Chin Ups Underhand Grip

Setting up and pulling the body cleanly

The chin up is unforgiving compared to the pulldown. Bodyweight is fixed. The grip width is fixed. What you can control is the setup and the rep quality.

1. Grip and hang

Grip the bar with palms facing you (supinated) at roughly shoulder width. Hang fully extended with the arms straight. Take a moment to set the lats by pulling the shoulders down and back before the rep begins. This is the active hang position and it should be held for one second before every set.

2. The pull

Drive the elbows down toward the hips. The chest leads the way up. Aim to clear the bar with the upper chest, not the chin. A true chin up finishes with the collarbone above the bar. Stopping at chin level cuts off the most productive part of the range.

3. The peak contraction

Pause for one second at the top of the rep. The shoulder blades are pulled down and back. The chest is high. The arms are fully bent. This is the position where the lats are shortest and the upper back is most loaded.

4. The descent

Lower under control over two to three seconds. The arms should straighten completely at the bottom. Resist the temptation to drop and reset. Schoenfeld and colleagues have shown that eccentric loading drives the largest fraction of hypertrophy on bodyweight pulls.

5. The dead hang reset

At the bottom of every rep return to a fully extended dead hang for a brief moment before pulling again. This pause prevents momentum from carrying you into the next rep and ensures each rep starts from the same range.

What the underhand chin up trains

The chin up loads multiple muscle groups heavily because it is a closed chain compound exercise moving bodyweight against gravity. The supinated grip changes which muscles do the most work compared to the overhand version.

Latissimus dorsi

Primary mover. The lat handles shoulder extension throughout the pull. Underhand chin ups slightly favour the lower portion of the lat compared to overhand pull ups because the longer pull range catches the lat in a fully stretched position at the bottom.

Biceps brachii

The supinated grip places the biceps in its strongest mechanical position. Biceps activation on chin ups is among the highest of any pulling exercise. EMG studies have measured biceps recruitment higher on chin ups than on standing barbell curls. The chin up is partially a biceps exercise.

Brachialis and brachioradialis

The brachialis sits underneath the biceps and contributes to elbow flexion. The brachioradialis (the most prominent forearm muscle) also assists. Underhand chin ups train all three elbow flexors heavily, which is why chin up specialists tend to have notable arm thickness.

Mid back and core

The rhomboids, mid traps and lower traps work isometrically to stabilise the scapula. The abdominals and obliques work to prevent lower back hyperextension and to control trunk swing. A clean chin up is a brief full body event.

Five errors that waste chin up potential

Chin ups are hard. The combination of fatigue and bodyweight makes form failures common. These are the errors that should disappear before adding weight.

Kipping for momentum

Using a leg swing or hip kick to throw the body up moves the load to momentum rather than the lats. Strict chin ups train the back. Kipping chin ups train conditioning. Pick one. For hypertrophy and strength always start strict.

Partial range of motion

Stopping the pull at the chin or dropping early on the descent halves the productive range. Every rep should clear the chest above the bar and return to a fully straight armed dead hang. Full range chin ups are harder. Train them anyway.

Shrugging at the bottom

If the shoulders rise toward the ears at the bottom of the rep the upper traps take over from the lats. Reset shoulder depression at the dead hang. Pull the shoulders down and back before bending the elbows.

Hyperextending the lower back

Arching the lower back to wedge the chest up at the top compensates for weak lat strength. Keep the ribs stacked over the hips. The chest comes up by lat power, not by lumbar extension.

Rushing reps

Most chin up sets are done too fast. Two seconds up, one second pause, two to three seconds down is the productive tempo. Rushing through reps reduces time under tension and increases form failure.

Progressing from zero to weighted chin ups

Chin up programming depends entirely on your current capacity. Sets and reps for someone doing one rep look nothing like sets and reps for someone doing twelve.

Building to your first chin up

If you cannot yet do one strict chin up, train three to four sessions per week of heavy lat pulldowns at 80 percent of bodyweight in the 5 to 8 rep range, paired with eccentric only chin ups (5 seconds on the descent for 3 to 5 reps). Most people build to a first strict chin up in 4 to 8 weeks of consistent work.

Hypertrophy: 6 to 12 reps per set

The productive range. 3 to 5 sets of 6 to 12 reps with 2 to 3 reps in reserve. If you can do more than 12 reps, add weight via a dipping belt to bring you back into the 6 to 12 range. Total weekly volume of 8 to 15 sets is appropriate for most intermediate lifters.

Strength: 3 to 5 reps weighted

For maximal strength load with a dipping belt or weighted vest to a point where 3 to 5 reps is genuinely difficult. 3 to 5 sets at this load. Most trained lifters can build to chin ups with 25 to 40 percent of bodyweight added for 5 reps.

Volume and grease the groove

High frequency low rep chin ups (3 to 5 reps several times per day) have a long history in strength training. The pattern is well documented in NSCA literature. The cumulative volume is what produces results, not any one heroic set.

Frequency

2 to 3 weekly chin up sessions are tolerated by most lifters. Daily light chin up work is possible if total volume stays below approximately 30 weekly reps. Recovery is faster than for deadlifts or heavy rows because the spinal loading is zero.

More on back training

For the overhand grip version, our Pull ups overhand grip guide covers the wider grip pull. Neutral grip pull ups are the shoulder friendly middle ground between the two. And the Close grip pull ups guide covers the narrower variation that biases the lower lats further.