Pull Ups

A pull up is an upper body compound pulling exercise. Your back and arms pull your body up while your abs prevent your lower back from arching. You can emphasize your arms by gripping the bar with your palms facing up. These are Chin ups and they’re effective for building bigger arms.

A traditional pull up relies on upper body strength with no swinging or "kipping" (using a forceful initial movement of the legs in order to gain momentum).

Variations of Pull Ups

Regular Pull Ups

Grab the bar, grip it about shoulder width apart. Full grip with your palms down. Hang with straight arms. Pull yourself up by pulling your elbows down to the floor. Keep your elbows close. Pull yourself all the way up until your chin passes the bar. Lower yourself all the way down until your arms are straight.

If you lack the strength get your chin over the bar by standing on the bench. Lower yourself slowly and then jump up again for the next rep. You can also loop a resistance band around your leg to help you up.

Wide Grip Pull Ups

Wide Grip Pull ups are used for emphasizing to your lats, instead of working primarily your biceps. The procedure for performing Wide Grip Pull ups is similar to the procedure for regular Pull ups. Grab a bar with overhand grip and your hands separated by a distance roughly twice the width of your shoulders.

Separating your hands in this way ensures that you emphasize working your lats. Allow your body to hang from the bar with your arms straightened, and then pull yourself upward so that your chest nearly touches the bar and your chin is over the bar. When you perform Wide Grip Pull ups, it's helpful to focus on using your lats to pull your elbows downward toward your ribcage.

Focus on keeping your body straight without arching or swinging throughout the pull. Once your lats are completely contracted and your chin is over the bar, you can lower yourself to the initial position shown.

Close Grip Pull Ups

Close Grip Pull ups emphasizes your lower lats. Grab bar with a firm overhand grip and your hands must be separated about 6 - 8 inches/15 – 20 cm. The narrow separation between your hands ensures that you emphasize your lower lats during the exercise.

Hanging from the bar with your arms straightened. Pull yourself upward so that your chin is over the bar and your hands nearly touch your chest, and then lower yourself back to the initial position.

During your pull up, focus on contracting your lats and be careful not to swing your body or lean too far backwards.

Underhand Grip Pull Ups / Chin Ups

You can emphasize your biceps by using Underhand Grip Pull ups/Chin ups. Underhand Grip Pull ups/Chin ups are performed with an underhand, reverse grip where the palms of your hands are facing you during the exercise.

To perform a Underhand Grip Pull ups/Chin ups, grab the bar with a reverse grip and about 6 - 8 inches/15 - 20 cm of separation between your hands. Hang in the initial position with your arms straightened. Don’t relaxing your muscles too much while hanging from the bar. Relaxing too much can place a great deal of stress on your shoulders joints.

Pull yourself up and try to touch either your chin or upper chest to the bar. Once your reach the final position, you can slowly return to the initial position.

When Body weight is not Enough

As you gain strength, however, you need more resistance than body weight. To increase the difficulty use weight plates hanging from your waist by using a Belt. Belt has a support ring on one end and a chain and clasp attached to a similar ring on the other end.