How to do the pull-up

The pull-up is the simplest honest test of upper-body strength: can you lift your own bodyweight to a bar? It builds wide lats and strong arms, needs nothing but something to hang from, and it gets easier every time you get stronger or leaner. If you can't do one yet, that's normal, and there's a section below on getting there. Strict reps come first, though, because a swinging pull-up trains something else entirely.

How to do a pull-up

1. Grip the bar overhand, just outside shoulder width. Palms face away from you and thumbs wrap around the bar. Use a box or small jump to reach it if you need to, rather than leaping and swinging into the first rep.
2. Hang with straight arms. Your elbows are fully locked and your body is still. That's the dead hang, and every rep starts and ends here.
3. Set your shoulders. Without bending your elbows, pull your shoulders down away from your ears, about an inch. You'll feel your lats tighten and your body rise very slightly. This is what "shoulders engaged" means.
4. Squeeze your glutes and keep your legs still. Keep them straight under you, or cross your ankles with your knees slightly bent. Either way, your body moves as one piece, like a plank hanging from the bar.
5. Pull your elbows down and back. Think of driving them toward your back pockets while your chest rises toward the bar. Your chin should clear the top of the bar, with the bar ending somewhere around your collarbone or upper chest.
6. Lower all the way back to the dead hang. Take two seconds or so. Your arms end fully straight before the next rep begins.

When you get it right, you feel the effort along the sides of your back and under your armpits. If you mostly feel your forearms and biceps, you're pulling with your hands instead of your elbows.

Cues for a better pull-up

"Elbows into your back pockets." It turns the rep from an arm curl into a back exercise. For many people it's the difference between feeling their lats and feeling only their arms.

"Chest to the bar." Aim to bring your upper chest toward the bar, even if you'll never touch it. It stops you craning your neck to sneak your chin over, and it keeps your upper back doing the work at the top.

"Long neck." If your shoulders creep up to your ears, think about keeping as much distance between them as possible. It fixes shrugging, and it usually makes the rep feel stronger.

"Bend the bar into a U." Try to bend the ends of the bar down toward the floor. Nothing moves, but your lats switch on before the rep even starts.

Common mistakes

Kicking and swinging. Your knees drive up, your hips swing forward, and the momentum throws you toward the bar. It gets more reps on paper, but your back does less of the lifting, and swinging with this much force is hard on the shoulders. The kipping pull-up is its own skill used in some sports training; for building muscle and strength, stick with strict reps. If you can't do a rep without swinging, go to the progressions below.

Half reps at the bottom or top. The usual version stops with the elbows still bent at the bottom, or stops with the chin level with the bar at the top. Both cut out the hardest parts, so your number goes up without your strength following. Start every rep from straight arms and finish every rep with your chin over the bar. Five full reps beat ten half ones.

Shrugging your shoulders up. Your shoulders rise toward your ears as you pull, and your neck disappears. It shifts the load to your upper traps and puts your shoulders in a cramped spot. The usual cause is starting a rep before setting your shoulders, so do step 3 before every rep, not just the first one.

Reaching with your chin. On the last reps, the chin juts forward and up to clear the bar, while the body stays a few inches short. You get the rep, and possibly a sore neck. Count it only if your body got you there.

Breathing

Breathe in at the bottom while you hang, and breathe out as you pull up. On hard reps, many people hold their breath through the pull and exhale at the top. That's fine for a few reps, but breathe at the bottom of every rep once a set goes past five, so you don't run out of air halfway through.

If you can't do a pull-up yet

Plenty of people can't do one when they start, especially if they're heavier or new to training. These get you there, and doing two of them in the same session works well:

• Negatives: jump or step up so your chin is above the bar, then lower yourself over 3 to 5 seconds until your arms are straight. Do 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps. Once you can control a 5-second lowering, a full rep usually isn't far away.
• Band-assisted pull-ups: loop a resistance band over the bar and put a knee or foot in it. Use the lightest band that lets you do 5 to 8 good reps, and switch to a lighter band when that's easy.
• Assisted pull-up machine: a counterweight takes off part of your bodyweight. Reduce the assistance by one step when you can do 3 sets of 8.
• Lat pulldown: trains the same movement at any weight. Worth doing heavy, for sets of 6 to 10, alongside the others.

In our view, chin-ups (palms facing you) are the better first goal for most people, because your biceps can help more. The chin-up usually comes first, and the strength carries straight over to the pull-up.

Sets and reps

Your rep count decides the plan:

• 0 reps: 2 or 3 of the progressions above, 2 or 3 times a week.
• 1 to 4 reps: 5 to 8 sets of 1 to 3 reps, stopping well short of failure, with 2 minutes' rest. Lots of good reps teach the movement faster than a few grinding sets.
• 5 to 12 reps: 3 or 4 sets, finishing each with one or two reps left. Try to add one rep to one set each session.
• More than 12 reps: add weight with a dip belt or a dumbbell held between your feet. Start with 5 to 10 lb (2.5 to 5 kg) and work back up from sets of 5.

Pull-ups work well as the first or second exercise on a back or upper-body day. Ten strict reps is a good long-term target for most lifters.

Progress comes slowly here, especially at first. Going from 3 reps to 4 can take a couple of weeks, and it's easy to feel you're not improving. Logging each session in Helthy shows your best reps on the exercise over time, which makes small gains visible. Losing body fat helps too: at the same strength, fewer pounds means more reps.

Variations and alternatives

• Chin-up: underhand grip, shoulder width. A little easier for most people, with more biceps. A great place to start.
• Neutral-grip pull-up: palms facing each other on parallel handles. Often the most comfortable option if your shoulders or elbows complain.
• Weighted pull-up: once you can do 12 strict reps, adding weight is the best way to keep getting stronger.
• Lat pulldown: the machine version when you want set weights or higher reps.
• Inverted row: set a bar at waist height in a rack and row your chest up to it with your heels on the floor. A good option if hanging bothers your shoulders.

Pull-up questions

What's the difference between pull-ups and chin-ups?

Pull-ups use an overhand grip, palms away from you. Chin-ups use an underhand grip, palms facing you, usually a bit narrower. Chin-ups use more biceps and are a bit easier; both train the lats well. Doing either is better than doing neither, so pick the one you can do more of and add the other later.

Is a wider grip better for your lats?

Not really. A very wide grip shortens the range of motion and is harder on your shoulders without training your lats better. Just outside shoulder width is the default we'd use. Try a slightly narrower and wider grip and stay with the one that feels strongest.

Why do my elbows hurt after pull-ups?

It's usually too much volume too soon, or a very tight grip on a thick or rough bar. Cut your sets by a third for a week or two, try a neutral grip, and see if it settles. If the pain is still there after that, get it looked at.

Can I do pull-ups every day?

Short sets well short of failure, spread through the day, can work for building reps. Hard sets to failure every day won't: your back and elbows need recovery time. Two or three hard sessions a week is plenty for most people.