I had to think twice before electing to add my view on the topic. After all, there are serious critics and strong advocates who have taken sides one way or the other. Critics say kipping is cheating and still others advance that the stress placed on the muscles can have real negative side effects. I don't pretend to be a fitness expert, just an active participant. My views are a result of personal experience and after a little thought decided to jump right in anyway.
The kipping pull up involves a hip snap generating momentum that moves up the spine and into the arms. This lets you lift your body over the bar with less direct pulling. The result is a lot more pull ups. The strict pull up by comparison requires that the body stays rigid and only the joints needed to perform the movement come into play. Dead hang pull ups isolate muscles in the back and and arms while kipping pull ups are a full body exercise. While easier on the direct pulling muscles, they are much harder on the grip and are inarguably more cardiovascular.
Ok, so why the debate over which one is better? I don't recall any rules posted on the gym wall that says I must do a pull up one way or the other. The idea that doing one variety instead of the other is cheating simply makes no sense to me. Intention and desired benefit seems to be the only appropriate qualifiers here. During my regular work outs, there are days when I'll do weighted heavy pull ups and others where L- pull ups create the challenge for the day. If I kip while performing these exercises, I suppose I would be cheating myself of the intended advantages. Conversely, if the WOD calls for high volume kipping pull ups and I choose to perform the regular variety instead, I will miss out on the full benefit of the total body, high intensity workout that was programmed.
I have been working out with a new partner now for a couple of months. Because we are evenly matched in so many ways, our workouts tend to be intense and a little competitive; a perfect situation. He trusts me to program our workouts and I feel bad about selecting a WOD that has high volume pull up work since he doesn't have a consistent kip yet. As I write these comments, the soreness in my lats and shoulders from doing the "Murph" on Friday can't be denied. I of course, tackled the 100 pull up reps by kipping. My friend completed the work with regular pull up attempts, slowly shifting more toward kipping as the set progressed since maintaining strict form becomes really hard. Did either one of us cheat?
We both worked really hard....... Obviously, I was able to finish the pull ups quicker, but he made up all of the time on the squats. He has a definite edge on me when it comes to lower body strength and he pushed himself that much harder to ensure we were both heading out the door for the last mile run together.
In my view, pull ups are king, no matter what version you practice. The desired benefits vary and doing just one variety exclusively is the only real "cheating" that should enter this conversation. As for honest hard work; you bet.... my friend made this point for me perfectly clear on Friday!
The link below (1 of 4 in a series of demos) from CrossFit really helped when I was learning to kip; check it out.
One hundred percent in agreement - I tell people I benched 200 lbs when I do pushups so that's like the same thing...
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