Sports Insurance Blog

The chin-up is an exercise for working the back muscles and the supporting muscle groups. The exercise start with the body hanging from the chin up bar with extended arms over the head, and by using multiple muscle groups the body is lifted such that the chin is able to reach above the height of the chin-up bar. As the chin up has this starting position, there is a requirement to use a horizontal bar of some description, known as a chin up bar, although often also called a pull up bar, which is capable of supporting your body weight while you conduct the exercise. Your own gym is going to have the right chin up bars for the exercise, but what if you’re a new gym user who has not mastered a exercise yet? In order to save yourself some shame due to the visibility of such an exercise, you may wish to try and master the technique at home before you visit the gym.

You should be wary of attempting to do chin-ups using any old horizontal bar or beam that you may have access to at home or at work though, as it may not be strong enough to support your weight during the exercise. Don’t overlook its ability to hold you up whilst you hang from your arms, as the strain on the supporting bar increases greatly due to the downward force of your body at the bottom of the motion. This is even more true as you get better at the chin-up as your number of repetitions will grow as well as the speed at which you do them, putting more and more stress on the chin up itself.

There are a number of chinning bars for home use on the market that are more than adequate for the job. However, you must always make sure that you follow the instructions carefully during installation, as a mistake here could be the reason your chin up bar comes away from the wall or door frame where you have chosen to install it. 

A common reason for not finishing workout plans is injury. If you begin with safety in mind, you are more likely to complete the exercise and therefore gain better results.

Did you know that you can carry out more than a normal ChinUp with your Chin Up Bar? This will mean you can get better use out of your Chin Up bar, working out a greater number of muscle areas and giving you a far better overall toned an muscular appearence.

ChinUp

Chin ups should be conducted by holding the Chin Up Bar with palms facing towards you (this is called a supinated grip). You should pull yourself up to the point your chin is raised above the bar, ideally until you can touch the bar with your upper chest. If you can’t complete this at first you can complete negative chin ups where you use a chair to put yourself in the completed position and lower yourself down. You can do assisted chin ups; where a pilates band, chair or training partnet assists you with the last tiny push to the top.  Finally you could try kip chin ups; where a swing of the leg can be used to aid you in the motion. Once you can do chin ups you can start adding additional weight to make the exercise more difficult.

Targets: Latissimus dorsi

Pull Ups

Pull ups should be completed in an identical way as chin ups but with the hands facing away from you (pronated grip). By changing your hand position, and the movements this restricts you to less stress is put upon on using the biceps which will encourage the other muscle groups to be worked more.

Targets: Latissimus dorsi

Hanging Leg Raises

Leg raises are carried out by dangling from the Chin Up bar and raising the legs up in a straight line to make an L shape or right angle.

Muscles: Abdominals

Incline Press Ups

We all know that a press up is an easier alternative to bench press, but when you don’t have access to get to a gym a press up is better than not completing your chest routine.

With some of the next generation no fitting required Chin-Up bars such as the Medicarn Chin Up Bar these can be placed on the ground and the frame utilised for performing incline push ups, instead of just doing standard press ups. By performing the exercise on an incline greater focus is placed on the upper pec muscles which will give a fuller and better look throughout the body instead of just focusing on the lower pectoral muscles.

Muscles: Pecs

Decline Push Ups

In exactly the same way as you have just used the bar to carry out incline push ups you can also put your feet on it to conduct decline press ups; which will target the lower chest area instead of the upper.

Muscles Used: Chest