Pull and Chin your way Up!

Pull Ups and Chin Ups are in the top ten and with very good reason. In terms of measuring your relative strength and relative strength endurance not many exercises are better than the Pull Up or Chin Up.

This is why they are often used as a measure or assessment in the military all over the world. The exercises are brilliant mainly as you have to physically lift your whole body against gravity.

From a movement perspective the Pull or Chin Up is a vertical pull and as a result targets the pulling muscles of the upper back and the flexors of the elbow. From a muscular perspective it is therefore a great developer of the lats, posterior deltoid, rhomboids, biceps and more.

A Pull Up is performed with a pronated or overhand grip and a Chin Up is performed with a reverse or underhand grip. The different grips have slightly different focus’ regarding which muscles are used and to what extent. A ‘strict’ Pull or Chin is performed gripping a bar from a full hang position with the feet off the ground and both the elbows straight and no bend at the shoulder joint, from here the person lifts themselves up by ‘pulling themselves upwards until their chins are over the top of the bar, this is one rep.

For a ‘strict’ Pull or Chin no unwanted or unnecessary movement/ ‘swinging’ should occur throughout the rest of the body. However swinging or ‘Kipping’ Pull ups are a modified version of a Chin or Pull where you are allowed as much movement as necessary to get yourself up. These are great variations: which are really useful for developing whole body coordination as well as strength endurance.

For developing strength and stability the traditional ‘strict’ versions are recommended and for coordination and strength endurance try the ‘kipping’ variants.

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