The Pull-Up

There are few things involving bodyweight-only movements more impressive than the ability to do a ton of pull-ups. Even doing just one pull-up is something most people can't manage. I've had several prospective new clients come into the gym, confident in their fitness and able to do good push-ups, squats, and claim a 2x bodyweight deadlift, who have to say "I can't do a pull-up" when we get to that portion of the introductory session.

And there isn't a good reason why, apart from the obvious fact that they never spent any time developing that capacity. Which is a pity, because besides making you generally fit and, in the vanity department, making your back and biceps look great, being able to pull your bodyweight up, onto, and (transitioning to a muscle-up) over an obstacle can be pretty useful. Whether you're rescuing a kitten from a tree or scaling a wall to escape a pack of brain-crazed undead after the Zombie Apocalypse, the pull-up will come in handy. Also, you cannot be a ninja if you can't do a pull-up.

More practically, pulling yourself up to reach something, or climbing into the attic when there's no ladder handy, or onto the roof of your garage to retrieve a badly thrown frisbee, are also things you can't do if you can't do a pull-up.

There are several variations of the pull-up, and they're all useful training tools. Here's the basic, strict pull-up:

Generally, a pull-up with a pronated (palms facing away) grip is actually called a "pull-up," while a supinated grip (palms facing toward your body) is called a "chin-up." Really, both are just variations of the pull-up, as is using a mixed grip (one palm facing you, one facing away). Making these little changes to grip alters the work loads placed on the involved muscles, which makes all of them useful. In a supinated grip, your biceps are asked to do a little more of the work.

The variation we use most often is the kipping pull-up, and we use it because it lets the athlete do more work. Basically, your hips are used to produce force to help push you over the bar. This does several things:

• Reduces the workload on the muscles traditionally involved in a pull-up, allowing you to do more of them. 
• Builds overall pull-up strength, especially in new athletes... doing lots of kipping pull-ups improves your capacity to do strict pull-ups, usually faster than just doing strict pull-ups.
• Improves your overall coordination and timing.
• Allows us to build metabolic conditioning workouts involving dozens and dozens, sometimes a hundred or more, pull-ups and get them done in under a day (usually, under an hour).
• Gets you accused of "cheating" in your pull-ups by meatheads who don't know or understand any of the above (and, probably, bounce up and down through 1/3 range of motion and never get over the bar when they do their "real pull-ups.")

Here's an example of  the kipping pull-up, with an exaggerated swing, and with the video slowed down so you can see what's going on:

But wait, there's more! So, when we talk about "kipping pull-ups," we're almost always talking about what's called the gymnastic kip (so-called because it's taken from and used often in the sport of gymnastics, for many things besides doing pull-ups). There is another form of kip, called the butterfly kip. This kip differs from the gymnastic kip in some important aspects:

• It uses less drive from the hip, requiring your back, shoulders, and arms to do more of the work.
• It takes less time, meaning each individual rep is faster and thus, you can (theoretically) improve your power output.
• It is, for most, harder to master (I'm still working on really getting it nailed, though I can crank out a few).
• Until you do master it, it feels like you're going to smash your face into the bar.

That last one is a big obstacle for most folks; the trick is to get "over" the bar (that is, above it) while you're still well behind the bar in your cyclical motion. If you're doing it correctly, your path is much more "up-and-down" than "back-and-forth," and you shouldn't pass far under the bar, if at all.

Here's what the butterfly kip looks like... my butterfly is not great yet, so I thought I'd post a tutorial vid from someone much better than I am at pull-ups :-) :

You can also weight the pull-up to improve your maximal pulling strength. Usually, these are done as a strict pull-up, mostly because nearly every method you might use to add weight to your body makes the motion of kipping impractical (or downright hazardous). However, a weight vest which fits snugly to the body and doesn't impede the range of motion in your shoulders would let you add weight to your kipping pull-ups.

Finally, there is the elusive one-armed pull-up. This is a mark of serious strength, and honestly not everyone necessarily will be able to build their strength to this point. However, barring permanent limitations which cannot be addressed through training (such as permanent injuries, etc.) everyone can develop the capacity to do a basic pull-up. Just for fun, here's a video of someone busting out one-armed pull-ups:

So, there you have it. The Pull-Up, definitely one of the best movements to have in your training arsenal! I'll leave you with our athlete, Holly, nailing her first ever kipping pull-ups: