Ok, so you can bench 200lbs...you can leg press over 250lbs...great, you're a machine. Bet you aren't. Most people that spend all their time training on pushing exercises like that forget to remember to pull.
Pull ups. Chin ups. whatever you want to call them, you MUST balance your exercise or you will cause yourself injury through your own depth of focus and determination. Pushing exercises work specific muscles, triceps and pectorals. Over work those and underwork the deltoids and you risk unbalancing your entire shoulders... and thats when you end up with back pain.
So where do you start with chinups. Well, with a bar. Just hang from it until your fingers give out (aren't you glad you are doing this at home instead of on a cliff 100ft up)...shake out your arms...and hang out for a while more until your fingers give out...shake out your arms again and then hang out more until at last your arms give out.
Whats this doing?
You might think its not exercising your arms at all, but it is, just not the show off muscles you are used to exercising. Its strengthening your forearms and grip.
Why is that important?
Simply because everyone will laugh at you if you can bench 200lbs and can only curl 40 before your wrists and fingers give in and you drop the bar on your foot. When you have a stronger grip, you will be able to exercise the muscles in your upper arm a lot more successfully as you wont feel the temptation to throw the weight up by swinging your body to compensate for the feeling that your fingers are slipping.
Another way to strengthen the wrists and forearms is to use a triangle press up, do 3 sets of 5 to start with - trust me its a lot harder than you think and build up to 3 sets of 10-15. You should notice a big change in your strength.
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