why should you lock your arms

[Jhaek]

I have an argument with a friend .he says that when doing pull ups and you lock out your arms it does damage to the elbow joint.I tried to persuade him with video of Jordan Jovtchev doing pull ups on rings and he said that on the rings its diffrent because your shifting your grip and also Jovtchev was Olympic medalist and that is why he did lock out his arms .so I need stronger evidence to prove him wrong lol

[RatioFitness]

If you don't have any good evidence, why do you think you're right? Sounds like you aren't searching for the truth but a rationalization for your pre-conceived notions. What evidence has he given to support his own claim?

[Jhaek]

If you don't have any good evidence, why do you think you're right? Sounds like you aren't searching for the truth but a rationalization for your pre-conceived notions. What evidence has he given to support his own claim?

he is marathon runner and he conditions his legs and he says when locking your arms is the same as the legs.when you lock them you do damage to them .what evidence is that may I ask?

[Joshua Naterman]

That's nonsense. I mean, he's technically very correct in his statement that if you land with a locked knee onto your heel that you are at a ridiculously high risk for damaging your joints, but that's your entire bodyweight coming down with the acceleration of gravity. 9.8m/s per second. That's FAST. To put that in perspective that's faster than most people can throw a jab. Fast.

One, pull ups are completely the opposite. You are falling away from gravity and there is no compression force in any joint. It's just stretch going into the tendons and ligaments, which of course is why you're supposed to lower under control and not just drop like a rock.

You can definitely damage yourself if you try to do too much locked arm stuff too quickly, you have to take it slow. You can also damage yourself by benching too much too fast, and that's with bent arms. It's all about how you do things. If you want to know more you'll have to start searching on Google, but I hope that helps some.

[Leandro]

I've been doing pull ups and weighted chins with completely locked arms at the bottom, and I feel stronger than ever. Absolutely no elbow pain.

I think you have to tell him that IF you have zero conditioning on full rom pull ups, yes, you could damage yourself. However, that doesn't mean you can't condition yourself to that point. He seems to completely neglect flexibility and conective tissue training for the uperbody.

With your friend's logic, one could never do a muscle up, or do straight arm feats like planche, or even deep dips (ppl say is bad for shoulders) because you can surely damage your elbows/joints if you go for a heavier progression that your body can handle.

[EastWind]

Running is healthy and good but running outside when the temperature hits 40°C or more and the sun is melting everything around doesn't mean that running is dangerous in itself, but people are making it dangerous.

Full ROM pull-ups are excellent and, as far as I know, are recommended everywhere as the best (most effective) way of doing this exercise, if two conditions are applied: the person must be healthy and doing it the right way (it's not only the full-ROM that makes a pull-up). Both of them. The strength in the elbow as well as in the muscles needs time to develop, so no one is jumping from zero conditioning to 50 pull-ups. He cannot, physically. On the other hand, a person who's able to do, let's say, 10-20 pull-ups has trained for a period to reach this peak, so there's no risk of damaging anything if he takes his time and the exercices are worked correctly; his body is trained and can take it. I personally think that a person who has zero conditioning won't damage himself, elbows, whatever, he just won't won't be able to perform the full-ROM pull-up, that's all, if he tries to do this correctly and simply. But he won't be able to perform other form, either, because he got no strength. He will go to a pull-up machine and use weights, according to his fitness level, so there's no risk of injuries, no matter he's doing full ROM's or less. It's just not full-ROM's fault when people get injured.

[Blairbob]

Many gym-goers will not lock out due the idea they need keep tension in their arms for "size". Breaking the point of locked out to bent is also more difficult and if you don't bend the arms, you don't need to worry about that.

[Jhaek]

correct

[Quick Start Test Smith]

If you don't have any good evidence, why do you think you're right? Sounds like you aren't searching for the truth but a rationalization for your pre-conceived notions. What evidence has he given to support his own claim?

Heh, that's quite astute, RF; however, even if he does not have the evidence for believing what he does readily at the tip of his tongue, ready to cite and source, he may still justify strong conviction in it. For example, I could not cite or source in an instant the evidence that proves eating eggs is extremely healthy contrary to what common medicine teaches (cholesterol is the only word they know... ); however, I have read enough from very credible sources to believe, without a doubt, that eggs are indeed very healthy and that the medical doctors who campaign against eating eggs are dead wrong.

[guyber]

I do pull ups with locked arms, no harm has ever happened to me YET.