Pulling up on a stick with a grip and a grip strengthens the back muscles and allows you to slim your arms. Pull-ups are a good exercise for beginners and advanced alike, and can replace many of the complicated exercises in the gym. Check how to properly pull up on the bar and see the beginner training plan that will allow you to quickly increase the number of pull-ups.

Pulling up on the stickcan be performed in two variants:overgrip and undergrip . Both techniques have different levels of difficulty and give slightly different results. Exercising with the overgrip develops the back muscles to a greater extent, while the undergrip exercise more effectively strengthens and shapes the arms (especially the biceps muscle, i.e. the biceps).

During training, you should not focus on only one technique of pull-ups, because only alternating exercises (e.g. several series of overgrip, several undergrip) allows for fully harmonious muscle development.

Contents:

  1. Pull-ups with pull-ups - what muscles work?
  2. Pull-ups - technique
  3. Pull-ups for beginners - exercises
  4. Pull-ups - training plan for beginners
    • Training plan - 1-2 weeks
    • Training plan - 3-5 weeks
    • Training plan - 6-9 weeks
  5. Pull-ups - types of grips
  6. Pull-ups - how often do you train?

Pull-ups with pull-ups - what muscles work?

Pulling up on the stick with the gripconsists in arranging the fingers of the hand in such a way that their tips point in the opposite direction to the exercising person. Training in this way is more difficult than undercap because the shoulder muscle works harder during exercise - most people are underdeveloped. This variant allows you to strengthen the back muscles more effectively.

Pulling up on the stick with the gripis characterized by such a positioning of the hands that the tips of the fingers are directed towards the exerciser. Although it is easier, it will not strengthen the back muscles to the same extent as pull-ups, so it is important to use both exercises in your training.

Pull-ups - technique

Withcorrect technique is extremely important when performing pull-ups. Start the exercise from the starting position.

  1. Starting position: with a grip or a grip, place your hands slightly wider than the width of your shoulders. Completely straighten your arms and let your body hang freely in the air (you can bend your legs slightly and cross your feet). We look straight ahead. The head is an extension of the spine.
  2. By bending your elbows, smoothly pull up until your chin is at the level of the bar. Perform the exercise slowly.
  3. We lower ourselves at the same pace until our arms are completely straight.

Want to know how your muscles and body should work with pull-ups, watch the video:

According to an expertTomasz Piotrowski, personal trainer

Pull-ups for beginners - exercises

Sometimes stick-ups are a problem for us because we are unable to make the correct movement or are unable to pull up more than once or several times. Here are some simple tips on how to increase muscle strength with pull-ups and learn the correct movement.

  • Activating the paddles

At the very beginning, first of all, learn to activate the shoulder blades. This means that we have to consciously pull them back. It will be a good idea to see if we are able to do this while holding the chin-up bar. In the overhang it looks as if we want to strongly stick our chest forward while holding our hands up. This treatment allows for stronger involvement of muscle fibers responsible for our strength during the pull-up movement.

So the first step will be to learn how to activate the paddles and hang on the stick. During the overhang, you should tighten the abdominal muscles, pull the shoulder blades together and try to hang still on straight hands. Just such hanging is very he althy for the spine, because the vertebrae decompress, which brings tremendous relief and a feeling of lightness. It also strengthens our grip.

  • Negative Bindings

Step two is to use negative pull-ups. You should get above the bar from the ground, or jump out and very slowly, keeping your body taut at all times, lower yourself down until the elbows are fully straightened. It is a mistake not to perform the full range of motion in the elbow joint. The active negative phase is more important for building strength than the positive phase of movement, so it is worth mastering it.

  • Australian Pull-ups

The third step is to perform the so-called pull-upsAustralian, or rowing with the weight of your own body. Choose a place where the bar is approximately at the level of the chest. We position ourselves under it so that the hands holding the bar are at the level of the pectoral muscles. The body is resting on the ground with your feet, but you should keep your feet in a straight line. We activate the shoulder blades, tighten the abdomen and take care of the correct guidance of the elbows while pulling. The correct angle that we should keep while moving is 45 degrees from the body.

  • Pull-ups with rubbers

The last step before starting proper pull-ups is to use a power band. They allow you to relieve the muscles a bit, at the same time forcing us to engage the muscles stabilizing the spine more.

