One-Arm Chin-Up

[JohnRobHolmes]

thats some really good advice. the only benifit i could see from one arm pullups are for climbers or people that pull things often (bunnyhops come to mind). but the ego boost would be worth the trouble. two arm pullups would be very easy.

the hardest thing about one armers is the balance and the groove. its just a weird angle to pull at.

 

[Perceptionist]

It can be done:

2 methods I have used with people to be able to 1 arm chin ups is to do negative only 1 arm chin-ups I.E. start at the top & lower yourself down, you can either use something to stand on to get in postion or use 2 arms to do the concentric contraction and then 1 arm to do the eccentric. You can also start horizontal in the power rack (put the bar acroos the pins ) and work on doing 1 arm chins and raise the bar height as strength increases until you are vertical and can do a 1 arm chin.

You also need continuos neurological stimulation of the motor pathway, a great way to get this is using Pavel Tsatsuline's "grease the groove" method where you set up a chin up bar and every time you pass it you do from 1 - 5 reps (start at 1 and work up to 5) with in a month you can bang out reps easy (works well for any type of chin up / pull up - although the 1 arm is the most difficult and you will need to use the other training tips to get to the 1-2 rep range first) - for a detailed explantion get his book "The naked warrior" - excellent read for learning how to develop extreme levels of muscle tension (tension generates force = greater strength)

Other training tips are to work on grip strength exercises (gripper, farmers walk, deadlift etc.), different width chin-up bars, towel chin-ups. Things to keep in mind, you need to have a favorable strength to weight ratio (fat is just dead weight) and you need high levels of inter-muscular coordination.

The people that do this exercise best are athletes with low body fat who train with either compund free weight exercises, olympic lifts or martial arts / wrestlers. Bodybuilders who have a poor strength to weight ratio (their muscle size is due to mostly: capillary density, increased blood volume, glycogen stores, connective tissue and some contractile proteins) and train in isolation lack the strength and inter-muscular coordination to recruit enough muscles in synchronization to pull their body weight . Last big hands help to get a tighter grip on the bar.

If you have ANY pre-existing shoulder /back/elbow/wrist pathologies DO NOT attempt untill you are completely pain free with a normal R.O.M.

Hope this helps!

S

i've been trying to do some 1 arm pull ups lately and I've been doing the one arm negatives. I can bang 2 one arm pullups, but its still not smooth as I want them to be.

 

[supreme]

Keep at it, try Pavel's method - set up a bar at home and every time you pass it do your 2 reps, increase to 5 and when you co do multiple sets of 5 daily you will be able to bang out 10 - 15 rep sets no problem

S