Thick Bar chinups-reps are halved so can I train more often?

I am doing BW chins & pullups using a thick bar device so it is now 2.4" diameter and very tough on the forearms. Reps are roughly halved on both, about 6-8 down from 12-16 reps. I have read on various sites that the forearms can be trained more frequently as they recover faster. I feel these thick bar pulls/chins a lot more in the forearm and figure that the rest of the muscles are not being worked as hard. Therefore I am wondering if I could train more frequently, as I would see the other muscles being worked sort of like GTG as they are only experiencing half the reps. I was thinking of maybe increasing from 2-3 to 4-6days per week.

I realise it would not be exactly the same for my other muscles as doing half my regular reps on a normal bar as they might work harder to compensate for the weak forearm link.

Just to note I am not a gymnast but enjoy many of the simple BW exercises and have rings. I value grip/forearm strength very highly while it might not be of the same benefit to gymnasts (in case people thought I should focus elsewhere)

That sounds fine, but increase your volume gradually. Don't jump from doing 3 days/week to 6 days/week. Smaller muscles can be trained more frequently, but you still need to be careful. The more is better mentality can be easily taken too far.

rubadub said:

I have read on various sites that the forearms can be trained more frequently as they recover faster

Not my experience at all. Infact I would say that my forearms are the last part of my body to recover from a hard session. Holding up a book sometimes causes my forearm extensors to burn and I train them twice a week.

Keep your total volume the same, and make it your goal to switch from doing regular pull ups to thick bar pull ups with that volume. Figure out how many thick bar pull ups you can do, more or less, and do some of your sets with the high reps and thin bar, and some of your sets with the thick bar. Eventually you'll be doing all of your pull ups with the thick bar.

Slowly work your rep range up by 1 every week or two for the sets on the thick bar. Don't try to train more frequently unless you want to be frustrated.

Donald Lee said:

Don't jump from doing 3 days/week to 6 days/week. Smaller muscles can be trained more frequently, but you still need to be careful.

Yes, I will take it slowly, I would usually have 2 days in a row off each week anyway. I have heard the calves can be trained more often too, but have no issue with calf strength.

Amebix138 said:

Not my experience at all. Infact I would say that my forearms are the last part of my body to recover from a hard session.

I read a few similar posts on other forums asking about training frequently, the did seem to be in the minority though. I have only once had DOMS in my forearms and that was only sligthly, and only after trying the thick bar for the first time. I can match rope pullup reps with regular pullups so might have relatively strong forearms to begin with.

slizzardman said:

Keep your total volume the same, and make it your goal to switch from doing regular pull ups to thick bar pull ups with that volume.

I was planning on upping my volume now even if I did not have the thick bars. I have plateaued for a while now which does not really bother me, slow & easy does me fine. From reading this site I am happy to let everything (ligs, tendons) to catch up to my current strength before going up a gear -that time is now. I currently do quite low volume as it is.

slizzardman said:

Don't try to train more frequently unless you want to be frustrated.

Well back to the first point I am wondering if this would be the case, obviously if I overtrained each day I would slow progress, but if the forearms do recover faster the progress might be faster wtihout the risk of overtraining. I would not be doing normal pullups on these extra days, which would really be more like GTG sessions. Maybe 3 reps short of failure.

slizzardman said:

Eventually you'll be doing all of your pull ups with the thick bar.

I have read some of your log and saw you were a big fan of thickbar work, though you do not seem to do thickbar chins/pullups, in recent posts anyway. Is there any reason you would advise to change to solely thick bars? I would have thought they would be the weak link and therefore limit the progress of the other muscles. Or is it since I was saying I highly value grip strength.

This is a great post from your log I will quote for the benefit of others who might not have seen it.

slizzardman said:

There are a couple of reasons why thick bar movements are so important.

One, the object's center of gravity gets moved further away from the body. This is because of the thick grip, and accomplishes two things. One, the force it takes to move the object becomes greater in non-vertical planes of movement because the lever is extended. That's less important than the extra motor groups that become enervated when lifting thick bars. Because a) the bar is much thicker and b) the center of gravity is not conveniently within the grasp of the palm, a) more muscles, from the hands to the shoulders, are forced to work to stabilize the load and b) more motor units within the primary movers are activated, for the same reason.

You end up developing not just the ability to move large weights with the primary movers, but the ability to control a heavy unstable object. The thick bar will roll right out of the hand if the wrist is not actively engaged at all times, whereas the thin bar can literally sit on the heel of the palm, which is essentially on the wrist and upper arm bones. The thin bar requires almost no wrist activation, which creates a limiting factor: wrist strength. If you can't control an object, you can't move it. The thick bar forces the simultaneous development of not just the primary movers but also the auxiliary muscles responsible for wrist stability, hand strength, thumb strength(often neglected), forearm strength, shoulder stability, etc. Thick bar bench, reverse curls, and barbell curls make you truly strong because they develop functional strength in the wrists and forearms, as well as making the bigger muscles work harder than they are used to.

When you go back to a thin bar you can see the progress immediately. But, why bother? Just stick with the thick bar. Develop strength that you can actually use in real life. Thin bar benches are almost worthless by comparison. With thick bars you gain both joint stability AND grip strength. These translate into useful strength, which should be the goal of any trainee. It seems supremely stupid to me to spend years in the gym and not have the ability to move objects in the real world.