Pull Up Progressions for Building Upper Back Strength

No other bodyweight exercise builds such a tremendous amount of upper back strength and power quite like the pull up, this movement should be a cornerstone of any athlete’s training routine, whatever your goals may be. The benefits are far too abundant to be ignored.

Anyone can put a bar on their back and squat, the question becomes ‘how much?’ Sadly though, not everyone can perform a pull up, perhaps that’s why they are often neglected by many people.

Becoming strong at pull ups is sure to help you in whatever sport or activity you are training for, your deadlift will improve too, no doubt about that. When your pulls up numbers go up, inevitably so does your deadlift, especially if pull ups are a great weakness for you.

They help pretty much everything, including keeping the body stable, tight and rigid during a heavy squat or bench press, but it can be disheartening if you can’t yet do any, especially as most people view pull ups as somewhat of a chore. Personally I can’t understand this mentality because pull ups are my ‘go to’ exercise and have given me by far the most significant strength gains over any other strength movement.

The addition of heavy weighted pull ups in my routine, helped increase both my bench press and deadlift, over ten pounds and twenty pounds, respectively.

So what do you have been working hard on your body rows and still can’t yet perform a single pull up, but still want to reap the benefits from this awesome exercise and start unleashing some ferocious strength? I’ll walk you through the steps in this section, to help get you from zero pull ups, up to many.

Many athletes also want to be big and carry a lot of muscle, with that extra weight comes extra difficulty when performing pull ups, especially for those over 200lbs or so.

Pull Ups — The Ultimate in Building Upper Back Strength

Essentially the heavier athletes are lifting more weight than the lighter guys, so it can sometimes be more challenging, but the other side of that coin is that due to the fact they are carrying more muscle, they should still be able to do pull ups just as easily, as with more muscle comes more (potential) strength.

It can be frustrating for anyone lifting serious weights and blasting personal bests in heavy lifts like the squat or deadlift to put aside their ego and allow themselves to be humbled somewhat, by something like the pull up, especially if you can’t even do any yet.
But again, the strength benefits that come with pull ups toward your other lifts, cannot be ignored.

Quite frankly, unless there is some medical reason as to why you can’t train your pull ups, then you need to be doing them, they should be in every single athlete’s training routine.

‘I’m too heavy,’ ‘I’m not built for pull ups,’ ‘I can’t even do one yet’ or ‘My legs are too heavy’ — I’ve literally heard all the excuses under the sun, and they just don’t cut it. Nah mate, you aren’t too big, don’t give me that bollocks. You just suck at pull ups and need to work on them more. There are plenty of guys out there that weigh over 200lbs that can crank out pull ups with ease, along with muscle ups and one arm chin ups.

Pull Ups are just one of those exercises that impress people when you are able to crank out rep after rep with ease.

To onlookers, pull ups will always be an impressive feat of strength, but people have been doing them for ages, how do you think gladiators and the original Olympians use to train? These supreme warriors and athletes did pull ups. So to me it’s a surprise that the average gym is usually so deficient in members who actually perform pull ups regularly.

Pull ups are severely neglected these days, maybe because they are not as hip, cool, or ego boosting as many other exercises. You’ll very rarely overhear anyone in a gym ask ‘how many pull ups can you do? Instead the first question you’ll most likely hear, and find most people even greet each other with for the first time is, ‘how much do ya bench?’

Walk into any of these commercial gyms and what will you see? Guys benching, doing some curls, then going back to bench some more.

For some reason the bench press is thought of as the king of upper body strength exercises, it’s the Holy Grail to most trainees.

Despite the fact that training the opposing muscle group (the upper back) can dramatically increase strength and muscle gains in all other exercises including the bench press, everyone still seems to want to bench, bench, and bench some more.

It seems to me that most people in gyms today don’t care about training a muscle, if they can’t see it in the mirror, perhaps that’s why the upper back and pull ups in general get neglected so much these days, who knows. Either way, pull ups are incredibly underrated often neglected these days.

Or maybe it’s because most people simply don’t know how to train their upper back, or limited by their own imagination and creativity.

