I like the kipping pull up but it's not a muscle building movement.
A kipping pull up should be used as a way to build power or explosive endurance It involves a lot of momentum and elastic energy. The same way you would use an Olympic lift or a box jump.
Like all trends, the problem I see is that people seem to think there's only one way of going about it and that's not the case.
The right thing to do if your goal is to put on muscle is to use the kipping pull up in the strength phase of your training. Kipping pull ups will not build muscle like slow pull ups will, in fact if you do kipping pull ups for more than a 4 week phase you will decrease the amount of regular conventional pull up you can do and your likely to develop a sticking point half way because that part of the movement has been replaced with momentum during the kip.
Kipping is great to use as a way to build power in the lats, chest, forearms and will help you perform double the amount of reps than using a conventional pull up. It helped me get 52 reps in a row!
But if your looking to gain larger lats, there's nothing that beats the good old school slow tempo pull up.
