As a woman, I have always loved pull-ups, partly out of spite. There is a
common fitness refrain that women cannot do them, and I do not like to be told
I cannot do something — especially if the reason is my gender. As a teenager, I
pushed lawn mowers and hauled rocks just to show that being a girl didn’t mean
I was weak.
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I love how pull-ups make me feel — powerful, strong.
There’s nothing like the feeling of lifting yourself up. Pull-ups are also
beautiful for their simplicity. They require nothing more than a bar, and
engage at least a dozen muscles, from the lats down to the glutes. Experts say
they improve upper body strength, shoulder mobility, and core stability, while
helping to hone coordination, too.
Doing a pull-up is “an amazing feeling,” said
Chilasa King, a powerlifter and coach at LiftedMBK in New York. “It’s a simple
exercise that’s really hard to do.”
Therein lies the pull-up paradox: Pull-ups are
simple but hard, and many people who think they can’t do one really could, if
they put in the effort and time.
Everybody has a good chance of achieving a pull-up
if he or she trains for it, said
Meghan Callaway, a strength coach based in
Vancouver, British Columbia, and creator of the Ultimate Pull-Up Program. Most
people who fail to master the pull-up struggle not because they are physically
incapable, but because they are not training in the right way, she said. The
trick is to focus on proper technique and approach your training with patience
and deliberateness.
Focus on form
The first thing to
understand is that pull-ups are a full-body exercise. “A lot of people think of
a pull-up purely as an upper-body exercise, and they neglect what is going on
from the chest down,” Callaway said. Your body should be rigid, not slack. What
would be easier to move, Callaway asked, a stiff board, or an equally weighted
floppy sandbag? If your torso, hips, and lower body are rigid, it makes it a
lot easier to lift them than if they are dead weight. (Kipping pull-ups, done
by swinging your legs for momentum, are a different exercise altogether, she
said.)
Grab the bar slightly greater than shoulder width,
with your palms facing away from you. (Holding your palms toward you would be a
chin-up, a different — and most say easier — exercise.) Your body should be
aligned in a relatively straight line with your feet just slightly ahead of
your body so you’re in a very slight arc. It’s better for the bar to be just
within reach on your tip toes, but if you’re doing them in a doorway, it’s OK
to bend your knees with your feet out behind you, Callaway said.
To initiate the pull-up, move your shoulder blades
toward your spine (think of it as the opposite of shrugging) while
simultaneously driving your elbows down toward your ribs. Keep your abs and
glutes tight. As you pull up, don’t reach up with your chin,
Callaway said, but
instead keep your chin tucked, your neck in a neutral position and your eyes
looking straight ahead.
Practice the components
Not everyone can do a
pull-up the first time. Even before you can do a complete pull-up, you can
break down the movement into its component parts and train for each of them. Use
these four exercises to help get stronger and more skilled at the essential
parts of the pull-up motion.
Bar hangs: The first step is to learn how to hang in
a rigid position, rather than flaccidly. King has beginners practice hanging by
grabbing the bar, engaging their abs and glutes to make their body stiff like a
board, and then holding for 30 to 45 seconds.
Scapula pull-ups: These are a way to practice the
initial pull-up movement. Start by hanging on a bar and then engage the muscles
in your mid and upper back to move your shoulder blades in toward your spine.
As you do this, you will feel yourself elevating just a tiny amount. Hold for a
moment in this elevated position, then slowly lower yourself to the starting
position. Don’t bend your elbows. Your arms should be straight for the entire
motion.
Eccentric pull-ups: Begin at the top position of a
pull-up with your head above the bar (stand on a chair to get up there if you
need to) and then slowly lower yourself to a hanging position using a controlled,
fluid motion.
Inverted rows: This
exercise strengthens the back
and improves shoulder mobility. Position yourself underneath a weight bar as if
about to do a bench press. But instead of lying on a bench, hang from the bar,
your heels on the floor. Hold your body in a straight, rigid line and pull
yourself up, initiating the movement using your back muscles, rather than your
arms. Return to the starting position in a slow, controlled motion. Imagine
moving your shoulder blades away from your spine and around your rib cage.
Take your time
“Be patient,” King said.
Getting your first pull-up “takes time and a lot of consistency; it doesn’t
happen overnight.” Consistency is crucial, she said: “There is no way around
this. You have to work at it, week after week and month after month.”
For Casey Johnston, a health and science writer, and
author of the weight lifting guide “Liftoff: Couch to Barbell,” pull-ups were
just one part of a larger quest to get stronger. She had been weight lifting
for about a year before she could finally do one, but it was worth it for the
sense of accomplishment in mastering this quintessential show of strength.
It’s true that pull-ups are easier for some people
than for others. “In general, as mass goes up, strength-to-weight ratios go
down,” said Greg Nuckols, founder of
StrongerByScience.com and a powerlifter
who’s held three world records. A tall person is likely to have more mass to
pull up than a shorter person, even if they are similarly built. Some may never
be able to manage a pull-up, no matter how long they try, and others might
decide it’s not worth it.
I will never set any pull-up records with my long
arms and legs and taller-than-average height. But I do have a few advantages:
good upper body strength from years of cross-country skiing, and not too much
middle-aged pudge. I still have to work at pull-ups, but the payoff is deeply
satisfying.
“Pulling yourself up onto something — a bar, over a fence,
up a wall — makes you feel like a superhero,” Callaway said. Not only that, she
added, it also makes the monkey bars at the nearby playground a little more
fun.
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