The chest-to-bar pull-up raises the pull-up's finish line: instead of chin over bar, your chest must physically touch it. Those extra centimeters demand disproportionately more pulling power and a sharper kip, which is why the Open uses C2B as the dividing line between intermediate and advanced athletes. Efficient C2B looks like a controlled collision - a horizontal drive of the chest into the bar at the top of the kip - and owning big unbroken sets transforms workouts like 24.3 and Fran-style couplets.
| Level (Reps) | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| beginner | 1-3 | 0-1 |
| novice | 5-8 | 3-5 |
| intermediate | 12-15 | 8-12 |
| advanced | 25-30 | 18-22 |
| elite | 40+ | 30+ |
Max unbroken reps (kipping/butterfly allowed).
Where does your Chest to Bar Pull Up land?
Log it once and the app places you on this table automatically, then tracks the trend.
Think 'bar to sternum', pulling with the elbows driving down and back - the contact should be heard, not negotiated. A slightly wider grip shortens the pull distance for most. In workouts, break well before failure: C2B misses (chest grazing without contact) cost a full rep and real energy. Butterfly C2B is the efficiency ceiling but demands mastery of butterfly chin-over first. Shoulder warm-up matters more here than for any pull-up variant - the top position is aggressive.
Progression: kipping pull-ups with rising chest height, banded C2B, then singles focusing on the horizontal finish. In WODs, substitute regular pull-ups 1:1.
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