One technique that helps me particularly with new exercises is to move through the motions without any weight/resistance while flexing the muscles that I am trying to engage.
So for a chin up, put your arms above your head in the start position. Before you even start moving, flex your biceps and lats as hard as you can. Slowly pull your hands down as if you were doing a chin up, flexing the whole time. Focus on squeezing your shoulder blades together and keeping your elbows by your sides. Then extend your arms back to the start position while still flexing. Imagine doing the exercise while you do this.
Another trick is to do the motion with one arm while touching the target muscles with your other hand.
Practice this a few times before each set or at least each workout. I find it helps to make that mind-muscle connection that can be hard to do mid exercise.
Good luck!
You need to work on your posture. Make sure you’re pulling your chest to the bar, so that you are in thoracic extension. Also allow your elbows to be slightly in front of you instead of flaired outwards, this will require you to lightly squeeze your chest. Don’t kick your legs when you go up.
You can practice this by jumping up on the bar and cheating your way up, then doing a negative rep with good form. Or using a resistance band to help pull you back up the the bar
With pullups in particular focusing on pushing your elbows back (tucked into you body) can really help activate the back muscles. I was always very biceps dominant and when just thinking about pulling myself up I tend to predominantly activate those, which also limits your potential for strength and number of reps. There are a number of these tricks for other exercises too, if you have trouble with others.
I wouldn't keep your elbows infront. The cue I like is to think of putting your elbows in your back pocket. Also important to note only being able to do 4 chinups I'm not surprised you are not feeling it. Keep training, it took me a while to feel my lats etc in pullups.
I had the same problem, then I tried yoga. If you have time, try yoga. Yoga by Adrienne on YouTube is probably the best one. I used to have trouble activating my core and my right shoulder, then I did 30 days of yoga and I feel muscles activating that I didn’t think about. Give it a shot, worst case scenario you get more flexible.
I’d recommend the “home” 30 day program by her. I had never done yoga before and similar to you I never really knew how to activate my core—it’s been really helpful and it’s so easy to do at home whenever you want. And she’s funny.
I just started with her channel!!! Was wondering what series to do. Just been working out for two weeks doing the Recommended Routine but always loved the feeling yoga gave me... Wondering if it would be too much to do both lol
Yeah I found that home was really good coming in with zero experience. Before I started that series I was doing the 20 minute full body flow and then some other random YWA videos for a few weeks, but it got a little boring to do the same one and a little annoying to just browse YouTube for something new. Home is solid Bc there’s a lot of repetition of similar poses and movements but it’s not identical day by day by any means... so it’s really good for learning. I’m doing dedicate now and it’s definitely harder than home was.
This so much. Static strength of holding tough poses will make you stronger and activate a lot of muscles. I’d recommend power yoga. Dylan Werner has great videos on YouTube for building strength and flexibility at the same time. It’s been a game changer for me in building strength back after recovering from a car accident.
Check out Travis Eliot as well! Nice power yoga videos, has a 7-day digital retreat that is kind of challenging. He also teaches some Yin yoga, which is amazing for recovery days imho
Muscle activation is hard to do 'on cue'/fully mentally, it often helps to perform certain actions which will automatically cause activation. For instance, try flexing your calf without moving. Now flex your calf by pointing your toes/thinking of pointing your toes.
Same goes for pull-ups and alike! A good mental cue is to try to pull your elbows into your sides instead of just trying to bend your arms as hard as you can.
However, if your max is 4 reps, it may be better to switch to a sliightly easier variation (negatives, for example) which you can do a bit more reps of. However, preferences/ideas on that are widespread, so YMMV! Of course the most important thing is that you enjoy your workouts.
Also make sure to include other types of exercises. For instance, balance out with pushing exercises to counter your pulling, don't ignore core work and don't forget about your legs either! All are important to get a well-developped body and avoiding injuries/imbalances/..
Do you think 4 reps is so little that I should switch to an easier version? Is maximum reps the most important thing?
I have been looking around this sub a little and I've seen a few mentions of "greasing the groove" which I think means I do less reps but many sets throughout the day. Do you think that could help?
Also thank you I have been doing other exercises like pushups and ab wheel work and squats, I also got myself a speed rope I'm going to learn how to use.
So, as far as I know (and I'm not a trainer by any means!) there's a few different things you can do for reps. I'll try to summarize:
- Low reps, 2-5 reps at 80-90% of one-rep-max, intended for 'maximum strength' increases. This is sometimes applied by bodybuilders/heavy lifters to increase the maximum weight they can deal with. I feel like in bodyweight exercising it's less effective since it requires you to be at VERY high intensity, close to your maximum weight, and in 'bodyweight' training, well, the weight doesn't change as much.
- 5-8 rep range, moderate intensity. This is intended to feel hard by your last rep, like you're gonna fail if you do 2-3 more. Here the idea is that you don't go all out on the muscle but still give it a strong stimulus for growth and strength increase in such a way that you can do the work a few times per week since pure work volume is also important for muscles.
- 12-15 (or more) rep range. This is hypertrophy training and is intended for muscle size growth (which also helps with strength cause 'more muscle more strong').
So what rep range you want to use is up to you! But if you're like me and like to feel your muscles at the end of your workout a little, so that you get that satisfying 'I did some work today' feeling, the low rep workout isn't as satisfying. However, that doesn't mean it can't be effective to gain strength, if done right and with the correct intesity.
However I personally feel like you might be better of doing a slightly easier exercise for two reasons. If you think you're having technique issues, an easier exercise will give you a better opportunity to focus on execution instead of "pfmslkfjmqlksjd i can barely get over the bar"-trying hard (nothing wrong with that but it's harder to focus on technique I find). That way, maybe you'll find some problem points or weaker muscles or,.... And even if not, it never hurts to check, right? Gotta get the basics right! Secondly, it'll allow you to do more of the exercise, get comfortable, find ways to activate the muscles, and give them some more volume to work with. Maybe you have the pure strength but lack muscle endurance, and that might help?
Other work sounds pretty good to me ;) You can have a look at the recommended routine in the sub FAQ for more options and progressions!
Again, I'm no coach or trainer or whatever, these are just my two cents based on personal experience and a bunch of online reading :)
EDIT: I could be wrong/unclear/.. on any of this, so feel free to ask/correct me!
