Need help on hand position and muscles being worked

[sophiem]

I picked up the door gym at my local Play It Again Sports. Besides being able to have your grip palms facing out or palms facing toward you, it also has handles that come straight out. So, in other words, your hands are gripping and palms are facing to the side.

I found that I'm able to lift my body up and down a couple times using this grip, but not yet with palms out or palms in. Any feedback on what muscles this is incorporating that it's enabling me to do these? I want to be able to do chin ups and pull ups and so I'm trying to figure out if I should start by doing these handles until I get stronger; that is if it's helping the right muscles.

Hope that all makes sense!

 

[LauraMax]

I assume you're talking about pull ups & dips? Pull ups work your back muscles, dips work your chest & triceps. Pull ups are easier with a close, underhand grip & harder with a wide, overhand grip. Dips are really difficult no matter how you grip. x(

You could try using lifting straps for pull ups to take pressure off your hands. Typically your hand muscles are much weaker than other muscles & it makes it really hard to increase weights. Lifting straps are great for most excercises which require a pulling-type motion.

 

[fitxme]

Also, when you do pullups with a wide overhand grip, you use more of your Lat muscles. When you use an underhand grip with hands closer, you use more of middle back (Rhomboids)and even biceps come into play.


~Marietta
FITXME
http://www.picturetrail.com/fitxme

 

[sophiem]

Here's a pic of the device. Besides overhand and underhand grips, you can see in the littler photo of the woman that she's using these two handles that come out. I was wondering if I use those handles initially, I would be working up to pull ups and chin ups. I don't want to use them if they aren't going to help me gain the strength to move up to underhand and overhand grips. My sense is that they would build up my back strength, which would help overall.

http://www.gymcor.com/doorgym1.html

 

[fitxme]

sorry, I forgot to mention about the other grip...it will work the Rhomboids (mid-back) as well.

All the variations of pullups will help your back strength and I suggest incorporating them all into your workout routine. If you are unable to do a wide-grip pullup at this time, do assisted pullups using a chair or high-step. Do as many as you can without assistance and then use the legs to assist for the desired number of reps.

Hope this helps...



~Marietta
FITXME
http://www.picturetrail.com/fitxme

 

[kathryn]

When palms are facing toward you (chin-up) your biceps get much more involved. With palms facing away (pull-up), they help less.

According to my recent reading (Lou Schuler's "The New Rules of Weight Lifting") the guide for a chin-up is 'chin over the bar'while the guide for a pull-up is "as high as you can go"." (Seems kind of like a cheat to me, because I can only go about 2 inches...and that counts? LOL!)