Gorilla Chin/Crunch

🎯 Abdominals🏋️ Body onlyIntermediateCompoundBiceps (2°)Lats (2°)

How to do the gorilla chin/crunch

  1. Hang from a chin-up bar using an underhand grip (palms facing you) that is slightly wider than shoulder width.
  2. Now bend your knees at a 90 degree angle so that the calves are parallel to the floor while the thighs remain perpendicular to it. This will be your starting position.
  3. As you exhale, pull yourself up while crunching your knees up at the same time until your knees are at chest level. You will stop going up as soon as your nose is at the same level as the bar. Tip: When you get to this point you should also be finishing the crunch at the same time.
  4. Slowly start to inhale as you return to the starting position.
  5. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the rectus abdominis and the obliques, which flex the trunk forward and resist it being pulled into extension or twisted out of line.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the biceps add force at the elbow; the lats keep the upper arm drawn in toward the torso.

Every exercise for:AbdominalsBicepsLats

How this movement works

The load travels toward you and several joints bend to bring it there. The arms finish work the back starts, so grip and elbow flexors sit in the path of every repetition: when people stall on a compound pull, it is more often the hands giving out than the primary muscle running out of force.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.

Every exercise using:Body only

These train the abdominals too, using equipment this one does not:

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 97 abdominals exercises in this database, 17 are listed at intermediate level.

Related exercises

Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.