Pull-Up

How to do the pull-up

1. 01Take an overhand grip slightly wider than your shoulders and hang with arms straight.
2. 02Before bending your arms, pull your shoulder blades down and back — your body rises an inch or two. This is the scapular pull-up.
3. 03From there, drive your elbows down toward your ribs and pull your chest toward the bar.
4. 04Clear the bar with your chin without craning your neck to do it.
5. 05Lower under control all the way to a straight-arm hang. Half-reps down are half-reps.

Coaching cues

• Start with the shoulder blades, finish with the arms.
• Pull the bar to you rather than you to the bar — it changes where you feel it.
• Squeeze your glutes and brace to stop the legs swinging.

Common mistakes

FaultKipping and swinging

FixFine as a deliberate CrossFit movement, useless as an accident. Brace the midsection and squeeze the glutes so the body stays rigid.

FaultNot going to a full hang

FixThe bottom is where the lat is at its longest and where most of the strength gap lives. Straighten the arms every rep.

FaultChin craning over the bar

FixPull the chest toward the bar instead. Reaching with the neck adds nothing and builds a habit that limits real range.

FaultShrugging up into the ears

FixDepress the shoulder blades before you pull. Starting from a shrugged position keeps the lats out of it.

The pull-up is the most honest upper-body strength test there is: no machine, no loading pins, just your body and a bar.

The rep starts before your arms bend

Hang with straight arms and completely relaxed shoulders and you will notice your shoulders are up near your ears. From there, without bending your elbows, pull your shoulder blades down and back. Your body rises an inch or two.

That is the scapular pull-up, and it is the first part of every good rep. Skip it and you pull from a shrugged position where the lats are poorly placed to contribute, so the biceps take over and the movement stalls early.

Practise it as its own exercise if you cannot yet do a full pull-up. Ten slow reps of just that motion is a genuine training stimulus for a beginner.

Negatives beat the assisted machine

The assisted pull-up machine reduces the load by supporting your knees, which also removes the trunk stability the real movement demands. People get strong on it and find it transfers poorly.

Negatives keep everything: your full body weight, your grip, your bracing. Jump or step to the top, then lower as slowly as you can. Five seconds is the target. Three to five of those, two or three times a week, moves most people to a first pull-up faster than anything else.

Band assistance is a reasonable middle ground, with the caveat that a band gives most help exactly where you are weakest, at the bottom.

Full hang, every rep

The bottom position is where the lat is longest and loaded, and it is the part people cut first as they fatigue.

Half-range pull-ups build half-range strength. If you can only do three with a full hang and eight with a half hang, you can do three pull-ups.

Adding load

Once you are past about ten clean reps, adding reps becomes a poor use of time. Hang a plate from a belt or hold a dumbbell between your feet and work in the five to eight range. Weighted pull-ups are one of the best upper-back builders there is, and the entry requirement is a strict bodyweight rep.