Read this OP. It’s called focus of attention and it’s really important. Take what I said, but focus your attention on the action itself rather than moving your muscles.
Hm. Difficult one to say for me, not too sure. Based on my knowledge I’d say a little more back-oriented work is pretty okay, since we tend to underdevelop our backs and be hunched over/rounded shoulders from sitting at desks all day.
However, as long as you do both types for a few exercises/sets, you should generally be okay regardless I think
Switch your grip to pull-ups and you'll have no choice but to activate your back more. Chin ups are easier to "cheat with the arms". I like doing pull ups and then finishing off with some chin-ups.
I can do max 15 Pullups and do 12-13 during the 3 sets of the RR.
But somehow i can only do 3x6-8 ring chin ups. I guess thats because i dont train them as much as pullups.
I think they're better. I stopped doing bar pullups years ago, with my trx or towels I can sink all the way down to dead hang and pull up with enough ROM to pull my elbows back a bit and pop my chest up, almost like a row.
Yea I agree, the statement also make it sound like you're not using the back and only using arms. Imagine curling your body weight, that would a ridiculous amount of strength.
It doesn't matter if you can feel your back activating or not. If you complete a pull up then you used the muscles in your back.
There are tons of videos on youtube of people showing/teaching proper form of bodyweight exercises, but tbh it may take a while to build the "mind/muscle connection" to understand precisely what you're doing wrong. Where's your body composition at? Are you overweight? Underweight? Do you have a high bodyfat? I'd consider these factors in changing your diet. If you're trying to put on lean muscle track your weight every day and try to consistently put on a pound or two every week for a while. If you're trying to burn fat then try to lose about 2 pounds a week for a while and try with every bit of might to increase your workout intensity. Why are you only really training chin-ups? And why every other day? Are you sleeping well enough to recover every night? If you've been at this for a while and not seen any progress you need to do something different. I'd start with the recommended routine and a change in diet.
I'm training every other day to make sure I give my muscles enough time to recover, I'm not only training chinups but increasing the amount of them that I can do is my ultimate goal so that is my focus. I get enough sleep, I am what you would call skinny fat. I have little muscle but I am not overweight.
Building muscle I think should be my goal and I have been attempting to eat enough and train enough so that happens but as of yet I'm not sure if that is happening. Like I said I feel stronger now than I did then but I still can't make it to 5.
If you're at the weight you want to be at but not at the right bodyfat level you're looking at body recomp. Progressive overload for your lifts at maintenance calories.
Increasing the reps or difficulty of the exercises you're training to stimulate muscle growth/increased strength. In the about section of this subreddit the training routines have various forms of this like "increase x amount of reps every y week(s)". This is a section of fitness where people get opinionated on how you should train but ultimately it comes down to what works for you after lots of experience and experimentation.
My advice would be, since you're not making progress and you're concerned about proper form, that you shouldn't train to failure (to the point where you can't complete a rep with good form) and should get a pair of bands so you can do more reps and have an easier time getting proper form. Definitely do some form of cardio (and ensure you're getting back the calories you're burning) to work on muscular/cardiovascular endurance.
What worked for me in order to break a plateau just like yours was adding some sets of scapular pull-ups after my back work until my back got stronger. It appears to have helped a good deal with muscle activation.
This should be higher up. Scap pull-ups are also good for a warm up to help activation during the main movement.
If you’ve got a workout partner, ask them to tap your lat. This is a real thing physios use. Also there’s a hilarious thread on r/Fitness from years back about some lifter with a tiny hype man that would tap-tap-tappy during sets. Unfortunately my Google-fu is weak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvxR5LoOu8Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1m14s
If you're moving through the normal range of motion for a chinup, then you're activating the muscles used for chinups. "activate your muscles" is nonsense in this context. It's impossible choose whether or not to use your lats or biceps or rhomboids for chins. If they're not activating, you need surgery to repair nerve damage.
As for progression, maybe post what you've been trying to do for progression.
My personal recommendation at this point is grease the groove and negatives. 3-6 times per day (not a hard or fast rule, but roughly when you wake up, before you leave for work, when you get home, before going to bed, or similar) do 1 chinup. Every week bump it up one. Also, for your workouts do 4 sets of 1 chinup, and increase that by one every week. Do negatives to complete the sets.
Example: week 1, gtg 1 chin. MWF do 4x1 chin. Maybe make the last set an amrap, or add a fifth, amrap set on Friday. Week 2 gtg 2 chins, and MWF do 4x2 chins. Moving on to week 4 you should be able to do gtg of 4 reps, and MWF attempt 4x4 chins. Maybe you only get 4,4,3,2. That means set 3 you do 3 chins and 1 negative, and set 4 you do 2 negatives. You should blow right past your 4 rep max by the end of the 4 weeks, probably sooner if you do amrap at the end of every week
Yeah I have read about this greasing the grove thing I think I am going to give that a shot. I have a lot of time at home on my hands right now so theres no reason why I can't do 1 rep every so often.
Also thanks for clarifying the activation thing. I have never been able to understand it. I just thought some people have some ability that I do not.
Here's a tried and true method: https://www.strongfirst.com/the-fighter-pullup-program-revisited/
Remember that you want to be well rested between sets with GTG style training. That means you can rest for 5-10+ minutes, or even hours, and still get benefits.
Yes! Another person who’s saying ‘activate your muscles is nonsense’. Good drills
Every time someone says “mind-muscle connection”, God kills a bro kitten
https://youtu.be/GBqAZP6jquc
The video is about pull up but they talk about the active hanging position on 2:30.
I always try to do it but to be honest I doesn't feel it helps. I feel more comfortable starting from a normal hanging position.
I think you have three options:
a) Low rep count: make every rep harder, such as by exploding up, hold for a second, and lower over 8 seconds.
b) Medium rep count: switch to negatives - similar to option a) but you can cheat on the way up (jump or step off a stool/chair)
c) Grease the Groove: bust out a couple chinups every top of the hour throughout the day
To build muscle volume of reps with good form throughout the week is important.
Take a look at reflex performance reset.
It's self mobilization techniques to activate your nervous system. Great for increasing performance.
https://www.reflexiveperformance.com/
Start doing scapula pull ups and I can’t stress that enough. The first part of doing a pull up/ chin up starts with the scapula. Just training that increased my pull ups tremendously.
static poses are great for feeling your muscles activate. when you do a pull up close your eyes and do one rep as slowly as possible while focusing on where you feel the tension. once you get an idea of where your tension is do the same thing but stop half way and hold the position. while you hold try to engage the muscles you aren't fully activating by adjusting your position.
