How To Increase Your Wide Grip Chin-ups in 4 Weeks

A big broad wide back is a very important muscle group that everyone wants to develop. Itis a signature factor of any great physique and one that automatically demandsrespect. It is a sign of hard work, dedication and attention to detail as not many people train theirback muscles as much as their chest or arms let alone train their back withproper form and activation.The V-Taper

creates the illusion of a much larger than life appearance and you cannotachieve that look without developing the lat muscles.

Now there are many ways that one can work their back including machine exercises, cableexercises, compound barbell movements and of course bodyweight movements whichof course include good ole fashioned chin-ups.

The Chin-Up Explained

A chin-up isbasically when you grasp a bar that is overhead. You can use a pronated(overhand) or supinated (underhand) grip when performing them.

To developmore width to your back, it is recommended that you perform the wide gripoverhand chin-up.

For thisexercise, you will grasp the overhead secured bar with each hand spaced about3-5 inches outside of shoulder width.

From ahanging position you will then focus on pulling the body upwards until youfully contract your back muscles and squeeze the shoulder blades together. Youwant to make sure you keep your head up and chest out to keep good form.

Then at thetop position, you are going to want to lower yourself with a slightly morecontrolled movement downwards until you are back in the starting hangingposition.

The Problem with Wide Grip Chin-ups

The biggestproblem people face when it comes to wide grip chin-ups is that they are hardfor the majority of people.

Out of allthe different variations of the chin-up, the wide grip is by far the mostdifficult.

It isbecause when you perform the wide grip chin-up, you are really primarily usingthe back muscles in an awkward position and most find that their bodyweightproves to be too heavy. But as you use a narrower grip or even switch tounderhand, you are using more muscles to pull your body up by including yourbiceps and back and other supporting muscles thereby allowing you to completean increased amount of reps.

If a persontries to improve the number of wide grip chin-ups they can perform week afterweek by simply trying to ‘do more’, they might resort to using momentum ordoing partial reps and end up believing that they can do more than theyactually are able to.

This iscalled false belief. You are changing the variables that should remainconsistent and by doing so, you are automatically discrediting the outcome.It’s as if you were trying to beat your 100M sprint time and each week youstarted to sprint from a starting point closer to the finish line. Yes yourtime will increase, but only because you cheated to get there.

Don’t worrythough, I have devised a 4 week plan that you can use to see improvements inyour wide grip chin-up count without having to trick or cheat yourself.

The 4 Week Wide Grip Chin-Up Improvement Solution Plan:

Make sureyou ‘test’ yourself by performing as many wide grip chin-ups as you can theweek before starting the 4 week plan. Do this at the beginning of your normalback workout and after of course having warmed up. Just bust out as many as youcan with proper form and tempo. Then record that number and keep it in a safeplace you will be able to find at the end of the program to make sure youincrease your overall count.

* Perform as many reps as you can.

Week 1:

You aregoing to continue training with the same program you are currently using butyou will simply incorporate this specialized training at the beginning of each‘Back’ day. You may need to adjust your total training volume since you areadding more in with this specialized plan.

In eachweek, you will aim to progressively increase your repetitions over each chin-upvariation. Since people who struggle with wide grip chin-ups can still performnarrower grip chin-ups even after completed their wide chin-ups, we willfurther fatigue the back by including a drop-set type of training combined witha rest pause method.

Here is theexercise plan for this technique:

*The asterisks under target suggest you perform as many as possible to fatigue.Remember to keep good form and proper tempo.

Week 1

Explanation:Youwill start by performing as many wide grip chin-ups as you are able to do. Thenyou would let go of the bar, rest for 10 seconds, then start again but thistime using a medium or shoulder width grip and perform as many of those aspossible. Once you fatigue and cannot do any more, then let go, rest 10 secondsand then try and complete some underhand close grip chin-ups.

Once you aredone your first drop-set of chin-ups, take a 1 minute rest before startingagain.

Don’t gettoo worried about how many you actually complete. Just make sure you record thenumbers so we have a reference point for the following weeks.

Week 2:

Week 2 youare going to aim to complete at least 1 additional wide grip chin-up in yourprogression during the work set. So for example, if you completed 15 wide gripchin-ups in your first set in week 1, you would aim to complete 16 this timearound. But if for some reason, you are not able to beat that number, and thenwe are going to use the 10 second rest pause method and continue with the widegrip chin-ups until you do beat your week 1 number. Are you still with me?