There are many different ways to perform rows, pull ups and other exercises that work the lats, traps and biceps, even for those who can’t yet even perform a single pull up.

Pull ups effectively work the lats, the trapezius muscles, the rhomboids and all of the muscles around the shoulder blades, creating an upper back that will look like a roadmap.
By training these muscles, you’ll be preventing yourself from getting injured, keeping your shoulders strong and healthy as well as developing a vice like grip and strong forearms.

For me, there’s nothing more impressive than a set of lats that are so big and so strong that they look like a pair of wings, to me this is much more impressive and athletically valuable that a huge chest.

And when gym goers actually do train their upper backs, it’s usually with exercises that, well quite frankly suck and don’t deliver any serious results. It goes without saying that pull ups are up there as one of the most beneficial strength exercises there are.

However you never hear of people in gyms today bragging about how many pull ups they can do, it’s always how much they bench.

In society today, pushing exercises are far more commonly performed than pulling exercises, with their bench presses making athlete’s chest, deltoids and triceps far stronger than their pulling muscles.

Strength imbalances such as this are like a ticking time bomb, an injury waiting to happen. When bench pressing you use your upper back to lower the barbell to your chest, with proper form, slowly and under control, from the point that you unrack the bar, all the way until it touches your chest, your lats and traps will be engaged and assist you.

If the lats, along with the rest of your upper back are weak in comparison to the muscles visible on the front of your upper body, you are limiting how much you can bench but more than that, you are more than likely going to end up injuring yourself, this is the same way many athletes wind up with rotator cuff problems and other injuries.

Train your upper back hard, with intensity, and do so often, in order to get the most of your training, become stronger and stay injury free. However, simply performing hundreds of repetitions of push ups, bench press and other pushing exercises while neglecting the upper back, is asking for trouble.

I encourage a full range of motion when doing pull ups, that being said it’s important to not simply hang loosely from the bar at the bottom of a pull up, you must keep your shoulders tight at all times, this becomes especially important when training for a one arm pull up or hanging leg raises variations.

If you hang from a bar with your shoulders loose, you’ll likely stretch many of the more vulnerable and delicate ligaments of the shoulder joint, which can sometimes result in injury.

So when doing pull ups or any kind of hanging leg raise, aim to pull your arms down into your shoulder socket, even when your arms are straight. If your neck starts to disappear into your neck and ears, you know something has gone wrong.

Many people only care about how many pull ups they’ve done in a set, no matter how bad their position and technique was, no attention is paid to quality reps or the compromised position their spine, neck and shoulders are placed in. All these wannabes care about is, did they get their chin over the bar? While they should be more concerned with, did they use strict form that actually builds strength?

Perform all variations of the pull up with a straight bodyline, tight midsection, rigid spine and stable shoulders and you’ll no doubt begin building serious strength. Keep your abdominals tight, your ribcage pulled down, back flat and glutes engaged in order to maximize tension.

How to Get Started

As the old saying goes, don’t run before you can walk, and this holds true when training for pull ups and as such I’d like to provide you with a variety of exercises to lay the proper foundation in helping you go from zero pull ups to potentially many.

When most people think about easing into pull up training and building up strength to get their first rep, they often think of those awful assisted-pull up machines that you often see in commercial gyms. They suck.

Any pull up assisted machine that allows you to rest your body on a platform, usually on the knees, is terrible and won’t build any real strength needed to perform a pull up. There isn’t any stabilization or core strength requirements when using these machines, two things that are necessary when performing pull ups or chin ups on a bar.

There are many different exercises that you can perform that provide much more significant strength benefits, specifically for the pull up. These assisted chin up machines aren’t worth your time, this may ruffle a few feathers, but you can’t please everyone on the internet, and I truly believe that there are many bodyweight alternatives, that don’t require an expensive piece of unnecessary equipment.

Dead Hangs

For the complete pull up novice, the dead hang is the best place to start, especially if you don’t yet have the strength to do chin ups, or even flex hangs yet. Even for those like me who have been training with pull ups for years, dead hangs provide a fun and effective finisher to a workout.

