The close-grip chin-up keeps the elbows on the ribs

Face the bar and take it with the palms toward you. The hands are about shoulder width, not touching and not out at the ends of the bar. A grip so narrow that the wrists cross is awkward and usually dumps the shoulders forward. A grip that creeps wider each set is no longer close. Look at the hands once, before the first rep, and leave them there.

Hang with the arms straight. The shoulders stay active, slightly down, not shrugged up beside the ears. This is the start the next rep has to return to. A chin-up that begins from bent elbows has already skipped the part that makes the number mean something.

Start by setting the shoulder blades down, then bend the elbows and drive them toward the ribs, not out to the sides. The chest rises toward the bar. The chin clears because the body rose. Tilting the head back to clear the bar is a neck rep stapled onto a short pull.

At the top, the elbows are still close. If they have opened into a wide pull, you changed grips in midair. Lower until the arms are straight again. The lowering is half the work and the only reason the next start position is real. Dropping off the bar and catching the next one halfway up is how a set of four becomes a story about ten.

Close-grip chin-ups get cheated in three familiar ways. A kick from the legs. A shrug that lets the shoulders finish the lift. A stop well short of straight arms so the biceps never have to start from scratch. All three make the bar feel closer. All three are a different exercise from the gif.

The set ends at the first rep that needs a kick or that refuses to finish at straight arms. Write that number. Extra ugly reps do not make the back stronger. They make next week's clean set look like you got worse.

If one clean chin-up is not there, a band under the foot or a slow lower from the top still counts, as long as the palms stay in and the elbows stay near the ribs. Jumping to the bar and falling off does not. Own the reps you can finish, and write the help in the note: band, or a lowering only.

When the bodyweight reps are clean, add one before you add weight. Then pause with the chin over the bar, elbows still in. Then slow the lower to a three-count. A little added weight, a dumbbell between the feet or a belt, comes after the shape survives those. The weight does not get to flare the elbows for you.

Log the grip, the help, and the clean reps. Close-grip chin-up, bodyweight, five, from straight arms, is a record. The same five with a kick and a half hang is not the same record, and it must not share a line with it. Palms-out pull-ups belong under their own name.

FitActive keeps the gif beside the exercise so you can see the elbows and the hands you are supposed to be copying. Next time, add a rep only if the last set still had the elbows on the ribs and the arms finishing straight.