The pull-up is the basic and most important exercise for any back workout. There is nearly unanimous agreement among experienced weightlifters that this exercise is essential for laying a foundation of size and strength. Many athletes from different disciplines appreciate the benefits of this activity.
This battle-tested exercise is effective because it strengthens your back and abs, which will help you with almost every other major lift. In addition, having bigger muscles in the back, shoulders, and arms will improve the overall look of anyone's body. All while using only your bodyweight. You don't need to go to a gym to get in shape.
How to Do the Pull-Up
Pull-ups are a great addition to any strength program. Lifting yourself up to a bar will improve your strength, posture, and core stability.
Step 1 — Hang From a Bar
To do a hanging leg raise, start by hanging from a straight bar with your core stabilized to prevent your body from swaying. Your hands should be a little wider than shoulder-width apart, with your palms facing down. You can keep your balance and coordination by crossing one foot over the other at your ankles.
When doing this exercise, pretend that someone is about to punch you in the stomach so that you can tighten your core muscles. The first thing you need to do to brace effectively is to tighten your stomach.
Step 2 — Pull Your Chest Towards the Bar
Before you start pulling yourself up to the bar, take a deep breath. To engage your upper back muscles, bring your shoulder blades together. Keep that grip as you bend your elbows and raise your body. Exhale throughout the movement. Lean back very slightly on the way up.
When the bar is close to your neck, you have done the concentric part of the repetition. Your torso should be slightly angled backwards with your elbows near your ribs when you are in the top position.
For better muscle coordination and recruitment of muscle fibers, take a pause at the top for one or two seconds.
Step 3 — Lower Under Control
Extend your elbows to lower your body to start the eccentric part of the repetition. Breathe in and keep your core engaged. Do not swing to create momentum between each rep. Keep your legs hanging directly down.
It is important to lower yourself slowly over two seconds to get the most out of the rep and to prevent any injuries.
Pull-Up Mistakes to Avoid
Avoiding common technique errors while doing pull-ups will help you build strength and muscle while reducing joint strain.
Not Using a Full Range of Motion
This issue is often seen in gyms, where people only do half of a pull-up. Some people do a lot of repetitions of a movement, only going halfway down each time before going back to the top. If you want to get the most out of your strength and muscle gains, you need to avoid doing half-reps.
The reduced range of motion shortens the amount of time the muscle is under tension, which in turn can weaken the muscle and reduce its size.
Do not allow your ego to become involved and instead concentrate on performing a small number of high-quality reps. Before you try to lift yourself up, lower yourself into a fully stretched position.
Excessive Swinging
Supporting the body is important to reduce pressure on the shoulder joint. Swinging your arms too much will not help you build strength and muscle, and may make things worse in the long run.
CrossFit training has popularized a specific exercise variation called “kipping pull-ups”, which has the trainee deliberately swing the lower body back and forth throughout each rep. Doing pull-ups with momentum helps you do more reps and makes the exercise work your whole body. Kipping is a gymnastics move that is used to generate momentum to help a gymnast perform a skill. This is a skill that is learned intentionally, not something that people do by accident when they are doing pull-ups.
To avoid getting sidetracked, focus on the core-engaging cue explained in the first step of the setup. Before pulling yourself up, flex your stomach muscles as if you were about to be punched in the gut. Maintain this ab tension throughout each rep.
Benefits of the Pull-Up
The pull-up is a second-to-none vertical pulling exercise. There are many benefits to performing the shoulder press exercise correctly. These benefits include increased strength and muscle development across the upper body, improved posture, and better shoulder and upper back mobility.
Getting Bigger and Stronger
The pull-up is a great exercise because it works so many muscles. This exercise helps to build muscle in your back, shoulders, and arms. Even the abs get a solid workout. The exercise is easy to make more challenging, which makes it ideal for building strength.
Carries Over to Multiple Exercises
The pull-up recruits and builds muscles which play key roles in shoulder, back, and arm development. Working on your support muscles will help you improve in other exercises. An example of how this works is by strengthening your lats, upper back, and middle back. This will help you to be able to press a heavy weight while stabilizing and controlling your shoulder blades on the bench.
Better Grip Strength
Doing pull-ups is a great way to improve your grip strength, without causing extra wear and tear on your body from exercises specifically designed to build grip strength, like deadlifts. Your grip strength is constantly being trained when you are hanging from the bar and supporting your bodyweight during each set.
Muscles Worked by Pull-Up
A pull-up is a movement that uses multiple joints and muscle groups at the same time. The muscles worked by the pull-up are the latissimus dorsi, the pectoralis major, the biceps brachii, and the brachialis.
Latissimus Dorsi
The lats (latissimus dorsi) are a large, flat muscle located on the back that attaches at the upper arm and along the spine near the lower back. They serve two primary functions. To start, they bring their arm in from the side and closer to their body. Second, they raise the arm in front of the body and then pull it close to the body. Your lats are activated the most when your arms are overhead and you are pulling down and in to raise your body during a pull-up.
