Pull-ups and how to do them

For the purposes of this article, i am assuming you can do at least one pull-up. If you cant, spend time using the lat pull down machine, developing the technique i am about to outline and increasing your strength over time. It helps to hang from the bar and develop grip strength. When you are more confident, get a partner who supports your bent legs so that you can use some leg power to get that all important first chin. Keep at it - they are not easy, but ask anyone who can do them and has gotten over the initial hump - they are worthwhile.

So, now that we have established that pull-ups are delightful, how does one go about doing them? Start with a grip about a hand wider than your shoulders, hanging 'dead' from the bar. I will get onto grip width in a bit, but for now, it is important to hang with your full body weight from the bar. Im sure you have all seen people doing pull-ups not going all the way down - this is usually laziness (unless the person is performing partial reps). It feeds your ego to bang out 20 half pull-ups, but you rob yourself of the full benefit. The trick here is full range of motion. After you have hung dead, rotate your scapula - in plain terms - try to squeeze your shoulder blades together. This will rotate your body slightly, bringing your chest closer to the bar and push your legs a bit forward. This rotation makes the pull-up more potent, involving more muscles in your back. Now, pull your body up until your chin is above the bar – breath out while you do this. Pretend that your arms are hinged poles with hooks on them and concentrate on using your back to pull you up. Visualization is an essential technique for assisting in the correct execution of a movement. Once your chin is above the bar, pause there for a fraction of a second and begin to lower yourself (breathing out) until you reach either a full stretch or the prone position. Both are ok, i prefer the full stretch though. Thats it! The basics covered. Variations include using a wider grip (focus on muscles higher on the back) and narrow or underhand grip (more bicep and lower lat focus). There are many more variations, but these are the basic ones.

After coming to terms with the technique, we need to develop a workout that steadily increases pull-up strength. I have tried a couple of methods, some of which work wonders, others which are half baked. The traditional bodybuilding pyramid structure (12, 10, 8, 6) does work, but only allows pull-up work once, maybe twice a week if you are a mere mortal. My preference is to train them like a powerlifter would - more often and with much lower reps. This allows one to progress much faster. Pavel Tsatsouline (eastern bloc strength coach) advocates doing them with a partner. Each person takes turns doing ascending reps - the 'ladder' technique. So, i do 1, you do 1, i do 2, you do 2 - and so on until you do a set that is challenging but that does not end in failure (failure vs reps in the bank is beyond the scope of this article). That is one set - a second should be performed based on your current strength and endurance. This technique can be performed twice or three times a week and allows more reps per week than a single pyramid training session would. Math time! Lets assume you can perform 6 reps at the height of your 'ladder' set and you do 2 sets a week - thats 42 reps. If you can perform 8 - 10 reps based on the 'leaving a couple in the bank' calculation, if you were performing pyramid training, you would be unlikely to be able to complete a single workout. Even if you did complete the workout, you would have only performed 36 reps. This is still fewer than the ladder method and would be followed by muscular and nervous system fatigue. Another great way to develop power is to do sets throughout the day of a number of reps that you find only moderately challenging. My only criticism of this method is that you are not warm before the set and therefore risk injury. If you have a couple of minutes morning and evening to rotate your joints, do a basic warmup and a stretch, then this method is more manageable. A quick word on control and tempo - always control your movement and pull-up as rapidly as possible, controlling the descent. This develops explosive power means less time under tension which in turn allows more reps!

There it is, all you need to know to develop amazing back power. Martial artists, sports people and weekend warriors can all benefit from pull-ups. Oh and guys, did i mention they help develop that 'V' shaped torso and large strong arms?