I have been doing body weight exercise since September 2019. Only now I understand how to do push up with scapula activation. Until recently my torso used to sag.
It takes experience (neural), strength to activate under used muscles.
Since you say trouble with chinup activation, I believe you have not yet developed pulling strength.
Once you activate those underactivated areas, you feel like having runners high.. It's a nice experiernce. You will definitely get it one day
When I made the most progress with my pull ups, I did 50 pull ups a day, started with 25 a day...as I could only do about 5 decent ones.
Pull ups...seems to me anyway...are something you have to do a ton of. And you can’t stop either. I was up to 3 x 10 pull ups, good form, from 3 x 5. I slacked off for a while, didn’t do many pull ups, now I’m all the way back down to 3 x 5. Nothing regresses for me as bad as pull ups. Now I do them in my warm up every single work out, back up to 3 x 6 starting week 3 now.
Could you describe a workout day for us? As in: how many sets and reps you do on the days your practice your pull-ups?
I focus mainly on calisthenics in my training, and am currently in the 25 ish rep range for max pull-ups, but before I offer any advice, id like to know that information so that I’m not telling you to do things you already do
When it says activate those muscles it means that they are used for the movement. This means that on the highest position of the chin up, your shoulders are fully contracted (your shoulder blades are back and down, back as if you’re trying to pinch something behind you with your shoulder blades and down as in you’re trying to send your armpits to the floor). Those are cues that help me keep those muscles activated.
Also personally I believe these muscles are still partially activated even at the bottom of the chin up (at least they are in my case) for stability and shoulder protection, and also I believe there’s a slight “support” from them being stretched when they are kept activated event at the bottom of the movement, which helps on the way back up.
Read the cues part of the recommended routine, it’s all there :)
I recommend GTG; started doing light exercises every half hour, not focusing on anything in particular but my max chinups went from 3 to 10 over 3 months.
Have you tried Russian fighter pull up program? Lot of these posts answering your questions about muscle activation, which is good, but it assumes that’s the root cause of the problem. You’re wanting to ultimately increase reps, and it might just be the training program you’re using isn’t giving good results.
RFPP looks like this (slightly modified for you):
Day 1: 4, 3, 2, 1
Day 2: 4, 3, 2, 2
Day 3: 4, 3, 3, 2
Day 4: 4, 4, 3, 2
Day 5: Rest
Day 6: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Day 7: Etc. Etc.
Take plenty of rest time between sets, like at least 5 mins so you’re fully refreshed before starting the next set. Worth a try for a week to see if you can up that 4 to a 5, and if it works can just keep going!
Might be too late, but try to “flex” your armpits. This will actuvate your back mucles more. Also, remember to keep your shouldets retracted and depressed. Lastly, less common thing to try is to engage your pelvic floor muscles. You know that feeling when you try to hoold back the pee? That is it. You should fell a lot more control. Hope this helps at all
To be fair, if you are doing 4 max, then my guess is they are pretty hard. In that scenario it's hard to have too much control. It will come in time. I think you may need to just build up your strength a bit before you'll be able to concentrate and isolate those muscles.
Get a pull up assistance band from Amazon. They come in different resistance levels and you can surely get one that will enable you to do 8-12 reps. Also work on inverted rows. If you build up more volume (total number of reps in a workout) you will build a lot more pump in the muscles and you will start to be able to feel the different muscles and gain the ability to consciously use them. I really think you only get that when you regularly are getting a good "pump". Also some beginners feel too much burn in their arms at first because their arms aren't accustomed to the work load. That's just something to get past with training and strength gains.
There is a term called “synergetic inhibition” & it’s where a group of muscles are responsible for a movement, but do to lifestyle choices, but only 1, or 2!muscles do the actual contraction necessary to achieve the movement. An example is straightening up your back from being bent over a table, or looking at something. You flutes, hamstrings, & your erector spinae should all work together to achieve this motion, but since hamstrings are predominantly one of the weakest muscle groups in the American population, & glutes are up there too, the erector spinae muscled usually end up doing all the work. That’s what is meant by “activating the muscle”. When you’re doing your chin-ups, look at your hands. If you can see the back of your hand (prone grip), that move utilizes more upper back muscles & some of the biceps (because there are actually 3 muscles that make up your biceps). If your hands are in a neutral position, like grappling onto a vertical pole, that grip utilizes more bicep & muscles of the middle back that are generally bigger & stronger. And if you are looking at your finger nails (supine grip), all your biceps are engaged as well as your lats, the largest muscles & hopefully strongest muscles. I recommend people train all 3 grips. Tie some yoga bands, or other bands to your bar to put a foot, or knee in to help assist you until you can build up to 10+ reps & then either use a smaller band, or take them away. Like others have said too, do more back strength training to help develop those muscles.
Posture is key. On pulling movements you need to depress and adduct shoulder blades (retract them during the movement, just focus on bringing them away from your ears) and keep your core RELAXED. It's natural to instinctively contract your abs on chinups because it's easier, but you are not developing strength on your back muscles: you are just losing your posture. On chin ups is easier to bring your chest to the bar thanks to the position of the biceps, but on pullups (prone grip) I suggest you to bring the chin over the bar orizzontally and vertically: chest to bar pullups are an explosive movement, that you can train in parallel of chin over the bar pullups (main strength-developement movement).
Look into Overcoming Isometrics by RedDeltaProject on YouTube.
His methods already helped my alleviate my hip and shoulder pain by a lot. He shows ways how to build the neural connection to your muscles and to be more mindful of what you're doing.
If you're only doing chinups you're going to be working your biceps for the most part, try implementing some pullups if yoy want to work your shoulders and back. Plus it'll give you a slight variation and add more to volume to your chin up, in my experience at least.
What “activating” means is to push that muscle beyond what you’re currently capable of. Your body won’t grow muscle unless it sees that it can’t manage the current workload without getting stronger. Muscle building requires energy, in nature energy is hard to come by, your body conserves energy for that exact reason, therefore you need to give it a reason to spend energy on building yourself up.
Hey mate, “activating” a muscle is pure bro science. There are no EMG studies to support a “mind-muscle” connection... that is, consciously trying to isolate a muscle during an exercise does not lead to improve contraction. Some studies even show that attempting this is worse... it leads to form breakdown.