Grip a bar with an overhand grip (palms facing away from you) and simply hang with your arms straight with no bed at the elbow.

Make sure that you do not shrug your shoulders upwards, you should pin your shoulder blades back and down at all times with your chest out proud, your neck should not disappear into your ears and shoulders.

Also you should not be hanging completely relaxed and stretching out your ligaments either, focus on keeping your elbows straight but pulling your arms down into your shoulder sockets, this should be done during all pull up variations to avoid injuring the shoulders.

Flex Hangs

To perform a flex hang, get yourself to the top position of a pull up with your chin over the bar, hold this position and keep your chin over the bar at all times. Your job here is to keep in position for as long as you possibly can.

If you can’t yet do any chin ups or pull ups, you can jump up using your legs to help you to the top pull up position. I recommend starting with an underhand grip, however if you’re already quite proficient with chin ups, you may use an overhand grip.

Strive for maximum muscle tension in the upper body and core, especially the upper back. Keep yourself in this flexed position by using every muscle in your body and be sure not to overlook this useful exercise, as it can be beneficial for everyone from the complete beginner, all the way up to the elite level athlete.

Negatives

Negative reps where we perform the eccentric portion of a movement are incredibly useful to increase strength for an exercise that you are not quite yet strong enough to do, that is of course as long as you have enough strength to be able to control the descent.

The next progression are negative chin ups (or pull ups), which should be pretty self-explanatory, but I’m never one to simply assume anything so let me go into some detail.

A negative pull up simply involves performing the downward portion of a pull up, the starting position being that of the flex hang, to which you can jump up to and begin slowly lowering yourself down.

Aim to make the negative pull up last for as long as you possibly can, each and every repetition, contracting your entire upper back to do so, focusing on the lats. Try to work up to making the descent last between 5 and 10 seconds, once you reach that point of control, pull ups should start becoming much easier.

Another option is to perform the flex hang, then once your muscles begin to tire and you can no longer hold the position, attempt to stay elevated for as long as possible, slowing the descent as much as you can, essentially combining the flex hang with the negative pull up.

Chin Ups

The chin up is the easiest variation of the pull up and is performed with your palms facing towards you, in an underhand (supinated) grip, this exercise allows use of the biceps a little more and is definitely the first type of pull up you should strive to master. 10 solid repetitions and you’re ready to move on to some more challenging variations, if you are struggling with full pull ups then put in some time working on the chin up to build strength.

The most common mistake I see with chin and pull up variations, is people skimping on the bottom half range of motion, don’t be that guy, go all the way down until your elbows are straight otherwise you won’t be engaging half as much of your upper back.

The same key positioning points from the pull up apply here too, even though you are changing your hand position you must still keep a straight back while pulling the abdominals in tight and engaging your glutes. At the same time keep your legs straight with feet slightly in front of you, and create shoulder stability by pulling the shoulder blades back and down while pulling the arms down into the shoulder joint.

Again be sure not to bend your legs and cross your feet behind you as this encourages all kinds of negative positioning faults and also allows for a type of kipping where you raises the knees up towards the chest and drive your hips in order to generate momentum to make the exercise easier. We don’t want easier, we are aiming to generate as much full body tension as possible in order to build strength. Don’t kip. Maintain a solid hollow body position.

Performing chin ups with your palms facing towards you does make it much easier to maintain shoulder stability and proper posture during most of the movement because your shoulders are forced into external rotation at all times due to the hand positioning, and the lesser strength demands make it an excellent stepping stone towards and learning tool for the full pull up.

Many beginners lose their proper torso positioning towards the bottom of the chin up because of the hand positioning, be sure to maintain abdominal and glute tension especially towards the bottom, with your feet slightly in front.

Neutral Grip Pull Ups

Once you can perform chin ups properly, the jump from underhand chin ups to overhand grip pull ups can be quite a big one, neutral grip pull ups can help serve as a stepping stone between the two.

