T Nation

12 Weeks 12 Chins.... How?

Powerlifting
#1

The latest T Nation newsletter featured the sternum chin-up as exercise of the week, but more interestingly was the Charles Poliquin comment

“By the way, one of the ways that I assess the quality of a coach or personal trainer is by a simple test. If qualified, a coach or personal trainer should be able to get a female trainee to do 12 shoulder-width supinated chin-ups in 12 weeks – that is, of course, assuming that her body fat is within normal range. This test, as you can imagine, clearly indicates that there are very few personal trainers out there who know what they’re doing.”

Which got me wondering how fellow members would go about doing this in a 12 week time frame? any particular methods you would use?

#2

[quote]Mythwalker wrote:
The latest T Nation newsletter featured the sternum chin-up as exercise of the week, but more interestingly was the Charles Poliquin comment

“By the way, one of the ways that I assess the quality of a coach or personal trainer is by a simple test. If qualified, a coach or personal trainer should be able to get a female trainee to do 12 shoulder-width supinated chin-ups in 12 weeks – that is, of course, assuming that her body fat is within normal range. This test, as you can imagine, clearly indicates that there are very few personal trainers out there who know what they’re doing.”

Which got me wondering how fellow members would go about doing this in a 12 week time frame? any particular methods you would use?[/quote]

Well, I’d be sure to get a top female athlete (you know, the kinds of gals Poliquin works with), and not some housewife new to lifting.

#3

From ‘The Poloquin Principles’…

""Using this type of progression I was able to increase the Women’s Canadian National Ski Team’s averge number of chinups from 0 to 12 in 11 weeks!

The first progression uses a spotter and starts with hanging from the chinup bar with knees bent. During the ascent, the spotter should support you by holding both ankles. If assistance is needed during this phase, you can extend the leg against the spotters base of support. Once you’re able to perform 12 repetitions in this style with minimal assistance, it’stime to move on to the next progression.

In the second progression the same starting position is used, but this time only one ankle is in the spotters hands- the extra weight of the free leg will increase the overload on the muscles. When 12 repetitions can be performed with minimal assistance, you can move n to the next level.

In the third progression the exercise is performed in the same manner, but this time the spotter will hold you at the waist. as yor strength increases, you will find that you require assistance only in certain parts of the exercise. At these parts of the movements your spotter should offer only enough assistance to help you clear the bar.

When you can perform the full range of movement with no assistance for 12 reps, you are ready to begin using additional weight."

Also, at the end of the progression, it may be useful to perform a few weeks of heavy negative chins (sloooow eccentrics) with a stool under your feet for the concentric part. Hope this helped!

Kubo

#4

Monkey bars. Lots of monkey bars.

#5

[quote]MikeKubo wrote:
From ‘The Poloquin Principles’…

""Using this type of progression I was able to increase the Women’s Canadian National Ski Team’s averge number of chinups from 0 to 12 in 11 weeks!

The first progression uses a spotter and starts with hanging from the chinup bar with knees bent. During the ascent, the spotter should support you by holding both ankles. If assistance is needed during this phase, you can extend the leg against the spotters base of support. Once you’re able to perform 12 repetitions in this style with minimal assistance, it’stime to move on to the next progression.

In the second progression the same starting position is used, but this time only one ankle is in the spotters hands- the extra weight of the free leg will increase the overload on the muscles. When 12 repetitions can be performed with minimal assistance, you can move n to the next level.

In the third progression the exercise is performed in the same manner, but this time the spotter will hold you at the waist. as yor strength increases, you will find that you require assistance only in certain parts of the exercise. At these parts of the movements your spotter should offer only enough assistance to help you clear the bar.

When you can perform the full range of movement with no assistance for 12 reps, you are ready to begin using additional weight."

Also, at the end of the progression, it may be useful to perform a few weeks of heavy negative chins (sloooow eccentrics) with a stool under your feet for the concentric part. Hope this helped!

Kubo
[/quote]

No. It completely didn’t help.

Just kidding.

#6

It is simple.

Specificity + frequent practice = success.

Read Pavel’s article on greasing the groove.

All you have to do is set a chin up bar in the trainees home and every day each and every time he/she passes it they do one set, as many as they can. They do not go to failure but one rep before.

Why does it work?

Because of the process of synaptic facilitation. Repetitive and reasonably intense stimulation of a motoneuron increases the strength of its synaptic connections and may even form new synapses.

Synaptic facilitation can be summed up as lifting heavy weights as often as possible while staying fresh.

This is a heavy, high volume approach that has been proven to be one of most scientific approaches to strength training there is.