Pull Ups

How to do Pull Ups or Chins

This exercise is great at building real strength in the upper body. Always include it in your back program! Because the back muscles attach to the upper arm bone, the muscle is stretched out when you lift your arms, which is good for muscle growth. The other advantage is that you can lift a lot of weight in this exercise. If you want to work more with reps, pull-downs work just as well.

Stand in front of a chin-up bar and grab the bar with an overhand grip, the palms of your hands facing away from you. The grip should be a little wider than your shoulders if you are going to do a Pull-Up. If you have the palms of your hands facing you instead, you will make a chin that also activates your biceps. The biceps help when doing Chins. Thus the exercise is a little easier to perform and therefore makes it a great option for beginners.

Here’s how to make Chins:

Stabilize the body by keeping it tense during the exercise. You then avoid rocking back and forth when performing the exercise. Let your feet hang free, and then pull yourself up with your arms until the bar is at your chin. Then return to the starting position in a controlled manner and repeat the exercise.

If you perform Pull-Ups with a really wide grip, the focus will shift a bit from your Lats more to Teres Major. This is a small muscle that lies just below your armpits, i.e., over your lats. Read more about the anatomy of the back here for a better understanding.

Do you want to become a pro at chins? Test our chins program with Armor today! If you are already a killer in the exercise, you may want to test step 2 in the chins program, and you can find it here!

Tips for Pull Ups

• Try both Chins and Pulls Ups
• Vary your grip in width to get different focuses on the outer and inner part of the back when doing Pull Ups.
• The grip should be shoulder-width when doing Chins
• Tense your body as it will stabilize the body in the lift
• Pull yourself up, do not jerk quickly
• Slowly go down
• When you can no longer pull yourself up with your arms, you can only focus on the negative phase of the movement. Just jump up to the top position when the chin is at the bar and keep tensed on the way down for a couple of reps.
• As you get stronger, you can start to add a weight belt for more resistance
• If you have an extra-wide grip at Pull Ups, the training shifts a little more to Teres Major muscle