The otherthing to note is that since we are only trying to improve on the wide gripchin-ups, we will be reducing the target reps for the other chin-up variations.Let me give you another example:

Week 1: Set 1 – Wide Grip: 15, Medium Grip: 10, Close Grip: 5

Week 2: Set 1 – Wide Grip: 17, Medium Grip: aim for 10, Close Grip: aim for 5

I want youto ‘aim’ to match, not beat, the number of reps on the other two variations(medium and close) and focus only on increasing your wide grips in each set.

Do not tryand surpass your rep count for the close grip and medium grip. You can matchthe reps from the previous week, but you want to save your energy to try andincrease on your next wide grip set.

Here is the exercise plan for this technique:

*The asterisks under target for wide grip chin-ups suggest that you try and beatyour week 1 rep count by 1 additional rep at least. Use the 10 second restpause method if you fall short of your goal. Be sure to beat the wide grip repcount before resting again for 10 seconds then moving on to the medium andclose grip chin-ups.

*match* means aim to match, but not beat, your week 1 rep count. If you fall short,that is ok. Do not attempt the rest-pause to match week 1. Remember, you areincreasing on wide grip chin-ups which will more than likely decrease the otherexercise repetitions.

Week 3:

Week 3 youwill do the same as week 2 where you will aim to beat your last rep count oneach wide grip chin-up set only this time you will aim to beat your rep countfrom week 2.

Use the samerest-pause method in week 3 as discussed in week 2 to beat your previous week’spersonal best.

The onlydifference this time is that you will use a time under tension extensiontechnique on the final set of your wide grip chin-up exercise.

Here is theexercise plan for this technique:

*The asterisks under target for wide grip chin-ups suggest that you try and beatyour week 2 rep count by 1 additional rep at least. Use the 10 second restpause method if you fall short of your goal. Be sure to beat the wide grip repcount before resting again for 10 seconds then moving on to the medium andclose grip chin-ups.

*Set 3: On set 3 of your wide grip chin-ups, I want you once again beat your week 2total reps by 1 using the rest pause method, but once you beat that count,during the final eccentric action (lowering your body back down), youare going to use a tempo count of 5-10 which basically means you willtake about 5-10 seconds to lower yourself to the starting point again. Thiswill place a new stress stimulus on your back muscles and force them to adapt

*match* means aim to match, but not beat, your week 1 rep count. If you fall short,that is ok. Do not attempt the rest-pause to match week 1. Remember, you areincreasing on wide grip chin-ups which will more than likely decrease the otherexercise repetitions.

Week 4:

Week 4 youwill be once again progressing on your wide grip-chin-ups but by now, you willmore than likely be starting to reach your maximum and progressions will becomemore difficult.

Therefore,we are going to introduce a de-loading technique for the medium and underhandgrip chin-ups.

Byde-loading on those specific sets, you will insure you have more energy toprogress on the wide grip chin-up sets.

De-loadingis pretty simple. Basically, whatever your average was during the past threeweeks for your medium and close grip chin-ups, I want you to decrease thenumber of total reps by 2-3 for those particular exercises. Basically, you donot want to go to failure on those two exercises. We want to conserve energyfor the primary exercise (wide grip).

This willallow you to beat your personal best rep count from week 3 on all you wide gripchin-up sets.

*The asterisks under target for wide grip chin-ups suggest that you try and beatyour week 3  rep count by 1 additional rep at least. Use the 10 second restpause method if you fall short of your goal. Be sure to beat the wide grip repcount before resting again for 10 seconds then moving on to the medium andclose grip chin-ups.

*de-load* means you are not going to go to failure on these sets. Instead you willpurposefully stop short of your average rep count from previous weeks by about2-3. This will be personal to each individual and the number can vary.

Week 5:

Its time!Week 5 is your test week. All your hard work will soon be rewarded withadditional reps being magically added you your personal best records from week

Essentially,you are going to test yourself again just as you did in week 1. Make sure allthe factors are the same such as completing the test on the same day, same timeof day, beginning of workout and after properly warming up.

Because ofthe previous 4 weeks of specialized training, your back muscles have madeadaptations that it did not posses before and it will now be able to handlemore total wide grip chin-ups. So what are you waiting for? Go test it out. Youshould be able to see an increase of about 4-5 reps on each set.

*Perform as many reps as you can.

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