Using two bars that are parallel to each other so that your palms face one another, you can bridge the gap between chin ups and pull ups, the difficulty level for neutral grip pull ups being somewhere between the two more commonly performed variations. I recommend keeping all 3 types of pull ups in your routine in one form or another, as no matter how strong you become they can have a place in the form of assistance work.

This variation is a lot easier on the elbows that any other, so if you tend to suffer from any kind of elbow injury or are going through a case of elbow tendonitis, the neutral grip pull is will make an excellent choice for building upper body pulling strength.

Be sure as with all other variations to maintain the hollow body position.

Mixed Grip Pull Ups

Another variation that can be useful for beginners, who have a tough time transitioning from chin ups to pull ups, is the mixed grip pull up. Similar to a deadlift mixed grip, you’ll perform a pull up with one underhand grip and one overhand grip. Be sure to alternate which hand is under/over each set, to avoid developing a muscle imbalance.

At first it may take some time to get used to the fact that your body will want to twist somewhat to make up for the different grips pulling you in different directions, but be sure to keep your body as straight as possible in the hollow body position with your lats and abdominals tight. In terms of strength requirements this movement is definitely easier than the full pull up and an excellent tool to use to build up to the more difficult variations in this book.

Much like using the mixed grip on barbell deadlifts, you can handle more weight using a mixed grip pull up, when performing weighted pull ups this variation is an excellent choice as it allows you to handle a great deal of weight.

Performing the Pull Up

Pull ups are by far my favourite upper back exercise, while many look forward to ‘bench press Mondays’ I eagerly await ‘Pull up Monday, Wednesday AND Friday.’ Pull ups are unmatched in building strength in the lats, which are crucial in all of the major powerlifts like the squat, bench and deadlift.

As mentioned above, the pull up is performed with an overhand grip, with hands at shoulder width and palms facing away from the body. Good form involves using full range of motion, lowering the body until the elbows are completely straight, while in a neutral global position emphasizing a hollow body shape.

When using a double overhand grip, you take the biceps out of the movement to a degree, forcing you to engage your lats a lot more, to get the job done, making the exercise more difficult than chin ups.

Remember to pack the shoulders, meaning you should pull the arms down hard into the shoulder joint in while pulling the shoulder blades back and down, in order to prevent shoulder injury and ensure proper shoulder positioning. Pulling the arms down into the shoulder joint is key, nothing good will come from relaxing the arms and simply hanging off of your connective tissues.

Strongly externally rotate the shoulders pushing the armpits forwards as you grip the bar hard as if you are trying to break the bar in half. If you have trouble with externally rotating your shoulders, be sure that your pinkie finger knuckle is all the way over the bar, as this helps by exaggerating external rotation at the shoulder.

When initiating the pull up your core should already be tight with your shoulder positioning on point, and your feet together with your legs straight, maintain core and glute tension as you begin to pull up, be sure to maintain the straight back at all times, avoiding an arched back. The hollow body is key to a proper strict pull up, which generates significant full body tension.

Pull your chest to the bar while maintaining this rigid body positioning and keeping your head neutral, and simply reverse the movement on the way down without losing any tension. Keep your head in a neutral position, don’t reach your head upwards towards the bar, instead bring the bar down to your chin, not the other way around. If you can’t raise your chin over the bar while maintaining a good neutral neck position, don’t try and throw your head back to complete the pull up, just stop and end the rep there.

Don’t allow your elbows to flare outwards, keep them in and point them straight forwards in order to ensure proper pulling mechanics.

One of the most common technique issues that I see with pull ups is the same one I see with parallel bar dips, people performing the movement with their legs bent and feet crossed behind them. Again, this sets you up into a position of overextension and makes it nearly impossible to engage your glutes and abdominals, which we need to contract to make the pull up an efficient strength movement.

Using this poor positioning for pull ups causes most people to forget about packing their shoulders, losing stability and external rotation in that area, more often than not their shoulders will shrug and their neck will disappear, making for one inefficient pull up.

