Doing 1 Good Pull-Up

by Atomic Athletic on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 4:23pm

You would be surprised at how many people CAN'T do even a single good pull-up.  Here are some tips on how to improve your pull-ups, even if you are already pretty good.

1.Abdominal Work: Make sure you do some type of abdominal work hanging from a pull-up bar. Yep, all kinds of hanging crunches and knee raises.  They don't have to include iron boots, but that always helps, but make sure you do them at the end of every workout.  This will improve your start and stop positions, as well as your grip.  Oh yeah, you may improve that gut at the same time.

2.Negatives: Slow negatives from that chinning bar are fantastic.  Use assistance from your training partner, or a chair or do a “kipping” chin-up to get up there.

3.Chin-ups: Chin-ups (palms facing your body) will help your pull-ups.  If you have been big on biceps work, then you might be able to do more chin-ups than pull-ups.  Great.  When you finish doing as many pull-ups as you can, then do chins.

4.Good Equipment: Bad, wobbly equipment feels unsafe.  Remember this rule.  IF IT FEELS UNSAFE, THEN IT PROBABLY IS UNSAFE!  Do a proper installation.  Over do your installation.  Look at the wall mounted Pull-up Bar we have at the Atomic Athletic Club warehouse gym.  You will see total overkill with the mounting boards and bolts.  This means you do not have to think about safety and you only need to think about the exercise.

Live strong,

Roger LaPointe