negative chin ups and sore elbow joints???

[mariogirl]

Hello all. I am semi new to weight lifting (about 6 months) and have a question related to pull ups/chin ups. I have made it a goal to be able to do chin ups from dead hang, but the thing that always strays me away from getting stronger and better consistently is the incredibly sore joints I get after doing negatives. I have been doing assisted chin ups lately without the joint problem (I can do 5 taking off 20 lbs from my body weight), but I hear that the assistance machine is useless for learning chin ups. I do not have access to assistance bands so I am not quite sure what to do. When I do chin up negatives I tend to go VERY slowly and repeat the process as much as I can throughout the workout (to exhaustion). I am simply wanting to know if sore joints are due to bad form, trying to pull too much weight too quickly, or they are something that indicate big strength gains coming up. Also, if anyone has any ideas of some sort of plan for me to follow to be able to do chin ups (I really like to do SOMETHING productive each day, so if light weight training of sore muscles would help for rest days, that'd be great), I'd really appreciate it being posted. I feel like I've had this goal for so long but have not been consistent due to the length of time I am sore after doing negatives. I am definitely ready to keep up a plan and get my fitness level up to where i want it to be!

[xJimx]

Sounds to me like you might be overtraining & this could well be why you're not progressing & getting pains. You mention you always go to exhaustion/failure on chins & you also give the impression that you do it fairly frequently too. Remember that rest (& of course diet) is as important to strength gains as your work in the gym.

In my opinion training to failure any more than once a week is going to harm your progress. If you really want to train this way you need to give yourself at least a week between workouts. If you want to train chins more frequently the best bet would the 'grease the groove' technique where you never get anywhere near failure.

[ninearms]

If it's that important you could just buy some bands...

It's also likely that you're underworking your triceps in relation to your biceps. Again, bands will help here - high rep band pushdowns (20-50 reps) will sort you out.

[ambetious]

The soreness might go away after sometime but if it does'nt, than either change your grip or stop doing them in order to avoid any injury.