Chest to Bar Butterfly Pull-ups

Are you struggling with chest to bar butterfly pull-ups? Learn how to improve your timing and upper body strength for more efficient gymnastics performance in this video with Performance Plus’ gymnastics coach Pamela Gagnon!

Pamela Gagnon here from Performance Plus Programming, and today, we will tackle the Chest to Bar butterfly pull-up.

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So we’re going to talk about three different components of the Chest to Bar butterfly pull-up: timing, eye gaze, and pulling technique.

Note: you can also learn more about the butterfly chest-to-bar pull-up technique in this podcast episode!

Timing for Butterfly CTB Pull-ups

The first thing we’re going to tackle is timing.

What do I mean by that? It means the timing and patience of your kick to allow your body to rise a little bit higher than regular butterfly pull-ups.

So I’m going to make some lines on the wall here. And you’re going to see where my toes go, and the lower my toe rises, the lower I’m going to pull. This might be a pull-up, this might be close to the chest, and this line where I wait for my feet to come to there, there will allow my chest to touch the bar.

So let’s take a look. So you’ll see, the longer I wait for my kick in the front, the higher my hips rise, and the closer my chest is to the bar.

So let’s pretend you are training alone. Let’s make a tactile cue. So we’re going to take just a thin band, and we’re going to raise it to a higher level. And I want you to wait for your feet to hit the band. Once they hit the band, that indicates you’re high enough in your beginning position. So I’m high enough for me to understand the patience and timing.

So let’s take a look at this. I’m going to push back just slightly. And let’s take a look at what I mean by this. As I wait for my toes to hit The band, it indicates that I am in key position and can open my chest to hit the bar to the chest.

Chest to Bar Butterfly Pull-up Cue #2: Eye Gaze

So wherever we look is where our body tends to go. So if I’m looking straight ahead, my chest will be straightforward. If I look towards the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle, look at what automatically happens to my chest. It opens into that arch. It allows me to come in contact with the bar easier as if I were more upright.

So I want to lean back slightly. I want to think about my eye gaze out at 45 degrees to help me lean back. Find a spot on the ceiling, and that will help you.

Pulling Technique in Chest to Bar Butterfly Pull-ups

So we have the timing. We’re going to wait patiently for our toes to rise a little high we have our eye gaze, and now we want to talk about the pulling technique for C2B pull-ups.

Take your hands and create this over-grip. So you have the back muscles to use to pull the bar to you. It’s almost like you think about the rig scooping toward your body. So I’m going to scoop it towards my body and then return—scoop return.

So when we think about the pull, we want to think about pulling the bar to us not moving our bodies to the bar.

Watch closely; you’ll notice I work aggressively in scooping that bar. My fingers and over grip are helping me use larger back and forearm muscles to create that longer timing, that chest back, and that technique in the pull.

Put that all together, and there’s your chest to bar butterfly pull-up.

Thank you for spending time learning this skill with us. Make sure that you check out the link below for all of our amazing programs, gymnastics, endurance, mobility, and strength programs that are skill-based, technique training to help you guys build your body to perform.