SURPRISE! You can do pull-ups too!

SURPRISE You can do pull-ups too! 

 I was surprised to get an email from my ROCKIN awesome Cousin, Mallory Peveto yesterday on her recent pull-up accomplishemnts!

She scored a whopping 50 consectutively in a recent workout!! What a huge feat!



Nice Job Girl!!

This reminded me of my own struggles with pull-ups and how I eventually conquered my pull-up predicament! I mean... who doesn't want "I can do X- amount of pull-ups" on their resume?! If you don't want that on your resume maybe you aren't at the right site ;). I worked with a strenght coach a few years back that was adament about getting me pull-up worthy, and I must say he did it! The great part of how he taught me was that I only did eccentric pull-ups or "negatives" for 4 weeks... after 4 weeks of HARD work he said, ok, now do a pull up. SURPRISE--I jumped up to the pull-up bar and cranked out 3 in a row!! That's 3 in a row from maybe one on a good day! Pretty proud  moment for this girl! Let me show you how...and a surprise pull-up may be in your furture!

Here are a few tricks of the trade to get you to your first proper pull-up!

You wan to be sure that you are fairly warm before jumping straight into a pull-up. Doing a full pull-up uses some large muscle groups as well as some smaller muscles for assistance. You'll want to properly warm up your shoulders and back before starting. I like doing some light rows as well as 

bent over raises, and fully extended planks at the least before beginning.  

The first thing to master is the isometric hang. The hang takes some grip strength and will also help you to turn on your back muscles that my have been snoozing! Be sure to squeeze your shoulder blades together and try to hang at the top of your pull up for 5-10 seconds at at time. You can have a friend or trainer push up until your chin is above the bar,(check out the picture below) then squeeze tight and hold. Try this exercise 2x a week (for 2 sets of 5-8 repetitions of 5-10 seconds) until you feel comfortable moving to the next progression.

Next progression is an eccentric pull-up. What is an eccentric you may ask? Eccentric is the action of muscle lengthening. It is the opposite of concentric muscular contraction. For example, in a barbell curl, when you pull the weight towards your body your bicep is contracting, this is called a concentric muscle action or contraction phase. When you lower the bar back towards the floor, you are experiencing the eccentric phase of the muscle action. WARNING!! Eccentric causes the most muscle damage, and will make you VERY sore! However, it's gonna get you strong...fast in regard to the pull up! Here's how you crank it!

1. start with your chin above the bar, this is where a training partner or trainer comes in nicely as you will see with my lovely assistant Kyle. If you don't have a partner, you can use a plyo box to get above the bar.

2. Once above the bar, ever-so-slooowly(while squeezing your back and tucking your elbows) lower yourself to the bottom of the pull up position.

beginning of the movement

Middle of the movement



Almost to the finish! Get to the very bottom of the pull-up before re-starting!

3. Once at the bottom of the pull up position, re-start the movement by either using your partner to help push you to the top of the movement or your plyo-box for assistance getting to the top.

-It's important to take your time on the movement and try to take as long as possible to get to the bottom of your pull-up position.(try to take 5 seconds to get to the bottom) try to start at 3 sets of 5 repetitions once a week and see how your strength does.

-Don't be surprised if you are REALLY sore the next day! The eccentric phase causes a lot of muscle damage, but will also cause you to have very quick results on your strength increases!

-Lastly, if you would like to make this movement harder, simply add weight. I normally use a weight belt and hang a 25 lb plate to make the movement even harder. You can also have someone place a dumbbell between your ankles as pictured for extra weight.

Place a dumbbell between you ankles if needed for extra weight.



My last tip for getting pull-up savvy is to try a kipping pull-up. It's a pendulum-type movement used in gymnastics and may help to get you some strength. Although the kipping pull up actually uses momentum to get through the tough parts of the pull-up, it can increase your pulling strength! There are tons of resources on the web to check out kipping pull ups