Mark Ottobre breaks down a six-step progression to your first chin-up: dead hang, active hang, retracted hang, short negatives, long negatives, and supplemental arm work. A 30-second controlled descent is enough to earn a full rep.
Are you struggling to do one chin-up like this guy here? I'm gonna show you 6 steps to be able to master it.
The first thing you must be able to do is a dead hang for 60 seconds and be able to repeat it for 3 sets.
After a passive hang, you wanna be able to do an active hang. You wanna pull your underpants into your armpits and hold it for 60 seconds. The progression of an active hang is a retracted hang where you're retracting all the way into end range and really pulling your chest up to the bar without moving your elbows. Then you wanna progress to a short negative where you help yourself up and lower for 5 to 10 seconds. Repeat 3 times. Then you wanna progress to a long negative that is 30 seconds in length. If you can do 30 seconds, you should be able to reach 1 full chin-up. And to ensure that you have adequate arm strength, I'd recommend including direct arm work like hammer curls and reverse grip curls. Let me know how this helps your chin-up in the comments below.
