By
Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems
I have to admit, I love pull-ups.
All versions actually—chins, pull-ups, parallel grip…
low reps, high reps, weights strapped to my waist, you name it.
I’ve done a lot of experimentation with this exercise too—much
of which involved stupid-level high-tension stunts involving heavy
eccentrics, plyometric loads, all sorts of stuff.
My affection for this exercise probably
stems from the fact that I’m pretty good at it (I can do 12-13
reps weighing 215 at age 49—like I said, pretty good—nothing
to write a press release about, but you get my point).
Aside from my own modest success with
this exercise, there are plenty of more objective reasons to take
a second (or third) look at doing more pull-ups:
Same But Different
Like all good exercises, the pull-up
is almost infinitely modifiable: you can use both arms, one arm
(maybe), supinated, pronated, or neutral grips—in fact, you
can even use a thumbless grip.
Pull-ups allow you to use less than
bodyweight (I’ll show you how later), bodyweight, or additional
loads… you can use all sorts of bar options—thick, thin,
towels, gymnastic rings… we even do this drill called a “Lat
Rotisserie” — check it out here
Infinite variability is important,
because it allows you to perform an exercise year after year, without
burning out your mind or your connective tissue. So variability
allows you to safely do what’s important—all the time,
not just one week out of four, which means you never make any progress.
Muscular Topography
The pull-up quickly adds visual impact
to your physique—it thickens and widens the lattisimus dorsi,
which also makes your waist look smaller by comparison. Pull-ups
also rapidly hypertrophy the biceps, forearms, traps, rhomboids
and all sorts of "under the hood" musculature that typically
goes unnoticed - until poor training habits lead to imbalance, or
(possibly) injury.
Athletic Functionality
In terms of movement pattern classification,
pull-ups fall under the category of “vertical pulling”
exercises. Vertical pulling is one of eight categories of movement
patterns that we recognize at Staley Training Systems (the other
seven: horizontal pulling, vertical and horizontal pushing, trunk
rotation and flexion, squatting, and lunging). If you wish to have
a “complete” physique and/or complete functionality, you
simply must incorporate vertical pulling drills into your training
strategy.
Before we move on however, just
a quick clarification on the concept of completeness: many
guys in particular, have an almost genetically coded and obsessive
preference toward training the anterior muscles of the upper
body, often to the complete exclusion of everything else.
I’m specifically referring to pecs, biceps and abs.
There’s certainly nothing
wrong with training these muscles, but when their posterior
counterparts don’t receive equal opportunity, your shoulders
will start bitching at you from the moment you wake up till
the time you go to bed. And maybe even while you sleep.
In fact, during the recent seminar
Strength Seminar I taught with Pavel Tsatsouline here in Phoenix,
the Evil Russian asked everyone who’d experienced shoulder
injuries to raise their hands. About 75% of the room complied,
upon which Pavel remarked “For those of you who didn’t
raise your hand, it’s because you couldn’t.”
The ability to do a given number of
pull-ups also speaks volumes about another aspect of functionality
— your relative strength (or “strength to weight ratio.”)
My colleague Martin Rooney of the Parisi Speed School once remarked
to me that he’s noticed a direct correlation between pull-up
strength and 40-yard dash times. This correlation (if it exists)
becomes intuitively obvious when you consider than both events benefit
from low bodyfat and high strength levels.
There are many additional, less-obvious
examples of the lat’s role in balanced athletic functionality.
For example, since the lattisimus dorsi is the only muscle that
directly connects the humerus to the spine, its participation in
all pulling movements (such as Olympic lifts and deadlifting) is
absolutely critical.
Fun
I know training’s supposed to
be a miserable experience (or at least you’d think so by the
way most people conduct themselves in gyms), but for me at least,
if it’s not fun, I wouldn’t do it. Now granted, I probably
have a warped definition of the word “fun,” but the point
is, training should instill a sense of accomplishment in you—a
sense of pride in your own physicality.
I recently spoke with a colleague
of mine about the subject of pull-ups, and he told me:
“Coming from someone who used
to be VERY over fat and couldn't do a pullup to save my life all
through middle and high school. I had very good pressing and lower
body strength but couldn't do a chin. After losing weight, it was
very empowering to be able to do a pull-up—it feels AWESOME.
It’s a great feat of strength and when people seeing you doing
chins or pull-ups, they have a certain respect for you.”
These sentiments are almost universal
among those who spend any kind of time in the weight room. It’s
possible to bench or squat with light weights and you’re still
benching or squatting, but the smallest weight increment with pullups
is you—your own bodyweight. The exercise becomes a visceral
metaphor for personal accomplishment: after all, you’re “pulling
your own weight.”
If You’re Not Convinced Yet, Sorry—I
Did My Best
Let’s move on to a more practical
discussion of the pull-up—what it is, how to do one, and how
to incorporate it into your own training strategy.
The most prevalent point of confusion
involves nomenclature—what’s a pullup, and what’s
a chin-up? Simply, a chin-up involves supinated hands (meaning,
your palms face you during the exercise). Pull-ups are the opposite
of that. Other variants, such as neutral-grip pull-ups, are a bit
fuzzier, and definitions vary from coach to coach.
As we move on to performance-related
issues, I’d like to share an observation with you that may
enhance your understanding of the movement from a biomechanical
perspective. Imagine yourself standing under a chinning bar, ready
to do a chin-up. You reach up with a supinated grip, and grasp the
bar.
