Pull Ups vs Chin Ups: What's The Difference?

Pull-ups and chin-ups are regularly part of the debate. But are the differences between these exercises that great? Isn't the chin-up 'just' a variant of the pull-up? And is one better than the other? We investigated Pullups vs chinups at Athleticsight.com.

Chin-ups are the same in many ways as pull-ups, but they are performed with an underhand, narrower grip.

That while you do traditional pull-ups with an overhand, slightly wider than shoulder-wide grip.

Grip and grip width, therefore, determine which of the two exercises is involved. In Dutch would both exercises go up to call.

However, there are other variants of traditional wide-grip acceleration. For the sake of completeness of this article, we also discuss that. The most frequently performed pull-up variants in a row:

The traditional pull-up, with an overhand grip slightly wider than shoulder-width;

The chin-up, with an underhand, shoulder-wide grip;

The pull-up or chin-up with a narrow grip (slightly less than shoulder-width);

The pull-up or chin-up with a wide grip (a lot wider than shoulder-width);

The pull-up with a neutral grip (palms facing each other).

The differences will be discussed in a moment when we look at the load on the various muscle groups involved. First something about accelerating in general.

Whichever variant you choose (to) choose, pulling up is a very useful bodyweight exercise and also a good test for your relative strength, that is, your strength concerning your body weight. A 60 kg person who can do more pull-ups than a 100 kg person is relatively stronger. Point. Even if the latter has to put on more weight. Hence the word 'relative'.

Because you have to pull up your entire weight when you accelerate and because of the involvement of most muscles above your waist, this exercise is also seen as the ultimate strength test for the upper body. At least in terms of pulling power.

Whichever way you pull up, both pull-ups and chin-ups are complex or multiple exercises. That is, there is movement in at least two joints, so multiple muscle groups must work together to complete the movement. In this case, those are the shoulder joint and the elbow joint. In particular, the muscles in your (upper) back and upper arms are put to work.

From a bodybuilding perspective, pulling up is therefore mainly an exercise with which you create a larger (wider and thicker) back.

Regardless of the variant you do, the same muscles are always working when you accelerate - a dozen, so it is difficult to overestimate the importance of accelerating. The difference between one and the other variant is mostly in the role of your biceps. But also in the involvement of other muscle groups, such as the lats, the traps, and yes, also the chest, you can add subtle accents by changing grip - in width and/or type (overhand or underhand). Let's go through these muscle groups one by one.

Because of the only subtle differences and because of the benefits they each offer separately, we see no reason not to do the pull-up and chin-up both or alternate in your training program. Combine pull-ups and chin-ups once a superset (or mechanical drop set if you will). First, do as many pull-ups (with wide grip) as possible and when you can no longer switch directly to chin-ups (with narrow grip) and again do as many repetitions as you can.