Upper Back
The muscles in the upper back are responsible for controlling the movement of the shoulder blades and providing support to the shoulder joints, particularly during exercises like pull-ups.
Trapezius
The trapezius muscle is located in the upper back and plays a big role in pull-ups. The traps in the middle help with stabilizing the shoulders and extending the elbows while also keeping the shoulders in place when you move your arms. The lower traps are key to other lifts and are used a lot during pull-ups. (1)
Biceps Brachii
There are two muscles in the biceps: a long muscle commonly referred to as the “outer” and a shorter muscle referred to as the “inner.” Both muscles originate at the shoulder blades and insert on the radius bone of the forearm. Although the biceps play a small role during pull-ups, they are still an important muscle group to complete the movement. The muscles are more active and play a bigger role in the chin-up variation.
Lower Back
The muscles in the lower back (or lumbar spine) are used even though they don’t go through a large range of motion. When you bend at the hips during an exercise, the muscles controlling your torso work to keep a stable core position and a straight line from your shoulders to your knees or feet.
Rectus Abdominis
The abs work harder than you might think during pull-ups. Despite the abs typically being associated with lifting your torso in a curled position, they're actually highly activated to keep a stiff, firm torso. The abdominal muscles work to prevent bending at the hips, similar to the lower back.
Who Should Do the Pull-Up
Training for Bodyweight Strength
For many people who focus on bodyweight training, the pull-up is seen as an important measure of strength. If you want to be able to do more pull-ups, you need to practice and get better at the exercise. This skill comes from repeated efforts, rep after rep.
Training for Muscle
The pull-up is an excellent way to increase muscularity. Activating multiple muscles at once and having a wide range of motion gives your muscles the most comprehensive workout, something that few upper body exercises can provide.
How to Program the Pull-Up
The pull-up can be performed with a variety of sets, reps, and tempo schemes. Performing the exercise at the beginning of your workout is ideal. You need to have enough energy to perform this movement without injuring yourself or sacrificing your technique.
Weighted, Low Repetition
The best way to increase your strength in pull-ups is to do 4-6 sets of 3-6 reps. To avoid reaching muscular failure, use a weight that leaves you with at least two reps left. A rest period of three to five minutes will help you maintain your maximum effort while lifting.
Why is the pull-up important?
The former Royal Marines PTI Sean Lerwill says that the one-arm chin-up is the ultimate test of upper-body muscular strength, and that it is one of the very few bodyweight moves that works your back and biceps. I think that your total number of pull-ups is a better measure of a strong, stable, and functional upper body than your personal best on the bench press. Having a functional upper body is important for everyday tasks and activities.
How many pull-ups should I be able to do?
To stay on the Potential Royal Marine Course, you must be able to do three full pull-ups. The maximum point score is 16. A person who is in good physical shape should be able to do six perfect-form pull-ups at a slow and controlled tempo. The goal should be to get to 12 reps. Once you are able to do a large number of repetitions with good form, you should increase the difficulty by holding a dumbbell between your ankles, or wearing a belt with weight plates attached.
What if I can’t do any pull-ups?
According to Lerwill, the best way to increase your pull-up power is to do heavy-weight and high-rep sets of wide-grip lat pull-downs. Eccentric pull-ups, where you pull yourself up to the top position and then lower yourself back down very slowly, are also great training exercises.
How do I get started?
There is a lot of advice about pull-ups below that can help people at all levels improve their technique. If you want to go from being unable to do a pull-up to being able to complete a set of them, then this four-week plan is for you.
The plan is to do one modified pull-up or pull-up assistance move every day for the first six days of the week, with a rest on the seventh day. Every day's workout won't take long, so you can either do it as part of a more intense training session, or just do your repetitions and carry on with your day.
- Leap up and grip the pull-up bar with your hands shoulder width apart and your palms facing away from you. Hang with your arms fully extended, you can bend your legs at the knee if they’re dragging on the ground.
- Keep your shoulders back and your core engaged throughout. Then pull up. Focus on enlisting every upper body muscle to aid your upward endeavours.
- Move slowly upward until your chin is above the bar, then equally slowly downward until your arms are extended again.
- Aim for 10 pull-ups, but be prepared to fall short.
Don't give up if you can't do 10 pull-ups at first. There are lots of ways to gradually increase your strength until you can do a full pull-up. The first step is to get used to your own bodyweight by holding a dead hang. Don't try to pull yourself up, just focus on hanging for as long as possible.
If you want to be able to do pull-ups, you should also focus on strengthening your back muscles. Other exercises that can help include bent-over dumbbell rows and inverted bodyweight rows. There are many machines at the gym that will help you with pull-ups. You can set the machine to the amount of weight you want and it will help you raise up. Put your foot or knee through a resistance band looped around the bar to use it as an assistance machine.