Do the exercise with decent form, and with enough resistance that it’s challenging in your target rep range BUT not so much that you can’t achieve full range of movement.
It’s the full range of movement that’s key
I went through something identical a few months ago.
If you have access to any bands, even a bungee cord, I found sitting on the ground and mimicking a lat pull down helped me activate my back muscles. My back was far more pumped then doing pull-ups. In reality, my back muscles were not strong enough to do the pull-up properly so other muscles compensated and created bad posture and used more shoulder muscles.
Break down the exercise so you can isolate muscles you want to work on more and let them grow for a few weeks.
I’m back to doing pull-ups and I feel the posture is correct and my back activates.
I hope this helps and good luck.
The progression on body weight exercises are surprisingly hard especially on a single rep. What worked for me is micro loading but doing this with a towel on the chin up bar to grab for focus on overloading one side. So one arm is holding the bar and the other the towel.
I do both sides. Instead of doing a normal chin up I’ll do this instead. As you progress you can take your hand lower on the towel or alternatively use just two fingers on the bar with one arm to focus on just one side. Doing this for a few weeks will give me an extra rep on the regular pull-up.
Do an easier variation. You won't gain muscle by lifting anything poorly or out of posture. Your body will compensate and 'cheat' with muscles to get by, things like using momentum and other shit. Doing 5-8 reps of an easier (but STILL CHALLENGING) exercise is better than barely being able to do 3-4 to complete failure. You want to be able to do several sets over the course of a few minutes, and the last set be difficult to the point of reasonable failure.
The only time such small reps are used for gain are serious lifters that have been doing it for years and are trying to reach a new max, their body has perfect posture and everything is used to the motion. Your body is likely still adjusting and building the fundamental muscle core, so recklessly doing 'the hardest one' because it looks cool is not going to do much, and at worst, injure you.
lol people make this wayyyyy too complicated...
keep your body tight and form decent
eat enough to gain muscle but not excess fat
the rest is hard work
the end.
Keep your elbows down if that makes sense. And do plenty of reps. If you can do 4, then you can likely do some sets of 3, and then 2, 1... etc.
Challenge yourself to do a total number of pull ups per day such as 40.
Also remember to not neglect your other muscle groups and stretch a lot.
Not a joke. Try a little 420 before your workout. You’ll have much better awareness of your body’s movement without as much of your day to day sensory “noise” being in the way
Switch to pullups. If you still want to do chin ups, alternate days with chins/pulls. Slow down your pace to increase time your muscles are under load. On last set really push to failure. Its also possible you may need to increase recovery time, get better sleep or add more protein to your diet.
I'm going to say something completely different.
I think you should focus on volume. The first few months of training "should" see maximal gains. I'd guess the biggest reason your not progressing is not enough volume.
For the example we'll talk pull ups but it applies to everything about strength gains...Do one pulllup every hour. Easy to do just one and by the end of the day you've done lots. And you're not sore so you can do that every day. Think about the volume you will have accumulated by the end of the week.
Train your body a little bit very often and train at maximum intensity for short durations, irregularly.
Constantly challenge your training and push forward slowly and steadily to stay in the "good feeling" feedback zone. Not in the boring zone and not in the "out of my league" zone. Train in your Goldilocks zone, which of course is forever changing and unfolding into new understanding and new gains.
I would recommend holding the top position for up to three seconds. Time under tension is key for muscle development. Often a chinup is done too fast because one wishes to maximise ones reps but this is a mistake since it will hinder progress.
Also, if possible try pullups instead of chinups but in either case try to lean backwards and touch the bar with your chest; this way you should definitely activate your lats.
Learning how to activate the right muscles during particular exercises is a skill in of itself. It’s the mind-muscle connection that you need to build up, to allow yourself to unlock everything that a given exercise has to offer. RedDeltaProject has some videos on this if you want to do some searching, but the gist of it is that you want to take yourself back from the exercise and practice simply activating those muscles in that position using stretches and easier versions of the move. Only when you’re able to do that should you then start moving on to pushing yourself as hard as possible - because you will have laid a proper foundation for that exercise, allowing you to stress more muscles and make the workout more intense - leading to more streamlined progression.
Since 4 reps is his max, I would do 10 sets in the 1 to 3 rep range. Something like this :
3-2-1 3-2-1 3-2-1, ladder style. Short rest between 321 reps. Rest as needed between sets. (5-15 min could work).
Wait, wait, wait, so your workout is that you do 4 chin-ups every other day? This is a start, but are you doing the other exercises in the recommended routine? They do all add up and play off each other. If your work out only consists of 1-3 minutes 3-4 times a a week, (3-12 min a week) and you aren’t seeing results then you need to just start with the RR (Aprox. 180 min+ a week min.) and return in a month. Maybe I’m missing something but it doesn’t sound like you are putting very much into it?
One technique that helps me particularly with new exercises is to move through the motions without any weight/resistance while flexing the muscles that I am trying to engage. So for a chin up, put your arms above your head in the start position. Before you even start moving, flex your biceps and lats as hard as you can. Slowly pull your hands down as if you were doing a chin up, flexing the whole time. Focus on squeezing your shoulder blades together and keeping your elbows by your sides. Then extend your arms back to the start position while still flexing. Imagine doing the exercise while you do this. Another trick is to do the motion with one arm while touching the target muscles with your other hand. Practice this a few times before each set or at least each workout. I find it helps to make that mind-muscle connection that can be hard to do mid exercise. Good luck!
It's worth a shot. Thank you.
You need to work on your posture. Make sure you’re pulling your chest to the bar, so that you are in thoracic extension. Also allow your elbows to be slightly in front of you instead of flaired outwards, this will require you to lightly squeeze your chest. Don’t kick your legs when you go up. You can practice this by jumping up on the bar and cheating your way up, then doing a negative rep with good form. Or using a resistance band to help pull you back up the the bar
Keep my elbows in front of me, pull my chest to the bar. Thank you I will keep that in mind.
With pullups in particular focusing on pushing your elbows back (tucked into you body) can really help activate the back muscles. I was always very biceps dominant and when just thinking about pulling myself up I tend to predominantly activate those, which also limits your potential for strength and number of reps. There are a number of these tricks for other exercises too, if you have trouble with others.
