Técnicas e instrumentos de recolección de datos

These are invaluable as a builder of upper back, upper arm, and forearm musculature, as well as being a hell of a tool for developing savage overall upper body strength. I greatly prefer and advocate the use of the chin-up (palms facing you) over the pull-up (palms facing away) for several reasons. The most important (to me) reason for the use of the chin-up over the pull-up is that often grip is the limiting factor in the pull-up. The pull-up is a terrific exercise as well, but most will attest that they can perform at least a few more chins than they can pull-ups. The pull-up is the more challenging exercise simply because less muscle is operating in a mechanically advantageous manner. This is one of those bizarre instances where the belief exists for many that the ‘harder’ version must be better.

My belief is whatever movement allows you to use the most weight for the most repetitions will invariably get you the strongest and consequently develop the most muscle mass.

Rest assured that if you train chins and weighted chins hard; you will never be a slouch at performing pull-ups. They will always trail behind in number, but will always be there just a few steps behind when you need them (this is important to note, considering I advocate the use of chin-ups for building strength in military personnel who actually test on the pull-up).

To perform the weighted chin, don a weight belt and hang from a bar with your palms facing towards you as shown. Make it a dead hang, meaning that the elbows are not bent at all. From there pull up until your throat comes in contact with the bar.

In more cases than not I will have the trainee perform the weighted chins on the same day(s) of the week that they press. This means that every second workout the trainee is performing the weighted chin.

The movement will be done for two working sets in the six to eight rep range. This means that the trainee will strive to reach failure (when they cannot complete another repetition;

easy to find with this exercise) between six and eight repetitions.

They will then take a short rest, the duration of which is determined by how they are feeling and when they are ready to have at it again (shouldn’t exceed five minutes, however), and knock out another set with the intention of reaching failure somewhere between six and eight reps again.

There are many ways to improve with rep range-style training. This idea is one of the core principles of the ‘Powerbuilding’ methods we use here for more advanced,

hypertrophy-seeking individuals (there will be much more written about these methods in later works). One can use the same weight for both sets, in which case they will likely not repeat the same number of reps on the second set, or reduce the weight used on the belt for the second set. Either is fine, so long as the trainee is making some measure of improvement in either weight used or reps completed from workout to workout (barring the occasional and understandable exception). Below are some examples:

Workout 1: 10 lbs x 6 reps on first set, 7.5 lbs x 7 reps on second set. (Trainee has made the desired rep range on both sets so he is cleared to either increase the weight used on one or both sets, or keep the weight the same and try to get deeper into the rep range).

Workout 2: 10 lbs x 7 reps on first set, 10 lbs x 6 reps on second set. (Here the trainee kept the weight the same and beat his reps from the first set of the last workout. After the first set, he opted to maintain the same load on the belt and go for it since the first set felt pretty good. He made fewer reps than he did on the first set, but it is still an improvement over his second set effort on the previous workout).

Workout 3: 12.5 lbs x 6 reps on first set, 7.5 lbs x 7 reps on second set. (Here the trainee pushed the weight up on the first set and barely managed to get six reps. He did it though, and made the rep range. Since he was smoked from the effort however, he backed off the weight for the second effort. He got seven reps with the same weight he got seven with on workout one, but it is still a victory since he beat his weight record for six reps on the first set. Technically the second set is still an improvement since the first time he

completed 7.5 lbs for seven reps he had not done 12.5 for six beforehand).

You can see from the above examples that progress is slow going on these, but small victories are the name of the game. Make your rep range, and add weight when you feel you can. You will also notice that the weights used on the belt were not terribly heavy.

Many people, I believe, have a belief that weighted chin-ups are only for those who can hang a 45, or at least 25 lb, plate from the belt. This intimidation factor keeps many from

taking on this excellent exercise. The weighted chin-up is to be trained linearly and loaded in small increments, just the same as any other weighted exercise.