Chin-Ups and Shoulder Joint Movements

The chin-up is considered a compound exercise, which means that it involves movements at more than one joint. During the chin-up, three different joints move, including your shoulders, elbows and scapulae. The muscles that control these three joints work together to help you pull your body up to an overhead bar and do a chin-up.

  1. Chin-ups

    • To start your chin-ups, grip an overhead bar with your hands set to shoulder-width apart and your palms facing you. You should be hanging with your arms fully straight and your feet above the ground, knees bent if needed. This is your starting position. Pull your body and then chin up to the bar by bending your elbows and driving them down to your sides. Slowly lower your body back down to the starting position by extending your arms in a controlled manner. That is one chin-up and you can immediately go into the next repetition.

    Shoulder Movements

    • When you’re doing a chin-up, your shoulder joints are performing extension. This means that you’re pulling your upper arms straight down towards your backside. Your latissimus dorsi, the largest muscle in the back, handles most of the work when your shoulders are performing extension. The latissimus dorsi originates along the middle area of your spine and then runs out to the back of each upper arm. Also helping out with shoulder extension are your posterior deltoid, which is the back area of your shoulder muscle; your pectoralis major, which is your major chest muscle; your teres major, which is near the back of your scapula; and the long head of your triceps brachii at the back of your arms.

    Wide-Grip Chin-Ups for Shoulder Adduction

    • You can add an element of shoulder adduction to your chin-ups by widening your hand placement on the bar. Your shoulders will still be performing primarily extension but they will be doing adduction, too. Shoulder adduction is when your upper arms are pulled down towards the sides of your body. The traditional pull-up, for example, which involves gripping the overhead bar with an extremely wide grip, requires the shoulders to perform mostly adduction. The latissimus dorsi muscle is also the primary muscle recruited during shoulder adduction movements.

    Other Joints

    • Your elbows and scapula joints also play an important role when you do chin-ups. The elbows are performing flexion, which means they’re bending. Your collection of elbow flexors, which include the brachialis, brachiradialis and biceps brachii, handle this movement at the elbow. Your scapulas are performing both retraction and downward rotation. Retraction means they pinch together; this is the responsibility of your trapezius and rhomboid muscles. Downward rotation means your scapulas rotate slightly, the bottom of the scapula moving inward and down while the upper scapula slides out.