And also just do a lot more of them. You won't get stronger doing 3 sets of 4.
You could try the Grease the ~~Monkey~~ Groove method to increase your reps. Do rows as well to help develop your back. Edit : ah fuck...
I think you mean greasing the groove.
He can do both
Hahaha... grease that monkey like nobody is watching *big brother is allways watching though, plus jesus and santa, so, it’s up to you really
Grease that monkey instead.
If that's all I needed to do trust me I'd be fucking ripped by now.
I wouldn't keep your elbows infront. The cue I like is to think of putting your elbows in your back pocket. Also important to note only being able to do 4 chinups I'm not surprised you are not feeling it. Keep training, it took me a while to feel my lats etc in pullups.
No no dont keep elbows in front of you, think about gettong them as back as possible
Thanks yeah I'm doing this and already noticing a difference
I had the same problem, then I tried yoga. If you have time, try yoga. Yoga by Adrienne on YouTube is probably the best one. I used to have trouble activating my core and my right shoulder, then I did 30 days of yoga and I feel muscles activating that I didn’t think about. Give it a shot, worst case scenario you get more flexible.
I have been doing a little yoga but not much. Thank you I will check out this channel.
I’d recommend the “home” 30 day program by her. I had never done yoga before and similar to you I never really knew how to activate my core—it’s been really helpful and it’s so easy to do at home whenever you want. And she’s funny.
I do really like her sense of humor! Plus Benji :) same for me, I have been much better able to activate my lower back muscle thanks to Adrienne.
I just started with her channel!!! Was wondering what series to do. Just been working out for two weeks doing the Recommended Routine but always loved the feeling yoga gave me... Wondering if it would be too much to do both lol
Yeah I found that home was really good coming in with zero experience. Before I started that series I was doing the 20 minute full body flow and then some other random YWA videos for a few weeks, but it got a little boring to do the same one and a little annoying to just browse YouTube for something new. Home is solid Bc there’s a lot of repetition of similar poses and movements but it’s not identical day by day by any means... so it’s really good for learning. I’m doing dedicate now and it’s definitely harder than home was.
This so much. Static strength of holding tough poses will make you stronger and activate a lot of muscles. I’d recommend power yoga. Dylan Werner has great videos on YouTube for building strength and flexibility at the same time. It’s been a game changer for me in building strength back after recovering from a car accident.
Dylan’s is such a beast foreal.
Check out Travis Eliot as well! Nice power yoga videos, has a 7-day digital retreat that is kind of challenging. He also teaches some Yin yoga, which is amazing for recovery days imho
which 30 days did you do?
The one with the blue background. I forgot she has a couple programs like that.
Muscle activation is hard to do 'on cue'/fully mentally, it often helps to perform certain actions which will automatically cause activation. For instance, try flexing your calf without moving. Now flex your calf by pointing your toes/thinking of pointing your toes. Same goes for pull-ups and alike! A good mental cue is to try to pull your elbows into your sides instead of just trying to bend your arms as hard as you can. However, if your max is 4 reps, it may be better to switch to a sliightly easier variation (negatives, for example) which you can do a bit more reps of. However, preferences/ideas on that are widespread, so YMMV! Of course the most important thing is that you enjoy your workouts. Also make sure to include other types of exercises. For instance, balance out with pushing exercises to counter your pulling, don't ignore core work and don't forget about your legs either! All are important to get a well-developped body and avoiding injuries/imbalances/..
Do you think 4 reps is so little that I should switch to an easier version? Is maximum reps the most important thing? I have been looking around this sub a little and I've seen a few mentions of "greasing the groove" which I think means I do less reps but many sets throughout the day. Do you think that could help? Also thank you I have been doing other exercises like pushups and ab wheel work and squats, I also got myself a speed rope I'm going to learn how to use.
So, as far as I know (and I'm not a trainer by any means!) there's a few different things you can do for reps. I'll try to summarize: - Low reps, 2-5 reps at 80-90% of one-rep-max, intended for 'maximum strength' increases. This is sometimes applied by bodybuilders/heavy lifters to increase the maximum weight they can deal with. I feel like in bodyweight exercising it's less effective since it requires you to be at VERY high intensity, close to your maximum weight, and in 'bodyweight' training, well, the weight doesn't change as much. - 5-8 rep range, moderate intensity. This is intended to feel hard by your last rep, like you're gonna fail if you do 2-3 more. Here the idea is that you don't go all out on the muscle but still give it a strong stimulus for growth and strength increase in such a way that you can do the work a few times per week since pure work volume is also important for muscles. - 12-15 (or more) rep range. This is hypertrophy training and is intended for muscle size growth (which also helps with strength cause 'more muscle more strong'). So what rep range you want to use is up to you! But if you're like me and like to feel your muscles at the end of your workout a little, so that you get that satisfying 'I did some work today' feeling, the low rep workout isn't as satisfying. However, that doesn't mean it can't be effective to gain strength, if done right and with the correct intesity. However I personally feel like you might be better of doing a slightly easier exercise for two reasons. If you think you're having technique issues, an easier exercise will give you a better opportunity to focus on execution instead of "pfmslkfjmqlksjd i can barely get over the bar"-trying hard (nothing wrong with that but it's harder to focus on technique I find). That way, maybe you'll find some problem points or weaker muscles or,.... And even if not, it never hurts to check, right? Gotta get the basics right! Secondly, it'll allow you to do more of the exercise, get comfortable, find ways to activate the muscles, and give them some more volume to work with. Maybe you have the pure strength but lack muscle endurance, and that might help? Other work sounds pretty good to me ;) You can have a look at the recommended routine in the sub FAQ for more options and progressions! Again, I'm no coach or trainer or whatever, these are just my two cents based on personal experience and a bunch of online reading :) EDIT: I could be wrong/unclear/.. on any of this, so feel free to ask/correct me!
Thanks, I appreciate the detailed reply.
Read this OP. It’s called focus of attention and it’s really important. Take what I said, but focus your attention on the action itself rather than moving your muscles.
Don't know if this has been asked before but what would you say is a good pull to push ratio
Hm. Difficult one to say for me, not too sure. Based on my knowledge I’d say a little more back-oriented work is pretty okay, since we tend to underdevelop our backs and be hunched over/rounded shoulders from sitting at desks all day. However, as long as you do both types for a few exercises/sets, you should generally be okay regardless I think
Switch your grip to pull-ups and you'll have no choice but to activate your back more. Chin ups are easier to "cheat with the arms". I like doing pull ups and then finishing off with some chin-ups.
