develop max strength, they’re an enjoyable alternative for people who want to work on strength endurance and work capacity. I’m a fan of boxing-style training, and two non-traditional forms of pull-ups — kipping and jumping — go very well with my preferred style of workout. For guys who just want to add muscle, I’d agree with you 100% that kipping pullups are not an efficient use of your workout time.

I’m not a staunch advocate of kipping pullups. But lots of people on the internet are. For anyone who wants more info (most of it totally partisan), google finds tons of kipping discussions, most of it from CrossFit-related sites.

By: jonny

jonny — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:22:36 +0000

I must say that kipping pull ups look enormously dangerous, dont they?
How could you make a clean motion with that speed.
I guess everyone has his own workout philosophy so everyone can stick to his taste.
But this workout surely shouldnt be generelly recommended.
Personally I cant see an advantage in combining cardio and strength training in this manner.
Why not do a fine class cardio and a seperated fine strength workout, instead of this mediocre combination that is potentially dangerous?
Also the speed applied is actually kind of cheating, since you’re really more swinging than pulling.
That’s why you can do more reps which basically means that this workout isnt as effective as standard slow pull ups considering strenth.
And definetely there a better workouts for cardio either.
Just my 2 cents.

By: Erik

Erik — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:06:19 +0000

kettlebells are bad for you but kipping pull-ups are fun? Max strength bows before athleticism? That’s why I use my ‘bells.