Master Your Body by Perfecting the Pull-Up Dr. Jim Stoppani

Master Your Body by Perfecting the Pull-Up. If Pull-Ups are NOT one of your favorite exercises, you’re not alone. It took me years to be able to do an actual pull-up with my own bodyweight. Let’s Get To Work!

Pull-Up Pointer #1: Practice Pull-Ups Every Day
“Won’t that be overtraining?” you might ask. OF COURSE NOT. Think about it this way – if you had a pull-up tournament coming up (hypothetical) and you can’t even do one pull-up, would you practice just once or twice a week, or would you practice every day or almost every day? I know what my answer would be.

I’m not saying fatigue yourself every day with pull-ups; I’m saying work on form and get in the groove for doing them by practicing the movement pattern. This alone will build up your strength through neurological adaptations.

Pull-Up Pointer #2: Leave the Assisted Machine and Do Banded Pull-Ups Instead
I prefer bands to the assisted pull-up machine because it mimics the actual movement pattern of a pull-up, whereas the assisted machine is more guided and doesn’t call for the same stabilizer muscles to be used during the exercise.

Pull-Up Pointer #3: Do Negative Pull-Ups
I’ve used this tip a lot to work on my pull-up strength. Negative pull-ups are where you jump up to the top of the pull-up position and slowly lower yourself down for a three-count eccentric portion so you resist gravity on the way down.

Pull-Up Pointer #4: Work Your Upper Back, then Work it Some More
Yeah, I’m sure all you gals do back exercises. But I’m talking about really focusing and zeroing in on the upper-back muscles – rear delts, rhomboids, upper and lower traps, and upper lats (the wings).