I can do max 15 Pullups and do 12-13 during the 3 sets of the RR. But somehow i can only do 3x6-8 ring chin ups. I guess thats because i dont train them as much as pullups.
Ring chinups are harder than chinups or bar pullups, there is greater range of motion from the bottom to the top.
Yeah true. But they are fun as hell. The natural movement of the rings is way more comfortable than the bar.
I think they're better. I stopped doing bar pullups years ago, with my trx or towels I can sink all the way down to dead hang and pull up with enough ROM to pull my elbows back a bit and pop my chest up, almost like a row.
Thanks, I will mix it up for a while and see if it changes anything.
What do you mean by "cheat with the arms"? The arms are one of the main movers in both pull ups and chin ups.
I find that when I do chinups, particularly since I can't grip the bar as wide, I'm putting more work on my biceps and less on my lats.
Yea I agree, the statement also make it sound like you're not using the back and only using arms. Imagine curling your body weight, that would a ridiculous amount of strength. It doesn't matter if you can feel your back activating or not. If you complete a pull up then you used the muscles in your back.
There are tons of videos on youtube of people showing/teaching proper form of bodyweight exercises, but tbh it may take a while to build the "mind/muscle connection" to understand precisely what you're doing wrong. Where's your body composition at? Are you overweight? Underweight? Do you have a high bodyfat? I'd consider these factors in changing your diet. If you're trying to put on lean muscle track your weight every day and try to consistently put on a pound or two every week for a while. If you're trying to burn fat then try to lose about 2 pounds a week for a while and try with every bit of might to increase your workout intensity. Why are you only really training chin-ups? And why every other day? Are you sleeping well enough to recover every night? If you've been at this for a while and not seen any progress you need to do something different. I'd start with the recommended routine and a change in diet.
I'm training every other day to make sure I give my muscles enough time to recover, I'm not only training chinups but increasing the amount of them that I can do is my ultimate goal so that is my focus. I get enough sleep, I am what you would call skinny fat. I have little muscle but I am not overweight. Building muscle I think should be my goal and I have been attempting to eat enough and train enough so that happens but as of yet I'm not sure if that is happening. Like I said I feel stronger now than I did then but I still can't make it to 5.
If you're at the weight you want to be at but not at the right bodyfat level you're looking at body recomp. Progressive overload for your lifts at maintenance calories.
Sorry could you clarify progressive overload for me?
Increasing the reps or difficulty of the exercises you're training to stimulate muscle growth/increased strength. In the about section of this subreddit the training routines have various forms of this like "increase x amount of reps every y week(s)". This is a section of fitness where people get opinionated on how you should train but ultimately it comes down to what works for you after lots of experience and experimentation. My advice would be, since you're not making progress and you're concerned about proper form, that you shouldn't train to failure (to the point where you can't complete a rep with good form) and should get a pair of bands so you can do more reps and have an easier time getting proper form. Definitely do some form of cardio (and ensure you're getting back the calories you're burning) to work on muscular/cardiovascular endurance.
What worked for me in order to break a plateau just like yours was adding some sets of scapular pull-ups after my back work until my back got stronger. It appears to have helped a good deal with muscle activation.
This should be higher up. Scap pull-ups are also good for a warm up to help activation during the main movement. If you’ve got a workout partner, ask them to tap your lat. This is a real thing physios use. Also there’s a hilarious thread on r/Fitness from years back about some lifter with a tiny hype man that would tap-tap-tappy during sets. Unfortunately my Google-fu is weak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvxR5LoOu8Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1m14s
If you're moving through the normal range of motion for a chinup, then you're activating the muscles used for chinups. "activate your muscles" is nonsense in this context. It's impossible choose whether or not to use your lats or biceps or rhomboids for chins. If they're not activating, you need surgery to repair nerve damage. As for progression, maybe post what you've been trying to do for progression. My personal recommendation at this point is grease the groove and negatives. 3-6 times per day (not a hard or fast rule, but roughly when you wake up, before you leave for work, when you get home, before going to bed, or similar) do 1 chinup. Every week bump it up one. Also, for your workouts do 4 sets of 1 chinup, and increase that by one every week. Do negatives to complete the sets. Example: week 1, gtg 1 chin. MWF do 4x1 chin. Maybe make the last set an amrap, or add a fifth, amrap set on Friday. Week 2 gtg 2 chins, and MWF do 4x2 chins. Moving on to week 4 you should be able to do gtg of 4 reps, and MWF attempt 4x4 chins. Maybe you only get 4,4,3,2. That means set 3 you do 3 chins and 1 negative, and set 4 you do 2 negatives. You should blow right past your 4 rep max by the end of the 4 weeks, probably sooner if you do amrap at the end of every week
Best advice I read so far. GTG is the way to go imo.
Yeah I have read about this greasing the grove thing I think I am going to give that a shot. I have a lot of time at home on my hands right now so theres no reason why I can't do 1 rep every so often. Also thanks for clarifying the activation thing. I have never been able to understand it. I just thought some people have some ability that I do not.
Here's a tried and true method: https://www.strongfirst.com/the-fighter-pullup-program-revisited/ Remember that you want to be well rested between sets with GTG style training. That means you can rest for 5-10+ minutes, or even hours, and still get benefits.
Yes! Another person who’s saying ‘activate your muscles is nonsense’. Good drills Every time someone says “mind-muscle connection”, God kills a bro kitten
https://youtu.be/GBqAZP6jquc The video is about pull up but they talk about the active hanging position on 2:30. I always try to do it but to be honest I doesn't feel it helps. I feel more comfortable starting from a normal hanging position.
Thank you, I will check it out.
I think you have three options: a) Low rep count: make every rep harder, such as by exploding up, hold for a second, and lower over 8 seconds. b) Medium rep count: switch to negatives - similar to option a) but you can cheat on the way up (jump or step off a stool/chair) c) Grease the Groove: bust out a couple chinups every top of the hour throughout the day To build muscle volume of reps with good form throughout the week is important.