Like with the dip if your pull up bar is too low to straighten your legs fully then you’ll have no choice but to perform the pull up with legs bent and feet crossed behind you, just know that this is far from ideal and be sure to at least try to contract the glutes and abdominals as forcefully as you can and pack the shoulders — easier said than done in this position where you are hanging from an unstable shoulder joint.

Just like idiots in the gym that claim they can bench 400lbs, but in fact they only take the bar about half way down to their chest, many people get extremely lazy with pull ups and only use a partial range of motion. Don’t be one of them. Drop all the way down to a dead hang, pause for a second, then explosively pull your chin over the bar with good technique and with no help from your lower body.

A true dead hang pull up using a full range of motion is an extremely challenging exercise that strengthens the stabilizers of the scapular, the lats, shoulders, biceps and even the core. So, brace your abs and glutes to keep your core tight, this way there should be no arching of the lower back and stop you from swinging and using momentum to make the movement easier. This hollow body position is key to maximizing tension during pull ups and strengthens the core at the same time. Finish the pull up lowering all the way back down to the same hollow body hang that you started in, maintain good positioning at all times.

If you approach the pull up with the focus of simply trying to perform as many reps as possible and butchering your technique to do so, you are going to get nowhere fast, full range of motion and total body tension is crucial for building strength and is exactly what you should be focusing on.

Before you progress onto more advanced and dynamic pull up variations, you need to display competency in the basic strict pull up, and slowly build strength this way with full range of motion and full body tension, before introducing speed and positions of mechanical disadvantage. If you can’t perform a pull up with full range of motion by starting from a dead hang and getting the chin all the way over the bar, then you simply need to take a step back and regress to an easier pulling movement such as chin ups or a body row variation.

Pull Up Training Considerations

If performing a high volume of chin ups, you may start to notice some elbow pain, overdoing it can eventually lead to elbow tendonitis, placing the area under a lot of stress at the bottom of the movement when using an underhand grip.

I’ve found this to be the case with chin ups, rather than pull ups, because the wrists cannot follow their natural path of rotation. To keep your shoulders and elbows healthy and avoid any problems, for those of you with any kind of joint problems in these areas, I recommend performing pull ups either using gymnastics rings, suspension straps or using a neutral grip on a bar with parallel handles.

Blast straps and rings will allow your wrists to rotate freely throughout the movement and avoid stressing the joints, and a parallel grip pull up keeps the arms moving through a plane of motion less likely to aggravate any existing joint problems. Or you can simply move onto different variation when you are able, and limit your underhand grip chins.

Skip the Kip

It is also worth touching on kipping while performing pull ups which essentially involves using your legs and hips to build a little extra momentum which makes the movement significantly easier and makes you look like a fish flapping about out of water.

Kipping pull ups are not in any way efficient for building upper back strength and I do not suggest you ever train using a kip in your pull ups or any other strict strength movement for that matter. Perform proper pulls and chins to keep the movement strict and isolated to the upper body and core.

If you cannot perform strict pull ups then you are not ready for them, you need to move back a progression and put in the work. True strength needs to be earned and sometimes that involves taking a step back and putting in the work — and that’s okay.

Kipping pull ups encourage very poor technique and as far as building upper back strength you’ll get nothing but poor results from them. When starting out in your quest to achieve your first pull up, you’ll find that regular chin ups, flex and dead hangs and a healthy dose of body rows will do much more for you than kipping pull ups ever will.

However if you absolutely insist on training with kipping pull ups, don’t be one of those guys performing 30 kips in a row trying to pass them off as regular strict pull ups, because they are not. Don’t piss on my shoe and tell me it’s raining, kipping pull ups are not even in the same ball park as strict pull ups when it comes to building savage upper back and core strength. Kipping pull ups can’t hold a candle to strict pull ups.

Kipping is making a mockery of strength training, things are getting ridiculous.
I see fitness competitions allowing kipping pull ups, kipping handstand push ups and even kipping ring dips for god sake, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Every time you kip, God kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens.
If I catch you doing kipping pull ups, your last words are going to be ‘Simon, what the hell are you doing with that spatula?’