Chest-to-bar: The exercise you SHOULD be doing

Save time with an exercise offering multiple benefits: The chest-to-bar exercise

Chest-to-bar, or C2B, is an extended pull-up that begins with a full hanging position and ends with your chest (below the clavicle) touching the bar. You can perform C2B with strict form (without explosive momentum), but most people prefer to do it in a kipping pull-up fashion.

What are the benefits of this wonderful exercise?

Explosiveness and extended range of motion provide much more strength and hypertrophy for your lats. Explosive pull-ups are also good for your grip, since the additional grip strength required for the explosive phase truly challenge your grip strength and, most importantly, grip endurance.

An added advantage is thoracic spine extension and thorax expansion. You need to expand your chest as much as you can to reach that bar with it. In a “civilized” society where we live most of our hours slouching over a desk, the ability to expand your thorax is critical for posture, muscular balance, and internal organ function. These benefits come as an adaptation from trying to expand your ribcage and really straighten extend your upper back to touch that bar with your chest. Your upper back strength greatly benefits too; way more than with normal pull-ups, muscle-ups, or rows. This is because the most intense part of this exercise is at the end part of its range of motion, where your upper back needs to do most of the work.

The greatest thing about this exercise is that you extend the upper back without hyperextending the lower back as compensation. “Civilized” lifestyles have us slouching all day long, with compressed frontal ribcage, and loose upper back muscles that maintain good posture and goof core stability. It also causes tight lower back and loose abdominal muscles, a combination of imbalances that can cause all kinds of ailments. So, we tend to have relatively tight lordotic lower backs and relatively loose slouchy upper backs. However, when you try to tighten your upper back with a cobra pose or an upward-facing dog pose, or a cat-cow pose, your tight lower back tends to take over and compensate for your lack of strength in the upper back. Not only that, but the lower back is a stable joint and the upper back a mobile joint, so it’s tricky extending the upper back without stretching the lower back at the same time (a lower back that is already tight and compressed).

C2B makes it easier to extend the upper back while the lower back remains relatively neutral. Also, gaining mobility while under tension in full range of motion is always superior to gaining mobility through static passive stretching.

So, there you go. I hope you incorporate this awesome exercise in your fitness regime, and if you do, I’d love to hear your feedback.