Warning on One-Arm Chin Training

Doing one-arm chins by holding the wrist of the hand doing the chinning can create a problem if you’re not careful.

The wrist and elbow of the arm doing the chinning (the “primary arm”) have to be exactly perpendicular to the floor. If, for example, you are dong one-arm chins with the right arm and your elbow is sticking out to the right, the tendons and/or ligaments in the right elbow may have a tendency to “jump the track” and leave you with a very sore elbow that only a chiropractor can fix.

Norman Cantwell, formerly a nationally ranked powerlifting champion and an expert on removing circulation blockages, is of the opinion that one-arm chins are a bad idea and can lead to other problems (Norman is featured in Diagnostic Bodybuilding and in the Self-Defense with Norman Cantwell video)

Norman worked on me and thought that the problems he detected were from the one-arm chins. As my training partner pointed out, the “jammed elbow” I has was just as likely (if not more than likely) caused by the fact that I had been doing partial military presses rapidly with 225 pounds. Any time you do any partial movement with a heavy weight, do it slowly.

If you decide to do one-arm chins, do it slowly and carefully, using plenty of counterweight to ease the potential strain on the elbow.

A Different Angle For Back Development

Very few of the “mirror athletes” (if you can’t see it, what good is it?) who clutter up today’s commercial gyms spend much (if any) effort on back development. For those who do, their stable of exercises is really limited. Bent over rows, one-dumbbell rows, lat machine pull downs, power cleans, and perhaps dead lifts and hyperextensions.

Take a close look at most of the people doing those exercises. They have a “valley” between their shoulder blades (no muscle) and little or no (i.e., they’re flat) on the outside of their shoulder blades. How you cure the first is in Diagnostic Bodybuilding. How you cure the second is with one-arm chins.

Can’t do a one-arm chin? Not to worry, a lot of the 275-pound steroid-induced monsters can’t do a single chin with both hands. It isn’t whether you can do one-arm chins—it’s how you train for them.

First, find one of those dip/chin combos in the gym with an offsetting weight stack. That is, if you weight 200 pounds, start with a 100-pound counter-weight on the weight stack.

Second, if you start with left-hand one-arm chins, grab your left wrist with your right hand in order to also engage the back muscles on the right. Then do the chins. The back muscles on the left side will do the majority of the work but from a different angle than what you have experienced before. 2-4 sets of 3-5 reps will do. You may find it hard to hold on after 4 or 5.

In a few weeks you will feel the back muscles you develop from this exercise pressing against your triceps.