Keeping all the advice and rules of body positioning so far, you should perform power band pull-ups in the form of a series of training sessions and the number of repetitions. Below I present a plan that will allow you to learn to pull yourself up.

Pull-ups - training plan for beginners

Thanks to this training plan, you will quickly notice progress and from week to week you will be doing more and more pull-ups on the bar. The plan was developed by personal trainer and boxer Tomasz Piotrowski.

Training plan: 1-2 weeks

The first two weeks are just learning how to activate the shoulder blades and strengthen the grip. 3 times a week, you should perform 4 series of 10 repetitions of activating the paddles hanging on the stick. Movement occurs solely by the strength of the back muscles. Each set and repetition must be performed slowly and carefully. The longer one move takes, the more we will strengthen the grip. I suggest a single repetition lasts 5 seconds. One second to activate, 3 seconds to hold the voltage, and 1 second to lower your weight.

Training plan: 3-5 weeks

After two weeks, include the negative phase exercise and Australian pull-ups in your training. He suggests this way:

ExerciseRepetitionsSerie
Negative pullups4-54
Australian Pull-ups104
Activation of the vanes in the overhang83

Take a 30-second break between negative pull-ups, and 1 minute between each series. Take a break of 1 minute between the series of Australian pull-ups.

Such training should be done2 times a week for 3 weeks .

Training plan: 6-9 weeks

The last period of learning pull-ups on the bar will be the inclusion of power band pull-ups in the training. I suggest the following training plan performedtwice a week for 2 to 4 weeksdepending on your needs:

ExerciseRepetitionsSerie
Pull-ups on power band63
Negative pullups64
Australian Pull-ups104
Activation of the vanes in the overhang53

In the meantime, you can check whether we are able to pull up on the bar by ourselves while maintaining the correct movement. After completing such a training plan, I guarantee that the strength of the back muscles will increase and their appearance will improve. Most people will also be able to perform 3-4 sets of pull-ups for 5-8 repetitions.

Pull-ups - types of grips

The distance between your hands on the bar is not without significance, especially for people who want to get specific training results. The effectiveness of the exercise and its impact on the development of individual muscle groups depend on the distance between the hands.

There are three grip widths:

  • narrow grip- hands are not more than 20 cm apart. It is easier to do with a trick. It involves the back muscles to a lesser extent, so pulling up in this way will not affect the development of the upper back. Strongly activates the work of the biceps and shapes the arm muscles.
  • medium grip- the hands are slightly wider than the shoulders. This is the best option if we want to harmoniously strengthen the arms and back, because it engages all muscles to a similar degree.
  • wide grip- the most difficult grip in which the hands are placed far beyond the width of the shoulders. With such a large distance between the hands, the broad muscle of the back works the most, which is why this type of grip is recommended for men who want to develop their upper back. This way, the shape resembles the letter V.
Important

It is important to pay attention to some technical aspects of the exercise that are often neglected when doing pull-ups:

  • Your feet must not touch the ground between successive pull-ups.
  • Only the hands work during the exercise - the rest of the body hangs downmotionless.
  • Pull-ups require a good warm-up of your muscles, joints and tendons, so you should warm up for 10 minutes before training. It should primarily affect the upper body, so it should include the circulation of the shoulders, forearms, wrists and head.
  • It is very important to breathe properly during exercise. You inhale when you lower yourself, and you breathe out when you pull up.
  • The phase of rising the torso should be shorter than the phase of descending. It is during the return to the starting position that the muscles do the most work and the effectiveness of the exercise depends on its duration.
  • A common mistake beginners make is rocking and jerking when chin-up. This reduces the effectiveness of the exercise as the muscles lose the proper tone. You should perform pull-ups slowly and accurately, without leaning in different directions.

Pull-ups - how often do you train?

To strengthen your back muscles, it is enough to perform 2-4 repetitions in one workout. Increasing the number of repetitions to 8 will make them grow, while 12 and more will sculpt your muscles.

Pull-ups are quite strenuous exercise, so you shouldn't overdo it with the number of repetitions and frequency of training. If you find it too difficult to perform several pull-ups at once, you can break the training into several series or take longer breaks.

Between workouts, you should give your muscles 2-3 days to regenerate, so it's best to exercise no more than 3 times a week.

Category:

Anatomy