Hey Mobies,
Today’s mission is all about Motor Control. When we develop our list of athlete problems, we alway prioritize motor control above all else. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t have internal shoulder rotation if you keep throwing you chin over the bar (what? I’ve always done it that way.) Your spine experiences incredible loads during movement and was designed to be able to become stiff during those periods of peak force production. Our problem is that your cervical really doesn’t care if you “get” your chin over the bar for the rep. All your spine (and central nervous system) knows is that by chicken necking your head over the bar, you’ve made your self less effective and exposed your cervical structures to an enormous amount of shear. Discs don’t dig on no shear.
Mission: Pull up normally. What does your head do? Can you cue yourself to stop throwing your chin? Is there a relationship between your shoulder internal rotation range and what happens to you neck? When you throw the head, does your shoulder translate forward through your biceps tendon? (what? my slap tear came from throwing my head?)
Dont’ be that guy. Respect!
Kstar
26 Responses to “Episode 325/365: Stop the Pull Up Chicken Necking People”
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So we should look straight to the ground in a pushup and not out forward?
Yes, look down.
Again, I point you to the work of Z-Health. By looking down on movements that require contractions (pullups, chins etc..) not only do you minimise or even eliminate the head/neck moving, you also ‘gain’ strength by keeping ‘open’ the neurological information path that occurs between muscle, joints and brain.
Great stuff as always Kelly
HELLLOOOOO!!! Amazing…to hear the same thing taught at Carl “Movement” seminar! THANKS Kelly and Carl!
I get it pertaining to a regular kip and not pushing head forward but wondering how to apply it to a butterfly kip where you are moving your head back and chin up to avoid hitting the bar with your chin?
Hello, this is great for the kipping pull up and I can relate but as Steve has hit a good point could you explain it for the butterfly when us as athletes are going for max reps and moving quickly how we can keep our neck and head straight and not in that broken chicken neck syndrome
There is a very simple and biomechanically sound way to deal with this — use rings for most of your pullups. If you can do tons of pullups on rings with full range of motion, you will be fine doing the same on a bar. But there’s no motivation to jerk around your neck like a freak if you are simply focused on pulling your hands into your armpits and going from full extension to full contraction on the rings.
This makes it hard to referee? So be it. Nature and evolution do not care if the adaptive stresses that created humans are convenient for arbitrary rule makers. In the end, we are animals, and animals don’t have referees in the wild. Do what’s right, and get injured less…
What about wall balls?
So you guys have seen athletes herniate discs from doing kipping pull ups? Did they have radiculopathy?
Less than ideal positioning on kipping pulls would be a contributing factor to why some athletes herniate discs. It may be one of many contributing factors, but when it’s something that can be eliminated before there is a problem it should be eliminated. As Kelly has noted (Episode 317) an injury of this degree this doesn’t happen from 1 improper rep, “It takes HUGE amounts of force applied in crazy horrible positions x 1 million reps.” The issue occurs when “you’ve exceeded your allotment of 1 billion neck over-extensions.”
Should read kipping pull ups.
I second the wall ball comment. Great point. When I squat I keep my head looking forward, ie. head and neck neutral. Right as my hips open and the ball releases up to the target I look up to aim. That can have stress on your neck for sure. I’ve seen a majority of people keep their neck cocked the whole time looking up, ouch!!!
Opinions on the wall ball topic?
I have been struggling a bit with slight neck pain following workouts involving a lot of bodyweight exercises. Now I see it’s directly related to my neck movement on pullups and pushups. I plan to check out more episodes to hopefully improve upon my other areas of weakness! Thanks Kelly!
Mr. Kieron Boyle
Middletown, Ohio
It seems that most people I see doing kipping pullups are not maintaining control of shoulder position at the bottom of the movement, meaning shoulders are not connected, and therefore won’t be able to control head position at the top. Should you start with regular pullups to learn how to pull from the lats and keep the shoulder packed before moving to kipping?
I always believed to keep the chin up would help with having the sternum up thus having a proper lumbar curve. Mmmhh i will stick to your ideas now.
Thnx
Great insight. I think the ‘chicken necking’ stems from WODs with high reps, or from the namesake of ‘chin up’.
pulling your elbows to your hips instead of reaching your chin over the bar is such a minimal difference, but alas an important one.
Thanks guys.
What should we do with the chin on overhead presses, both pushing the bar up past the head and returning to rack position?
I love this post. What do you say to people attempting butterfly pull ups who fly their chin over the bar to reach pull up standards? I guess my question is: Can you butterfly pull up while still maintaining your organized spine/neck position at the top of the pull up or does this position go out the window?
Great video! What about jerks? Should I break my postion and not look up?Or should I tuck my neck in?
thanks!
Jack
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