The chin-up is an exercise
everybody has heard of. Nothing off the wall here...this
is just a technique I use to crank up the intensity of the
chin-up movement.
It's a simple one - basically,
you're going to do weighted chins using a dumbell set between
your feet. Once you've done as many reps as you can with
the dumbell, you just drop the dumbell on the floor (without
letting go of the bar) and you keep going until you're trashed!
It's a whole new meaning (or
a whole old meaning, I guess you might say), to the concept
of DROP sets...
Like I said, very simple.
But MAN will it work you.
Here's what it looks like.
First, set a dumbell on the
floor right under the chin-up bar. I use the bar that's
on my rack - the height is perfect.
If you have a chin-up bar
that's higher up, you may need to set the dumbell on end
on a bench in front of the bar, grab the bar with your hands
THEN clamp your feet around the bar.
If the bar is too high up,
you won't be able to reach the bar with a dumbell in between
your feet.
Reach down and set the dumbell
between your ankles. The plates of the dumbell should be
resting on your forefeet and the heels of your shoes. I'm
using an 85lb dumbell for this one.
Reach and grab the bar - I
like to use an underhand, close grip for these.
Get your feet off the ground
- for my setup, I do this by bending the knees a bit.
Now pull yourself up.
Repeat until you can't get
any more reps with the weight. Open up your feet and drop
the dumbell on the floor, keeping your grip on the bar.
Now rep out on bodyweight
chins until you can't do any more reps.
This is a great set extension
technique for really messing up your back in a good way.
Naturally, in order to use it, you have to be able to do
at least SOME chins with a bit of weight.
