When I first started P90X I could barely do a couple of chin-ups. But in P90X video I see people doing 15 and 20 reps and that is not just in the first set. They consistently do as many chin-ups in every set. I used to question whether I can ever be so strong. I always hated my chin-up days. Not anymore.
How did I do it? I just kept doing them even though I could only get 2 or 3. When I could not do any more I used to do negatives. For this I would jump to the chin-up bar so that I am in the top most position. Then I slowly came down. I kept doing it for all the sets where I could not get even 1 rep. Coming down slow is the key. I kept doing as many negative reps as I could get without hurting myself.
The next time I did chin-ups I could get 1 or 2 extra reps! That worked very well. I later found another trick that helped me get more energy. The trick is to tighten the abs as I am doing chin-ups. This helped me do a few more reps. I am not doing negatives any more because now I can do 15 reps with my body weight. My goal is not to do 100s of chin-ups. My goal is to become strong, not have more endurance. So I started adding weights to increase my strength.
No matter what you do, never use the assisted chin-ups that you find in most gyms. They simply don't work unless done right. Negatives are much better. In the gym I have seen people lifting their legs instead of pulling with the hands and thinking they are doing a rep. It simply does not work that way. Also the assist does not help much at the hardest part i.e. when you are at the bottom and gives too much assistance at the top where you don't need much.
From the chin-up experience I found out is that I should never give up hope and I should simply try to find tricks that work for me to increase strength. Now if I can only find a way to improve my bench press numbers. I suck at it. And currently bench press is my weakest link. I will figure out a way soon.
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