The Pullup Encyclopedia - Revised

Good day to all you MFP peoples.

I am writing to you all today to give you my knowledge on my trademark exercise, which is the cornerstone of back exercises....the PULLUP. I've said this before many times but the Pullup is the absolute cornerstone of upper body strength. It's a survival technique in fact. It's the reason why the military uses it to gauge and test their recruits.

Enough babble about why I think the exercise itself is awesome, let's press on. I am going to explain how to do them properly and how to get stronger with them.

Before you grab the bar thinking you're He-Man, take this into consideration: You CAN in fact do them INCORRECTLY, and you will strengthen your ARMS instead of your BACK. We don't want this to happen so I want to explain on how to make sure you engage your lats fully and not your arms.

Follow these 5 steps in your mind while you're standing underneath the bar: (Mind to Muscle Connection)

1. Grab the bar so your grip is a little wider than shoulder width.

2. Use a pronated grip where your thumb is NOT wrapped around the bar.

3. Start from a complete dead hang.

4. Head up looking straight up at the bar, bring your chest up, and SLIGHTLY arch your back.

5. ENGAGE the lats, PULL and DRIVE YOUR ELBOWS DOWN.

That's it. Get in the habit of thinking about this over and over before you start. Remember you want to bring your thumbs up, go to a dead hang, chest up, look up, arch your back slightly and actually THINK about engaging your lats as you pull up.

You also want to use a Pullup Tempo of: 0/1/2

This means that you should be explosive when you are pulling up (0), at the top you hold for a second or even a half a second, and then take 2 seconds as you lower yourself down. Then repeat. Explode up, hold for a quick second, then lower down.

Now to talk about how to actually get stronger to do either 1 pullup or do MORE pullups:

1. Start with chin ups.

Chins are easier to do than pullups and it's a good way to increase strength. You use the same principles outlined above when doing chinups. Chest up, Head up, Arch back and pull.

2. Use a resistance band.

Resistance bands are amazing to get stronger with pullups. They wrap around the bar on one end, and your knees at the other end and they act as an assistance to doing them. You can find them online.

3. Do alot of short rep sets, like 10-2's or even 15-2's.

Do 10 or 15 sets of 1-2 reps. Take 30 seconds rest in between each set. When you get strong enough to get to 5-10 reps, add weight onto a weight belt and continue the 10-2's, etc. You WILL get stronger at them.

4. Strengthen your grip.

Either use grip strengtheners, do Deadlifts, Plate pinches, or do Heavy Bar Pulls and hold for 10-20 seconds. You'd be surprised at how this will help your pullups.

5. Perform negative movements.

Grab one of those steps they have in the gym, or if you're at home use a chair. Start in the "up" position and very slowly work your way down.


What you shouldn't do when doing pullups:

- Kipping or swinging up. This doesn't help you, your form, nor you getting stronger. What it does do is make you look like an idiot so stop doing it.

- Don't go to failure: Contrary to what you may have heard, you should NOT go to failure when doing this exercise. You should be stopping 1-2 reps short of failure and adding weight to the weight belt if need be.

- Taking too wide of a grip: Taking a wider grip does not mean your lats will be wider. Use the proper grip for Wide Grip Pullups. The grip should be wide for YOUR shoulder width. Just because the bar is really wide doesn't mean you should take the widest possible grip.

- Assistance Pullup Machine: I know there will be alot of controversy regarding the assistance pullup machine, but I don't recommend using it. I fully UNDERSTAND that some people have used it and got stronger from it but again I don't like it and don't recommend it.

Use resistance bands and use the REAL pullup bar. Go with chinups if you have to.

- Locking your elbows and going to a dead hang for every rep. This is NOT the correct way. The ONLY time you should be at a dead hang is when you start. You should keep your lats engaged throughout the entire exercise. When you drop your shoulders to a dead hang, you are disengaging your lats.


That's about it. Remember the steps and run them through your mind over and over. Make that MIND to MUSCLE connection when you're about to start each time you do pullups and you'll move on to greatness.

Take care.

J