Move of the Month: Chin-Up Progression and Variations
by GRP strength coach Will Ruth
The chin-up is a great lift for building the upper body pulling muscles with no required equipment other than a bar strong enough to hold your weight. Rowers can use the chin-up to build the latissimus dorsi (“lats”), as well as the rear shoulder and arm muscles, without stress and strain on the lower back.
However, it’s my experience that long-limbed, endurance-trained rowers often struggle to do bodyweight chin-ups with good technique for enough sets and reps to develop strength and muscle mass. While it is possible to do 6-10 sets of 2-4 reps and gradually reduce sets and increase reps from there, I find that rowers most often do the same 2-4 sets of 8 or more reps, just with rapidly deteriorating technique under fatigue.
Even with rowers who are strong enough to do bodyweight chin-ups for sets of 8+ reps, I still use additional variations with bands, cables, a TRX or gymnastics rings, and the confusingly named “seated chin-up” to train the general motor pattern of the vertical pulldown in different ways.
Key technique pointers of any chin-up variation include:
Stable torso, with no heaving, arching, or kicking to get additional reps.
Shoulder blades generally in the down position, with no upward shrugging of the shoulders. Avoid the “turtle back posture” at the top position with the shoulders shrugged up and upper back rounded. This isn’t how we want to move when sculling!
2-to-1 lowering-to-lifting tempo to control the descent of each rep, not flopping or falling to the bottom position.
I recommend one or two chin-up variations per week for 3-4 sets of 6-12 reps with 2-3 minutes of rest between sets. We can superset the chin-up with another exercise that uses different muscles, such as a push, press, or even a squat, to take up some of the rest time and improve training efficiency.
Watch my demonstration video for my favorite variations of the chin-up exercise:
Eccentric-only, or slow-lowering chin-up: Jump or step up to the top position and lower yourself down slowly, aiming for 3-5 seconds of descent on each rep.
Band-assisted chin-up: Use a resistance band looped around the bar and your feet or knee for some assistance, particularly at the bottom position. We can combine these by doing as many bodyweight chin-ups as you can with good technique, then finishing out the set with additional slow-lowering or band-assisted reps.
Lat pulldown: Use resistance bands or a cable/pulley machine for lighter load, higher rep training focused on the muscles of the mid-back and rear shoulder area. Make sure to control the lowering phase of each rep with a good squeeze of the shoulder blades at the point of max contraction to really train up the muscles.
Seated chin-up: Bent knees is the easiest starting point, then feet flat on the floor, then up on a bench. Keep the hip joint relaxed so that the torso stays vertical like a chin-up, instead of inclined like a bodyweight row. We can also use a TRX or gymnastics rings for this exercise as well.
Overhand, underhand, or neutral grip: Some rowers find that one grip feels better than another on the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints, and all can have a place in a strength training program.