Pull-up
Hanging from a bar and pulling your chin over it — the hardest common bodyweight movement, and the clearest one to measure.
- Pattern
- Vertical pull
- Equipment
- Pull-up bar
- Space
- Something to hang from
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Load
- External load
What it is
Hang from a bar with an overhand grip, hands roughly shoulder width or a little wider, arms straight. Pull until your chin clears the bar, then lower under control until your arms are straight again.
A chin-up is the same movement with the palms facing you. That grip lets biceps brachii contribute much more, and most people can do more chin-ups than pull-ups as a result. Neither is the correct version; they are two movements.
Keep your body reasonably still. Swinging to generate momentum is a different exercise called a kipping pull-up, which has its place in competitive fitness and is not this.
What it demands
A large amount of upper-body pulling strength relative to your own bodyweight, which is why it is the bodyweight movement most people cannot do.
The main muscles are latissimus dorsi and teres major pulling the arm down and in, the elbow flexors — brachialis, biceps brachii and brachioradialis — and the shoulder blade muscles controlling the scapula throughout. Grip holds the whole thing together.
Enough overhead shoulder range to hang comfortably at full reach.
What usually goes wrong
Not reaching full extension at the bottom. Stopping short with the elbows bent shortens the range, makes the count higher, and skips the part that develops the most.
Chin over the bar by craning the neck. The neck extends, the chin clears, and the arms have not finished the job.
Losing the shoulder blades at the bottom. Hanging fully passive between reps and then yanking is harder on the shoulder than starting each rep from an active hang.
Assuming you should be able to do one. The strength-to-bodyweight ratio required is genuinely high, and being unable to is unremarkable rather than a sign of anything.
Where it sits
The top of the vertical pull pattern in bodyweight training, and the movement that most completely loads the back.
The route to a first one runs through the negative pull-up, which trains the same movement at full bodyweight by lowering only. The inverted row builds pulling strength horizontally at whatever fraction of bodyweight you choose, which makes it the more useful place to start for most people.