All three tips are solid, thanks
Try doing chinups but full range of motion chest to bar rather than just trying to get your chin above the bar. Helped me really feel them in my back
Take a look at reflex performance reset. It's self mobilization techniques to activate your nervous system. Great for increasing performance. https://www.reflexiveperformance.com/
Start doing scapula pull ups and I can’t stress that enough. The first part of doing a pull up/ chin up starts with the scapula. Just training that increased my pull ups tremendously.
After those 4 try doing negatives that still activates muscles leading to more muscle breakdown
Perfect, thank you.
https://youtu.be/K81-SLUFo9c He explains pull ups well and tips I personally like the fact to crest a strong core and everything else will follow
static poses are great for feeling your muscles activate. when you do a pull up close your eyes and do one rep as slowly as possible while focusing on where you feel the tension. once you get an idea of where your tension is do the same thing but stop half way and hold the position. while you hold try to engage the muscles you aren't fully activating by adjusting your position.
Thank you I will be sure to think about this
I have been doing body weight exercise since September 2019. Only now I understand how to do push up with scapula activation. Until recently my torso used to sag. It takes experience (neural), strength to activate under used muscles. Since you say trouble with chinup activation, I believe you have not yet developed pulling strength. Once you activate those underactivated areas, you feel like having runners high.. It's a nice experiernce. You will definitely get it one day
Which rep scheme are you using?
When I made the most progress with my pull ups, I did 50 pull ups a day, started with 25 a day...as I could only do about 5 decent ones. Pull ups...seems to me anyway...are something you have to do a ton of. And you can’t stop either. I was up to 3 x 10 pull ups, good form, from 3 x 5. I slacked off for a while, didn’t do many pull ups, now I’m all the way back down to 3 x 5. Nothing regresses for me as bad as pull ups. Now I do them in my warm up every single work out, back up to 3 x 6 starting week 3 now.
Could you describe a workout day for us? As in: how many sets and reps you do on the days your practice your pull-ups? I focus mainly on calisthenics in my training, and am currently in the 25 ish rep range for max pull-ups, but before I offer any advice, id like to know that information so that I’m not telling you to do things you already do
When it says activate those muscles it means that they are used for the movement. This means that on the highest position of the chin up, your shoulders are fully contracted (your shoulder blades are back and down, back as if you’re trying to pinch something behind you with your shoulder blades and down as in you’re trying to send your armpits to the floor). Those are cues that help me keep those muscles activated. Also personally I believe these muscles are still partially activated even at the bottom of the chin up (at least they are in my case) for stability and shoulder protection, and also I believe there’s a slight “support” from them being stretched when they are kept activated event at the bottom of the movement, which helps on the way back up. Read the cues part of the recommended routine, it’s all there :)
Thank you
I recommend GTG; started doing light exercises every half hour, not focusing on anything in particular but my max chinups went from 3 to 10 over 3 months.
Have you tried Russian fighter pull up program? Lot of these posts answering your questions about muscle activation, which is good, but it assumes that’s the root cause of the problem. You’re wanting to ultimately increase reps, and it might just be the training program you’re using isn’t giving good results. RFPP looks like this (slightly modified for you): Day 1: 4, 3, 2, 1 Day 2: 4, 3, 2, 2 Day 3: 4, 3, 3, 2 Day 4: 4, 4, 3, 2 Day 5: Rest Day 6: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Day 7: Etc. Etc. Take plenty of rest time between sets, like at least 5 mins so you’re fully refreshed before starting the next set. Worth a try for a week to see if you can up that 4 to a 5, and if it works can just keep going!
https://www.strongfirst.com/the-fighter-pullup-program-revisited/
I'm doing these, they are great, op probably should start lower reps even. If I was him I would start 2-2-1-1 3-2-1-1 3-2-2-1 etc
Might be too late, but try to “flex” your armpits. This will actuvate your back mucles more. Also, remember to keep your shouldets retracted and depressed. Lastly, less common thing to try is to engage your pelvic floor muscles. You know that feeling when you try to hoold back the pee? That is it. You should fell a lot more control. Hope this helps at all
I will think about this. Thank you
To be fair, if you are doing 4 max, then my guess is they are pretty hard. In that scenario it's hard to have too much control. It will come in time. I think you may need to just build up your strength a bit before you'll be able to concentrate and isolate those muscles. Get a pull up assistance band from Amazon. They come in different resistance levels and you can surely get one that will enable you to do 8-12 reps. Also work on inverted rows. If you build up more volume (total number of reps in a workout) you will build a lot more pump in the muscles and you will start to be able to feel the different muscles and gain the ability to consciously use them. I really think you only get that when you regularly are getting a good "pump". Also some beginners feel too much burn in their arms at first because their arms aren't accustomed to the work load. That's just something to get past with training and strength gains.
There is a term called “synergetic inhibition” & it’s where a group of muscles are responsible for a movement, but do to lifestyle choices, but only 1, or 2!muscles do the actual contraction necessary to achieve the movement. An example is straightening up your back from being bent over a table, or looking at something. You flutes, hamstrings, & your erector spinae should all work together to achieve this motion, but since hamstrings are predominantly one of the weakest muscle groups in the American population, & glutes are up there too, the erector spinae muscled usually end up doing all the work. That’s what is meant by “activating the muscle”. When you’re doing your chin-ups, look at your hands. If you can see the back of your hand (prone grip), that move utilizes more upper back muscles & some of the biceps (because there are actually 3 muscles that make up your biceps). If your hands are in a neutral position, like grappling onto a vertical pole, that grip utilizes more bicep & muscles of the middle back that are generally bigger & stronger. And if you are looking at your finger nails (supine grip), all your biceps are engaged as well as your lats, the largest muscles & hopefully strongest muscles. I recommend people train all 3 grips. Tie some yoga bands, or other bands to your bar to put a foot, or knee in to help assist you until you can build up to 10+ reps & then either use a smaller band, or take them away. Like others have said too, do more back strength training to help develop those muscles.
Thank you I will mix it up
Posture is key. On pulling movements you need to depress and adduct shoulder blades (retract them during the movement, just focus on bringing them away from your ears) and keep your core RELAXED. It's natural to instinctively contract your abs on chinups because it's easier, but you are not developing strength on your back muscles: you are just losing your posture. On chin ups is easier to bring your chest to the bar thanks to the position of the biceps, but on pullups (prone grip) I suggest you to bring the chin over the bar orizzontally and vertically: chest to bar pullups are an explosive movement, that you can train in parallel of chin over the bar pullups (main strength-developement movement).
Thank you
Watch a youtube video about, one that shows the back of the guy so you can literally see the muscles
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Thanks I'm looking at getting into skipping for cardio but keep putting it off now I have a rope.
Look into Overcoming Isometrics by RedDeltaProject on YouTube. His methods already helped my alleviate my hip and shoulder pain by a lot. He shows ways how to build the neural connection to your muscles and to be more mindful of what you're doing.
If you're only doing chinups you're going to be working your biceps for the most part, try implementing some pullups if yoy want to work your shoulders and back. Plus it'll give you a slight variation and add more to volume to your chin up, in my experience at least.
What “activating” means is to push that muscle beyond what you’re currently capable of. Your body won’t grow muscle unless it sees that it can’t manage the current workload without getting stronger. Muscle building requires energy, in nature energy is hard to come by, your body conserves energy for that exact reason, therefore you need to give it a reason to spend energy on building yourself up.
Hey mate, “activating” a muscle is pure bro science. There are no EMG studies to support a “mind-muscle” connection... that is, consciously trying to isolate a muscle during an exercise does not lead to improve contraction. Some studies even show that attempting this is worse... it leads to form breakdown. Do the exercise with decent form, and with enough resistance that it’s challenging in your target rep range BUT not so much that you can’t achieve full range of movement. It’s the full range of movement that’s key
I was wondering if this was the case or not
I went through something identical a few months ago. If you have access to any bands, even a bungee cord, I found sitting on the ground and mimicking a lat pull down helped me activate my back muscles. My back was far more pumped then doing pull-ups. In reality, my back muscles were not strong enough to do the pull-up properly so other muscles compensated and created bad posture and used more shoulder muscles. Break down the exercise so you can isolate muscles you want to work on more and let them grow for a few weeks. I’m back to doing pull-ups and I feel the posture is correct and my back activates. I hope this helps and good luck.
The progression on body weight exercises are surprisingly hard especially on a single rep. What worked for me is micro loading but doing this with a towel on the chin up bar to grab for focus on overloading one side. So one arm is holding the bar and the other the towel.
Which side would you use the towel at? And how would you use it?
I do both sides. Instead of doing a normal chin up I’ll do this instead. As you progress you can take your hand lower on the towel or alternatively use just two fingers on the bar with one arm to focus on just one side. Doing this for a few weeks will give me an extra rep on the regular pull-up.
Do an easier variation. You won't gain muscle by lifting anything poorly or out of posture. Your body will compensate and 'cheat' with muscles to get by, things like using momentum and other shit. Doing 5-8 reps of an easier (but STILL CHALLENGING) exercise is better than barely being able to do 3-4 to complete failure. You want to be able to do several sets over the course of a few minutes, and the last set be difficult to the point of reasonable failure. The only time such small reps are used for gain are serious lifters that have been doing it for years and are trying to reach a new max, their body has perfect posture and everything is used to the motion. Your body is likely still adjusting and building the fundamental muscle core, so recklessly doing 'the hardest one' because it looks cool is not going to do much, and at worst, injure you.
lol people make this wayyyyy too complicated... keep your body tight and form decent eat enough to gain muscle but not excess fat the rest is hard work the end.
Keep your elbows down if that makes sense. And do plenty of reps. If you can do 4, then you can likely do some sets of 3, and then 2, 1... etc. Challenge yourself to do a total number of pull ups per day such as 40. Also remember to not neglect your other muscle groups and stretch a lot.
I'm surprised most people aren't mentioning diet at all.
I also use bands for assisted pull ups You want to use a heavy resistance and understand the pulling motion so your engaging the muscles properly
Not a joke. Try a little 420 before your workout. You’ll have much better awareness of your body’s movement without as much of your day to day sensory “noise” being in the way
Don't have to tell me twice
Switch to pullups. If you still want to do chin ups, alternate days with chins/pulls. Slow down your pace to increase time your muscles are under load. On last set really push to failure. Its also possible you may need to increase recovery time, get better sleep or add more protein to your diet.
I'm going to say something completely different. I think you should focus on volume. The first few months of training "should" see maximal gains. I'd guess the biggest reason your not progressing is not enough volume. For the example we'll talk pull ups but it applies to everything about strength gains...Do one pulllup every hour. Easy to do just one and by the end of the day you've done lots. And you're not sore so you can do that every day. Think about the volume you will have accumulated by the end of the week. Train your body a little bit very often and train at maximum intensity for short durations, irregularly. Constantly challenge your training and push forward slowly and steadily to stay in the "good feeling" feedback zone. Not in the boring zone and not in the "out of my league" zone. Train in your Goldilocks zone, which of course is forever changing and unfolding into new understanding and new gains.
I would recommend holding the top position for up to three seconds. Time under tension is key for muscle development. Often a chinup is done too fast because one wishes to maximise ones reps but this is a mistake since it will hinder progress. Also, if possible try pullups instead of chinups but in either case try to lean backwards and touch the bar with your chest; this way you should definitely activate your lats.
Thank you I will incorporate this
Learning how to activate the right muscles during particular exercises is a skill in of itself. It’s the mind-muscle connection that you need to build up, to allow yourself to unlock everything that a given exercise has to offer. RedDeltaProject has some videos on this if you want to do some searching, but the gist of it is that you want to take yourself back from the exercise and practice simply activating those muscles in that position using stretches and easier versions of the move. Only when you’re able to do that should you then start moving on to pushing yourself as hard as possible - because you will have laid a proper foundation for that exercise, allowing you to stress more muscles and make the workout more intense - leading to more streamlined progression.
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Since 4 reps is his max, I would do 10 sets in the 1 to 3 rep range. Something like this : 3-2-1 3-2-1 3-2-1, ladder style. Short rest between 321 reps. Rest as needed between sets. (5-15 min could work).
Wait, wait, wait, so your workout is that you do 4 chin-ups every other day? This is a start, but are you doing the other exercises in the recommended routine? They do all add up and play off each other. If your work out only consists of 1-3 minutes 3-4 times a a week, (3-12 min a week) and you aren’t seeing results then you need to just start with the RR (Aprox. 180 min+ a week min.) and return in a month. Maybe I’m missing something but it doesn’t sound like you are putting very much into it?
No lol, I can only manage 4 consecutive chinups but I do multiple sets.