Just for the purposes of this
(mental) exercise, imagine that somehow your hands are attached
to the bar so you don’t need to grip it. I’m not
sure if that involved duct tape, superglue, or whatever. I
also want you to imagine that your biceps are de-innervated
(meaning, they don’t work).
Still with me? OK, from here,
ask yourself this question: what happens if you just activate
your lats, maximally without doing anything else?
The answer is, you’ll do
a chin-up, despite no biceps activation. If you maximally
activate your lats, your elbows will be drawn down to your
ribs, which means you did a chin.
My point is this: while everyone
always talks about chins being one of the best biceps exercises,
I don’t want you to think of a chin-up as a biceps exercise,
because that thought will prevent you from maximally recruiting
your lats during the exercise.
And since your lats are the big bullies
among the chinning muscles, that’d be counter-productive at
best. In the same way that you use your posterior chain to generate
force in a snatch or a clean, you should use your lats as the prime
mover when you perform any pull-up variation.
Another way to reinforce this concept
is through cueing—the thought or visualization you have in
your head as you perform the exercise. The prevailing wisdom among
most coaches is to “squeeze the bar as hard as you can.”
And while I appreciate the rationale behind this thinking, I disagree
with it. Many coaches prompt their clients to “squeeze the
bar as hard as possible” because it’s a good way to generate
more force through a principle known as “hyperirradiation;”
tension generated in the forearm muscles tends to promote more force
in neighboring muscles (the elbow flexors in this case), which promotes
greater overall force production.
My problem with this cue for pull-ups
is that I want to discourage biceps involvement in favor of lat-focused
power generation. If you’re not convinced despite my earlier
mental exercise, think of it this way: if you load your bodyweight
onto a bar, how many times can you curl it? I’m guessing 0.
A better cue, which helps to recruit
the bigger, more powerful lats, is to think about driving your elbows
down to your ribcage. Not only does this cue encourage lat contraction,
it’s also less daunting to imagine driving your elbows down,
than it is to imagine pulling yourself up.
I’m so convinced of the value
of this strategy that I almost try to deliberately de-emphasize
my grip when I do pull-ups. One way of doing this is to use straps
incidentally. Another option: a false grip, and/or chalk—anything
that makes the grip easier will work. Now if your guns are sub-par,
don’t worry:
your biceps are likely to participate no matter how you perform
your chins or pull-ups.
A Few Other Technical Tips…
I’ve got a few remaining thoughts
and tips for you, in no particular order:
If you find yourself swinging during
a set of pull-ups, ensure that you’re not flexing your hips.
Some people are satisfied to simply
touch their chin to the bar, as opposed to actually clearing the
bar with the chin. I’d opt for the latter tactic however,
and here’s why: if you fail to clear the bar
with your chin, you’ll most likely miss out on the opportunity
to depress your scapula with your
lower trap fibers, which is required to go from a “chin touching”
to a “chin clearing” position. The
ability to meaningfully depress your scaps is essential for good
overall shoulder health, so avoid the
temptation to simply touch the bar with your chin.
There are many myths and misunderstandings
regarding hand spacing, most of which focus on the
incorrect premise that a wider spacing makes the lats wider, and
a narrower spacing makes the lats
thicker. A better recommendation is to simply use a natural spacing,
which affords you the most
comfort and freedom of movement. One way to find this position
for yourself is to simply reach up
(or, if you have a chinning bar that requires this, to jump up)
with either a supinated or pronated
grip. Your intuitive choice of hand spacing will tend to be correct,
if you haven’t over-thought it.
Done this way, your hand spacing with a supinated grip will tend
to be slightly inside of shoulder width, such that at the top,
the front of your shoulders will brush your hands. Your pronated
grip will tend to be a touch wider than your supinated grip.
This next point is something I’ve
learned from experience, and it’s not something I could ever
prove
to you, but if you try it, you’ll prove it to yourself: leave
more reps “in the tank” with chins and pullups
than you would on most other exercises. I like to leave at least
2 reps to spare on every set,
save for the occasional max-reps test. On every rep, you want
to instill a feeling of confidence and
mastery—not humiliation and agony.
What if you’re close, but
can’t yet perform a chin-up? Ahh, lucky for you, I’ve
left the best tip for
last: muscles are significantly stronger when they contract immediately
following a pre-stretch
(called the “stretch-shortening cycle.”) This is why
you crouch immediately before you jump, and it’s
also why you quickly coil your arm back before you throw a ball.
So if you’ve never done a chin, but
you’re real close, try standing on a box or a chair, and
lower yourself first, then pull yourself up to
the bar. Then (if you want) write me back telling me what an awesome
coach I am!
NOW You’re
Pulling Your Weight!
Feels good doesn’t it?
About The Author
His colleagues call him an iconoclast,
a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients call him “The
Secret Weapon” for his ability to see what other coaches
miss. Charles calls himself a “geek” who struggled
in Phys Ed throughout school. Whatever you call him, Charles’
methods are ahead of their time and quickly produce serious
results. His counter-intuitive approach and self-effacing
demeanor have lead to appearances on NBC’s The TODAY
Show and The CBS Early Show.
Currently, Charles competes
in Olympic-style weightlifting on the master’s circuit,
with a 3-year goal of qualifying for the 2009 Master’s
World Championships.
Learn More
About
EDT Training!
Charles Staley’s
training package "The Complete
Video Guide To Escalating Density Training" is available
now!
You're training
to compete against the best, so take a look at your
competition: More times then not they will employ APT gear
in some fashion to help them reach their extreme goals,
and so should you.
Flat out,
the best use the best. We
now carry AST Products in our store!
