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No Handed One Arm Chin-up

(a.k.a. the gooseneck chin)

The no handed one arm chin is a variation of the OAC that has the added challenge of not being able to grip the bar with your hands. Instead, you’ll flex your forearm (gooseneck it) and hang onto the bar in preparation for the pull.

The First Step

Learn the one arm chin!

Wrist placement

The wrist placement for this skill looks as follows:

You can see that the bar rests on the crook of the wrist.

It’s also important to look at the way the fist has been formed. The thumb is to the side of the fingers instead of wrapping on top of them. I feel that this lets you flex your hand farther down towards your forearm, therefore giving you a better hook on the bar. Let me explain:

The picture on the left shows a goosenecked forearm with a traditional fist made – thumb over the fingers. Try to squeeze the hand and flex the wrist and the thumb muscle will get in the way.

The picture on the right shows a goosenecked forearm with the thumb along the side. For those familiar with the false grip on the rings, it feels pretty much identical to that. Now the thumb is out of the way and the wrist can be flexed slightly farther.

Does it make a difference? Sure, I think so. It’s only a centimeter or two change in distance, but did I mention we’re going to be pulling ourselves up by one arm this way? We need all the help we can get.

Two arm variation

Try out the position with two arms first to get the feel of it. Not too terribly difficult at this point.

And due to the way the bar sits and the body’s need to balance it, your arms will probably be slightly bent from the start.

Creating Tension

Now in a normal OAC, you can create additional muscular tension by squeezing the bar extra hard. In this case that’s not possible – hence the added challenge. What you’ll have to do instead is flex your wrist like you’re trying to touch your knuckles to your inner elbow. I mean flex really hard. You can also squeeze the thumb into the side of your fingers, as this will create additional tension while not obstructing wrist flexion.

And just like a normal OAC, my body tends to contract every other muscle too – torso and legs included – thus describing my legs up position in the final shots below.

The Pull

Not much to say at this point. Just get yourself set and don’t stop pulling, even when you think you’ve stopped moving. I’ve included the no hander to the left, along with a regular OAC to the right. You can see the skills are pretty much identical except for the bar contact.