5 Areas You Need To Improve To Get Your First Pull Up

Pull ups or chin ups are a great test of relative strength. In simpler terms, a test of your strength in relation to your bodyweight. This is one of the main reasons we have them as a staple in our programming.

It is also why a lot of people struggle with them. Whether it be that you’re carrying too much body weight or the fact that you need to improve your strength in relation to your body weight. 

This short blog aims to give you the tools required to improve your current pull up ability. Regardless of whether you struggle to hold your bodyweight hanging on a bar or whether you can’t seem to get past the 5 reps you’ve been stuck on for what seems like years.

In reality, any strength improvement ties in with come of our core values at M3 Perform. Commitment & Consistency! 

1. Drop Body Weight

I’m not going to start discussing methods of doing this (that will be for another blog) but this will be vital for anyone carrying extra pounds in order to improve on a pull up. The simple fact of having less resistance on an exercise will make it easier. The important factor to this though is that you need to maintain your strength and more important your relative strength (strength in relation to your bodyweight) as you drop on the scales.

2. Improve Grip Strength

This is one area that is massively undertrained. There’s no coincidence that anyone in a line of work that requires them using their hands/grip like mechanics, farmers etc that they have strong grip strength. Exercises that can help and support this are things like heavy carry’s (think carrying shopping bags), hanging from a bar/hang tough challenges and rowing exercises. 

3. Time On The Bar

The little and often approach has worked great when we have seen clients improve on a pull up. Completing multiple sets of pull ups throughout a day or week seem to work a lot better than doing one whole strength session focused on them. 

Try this - say you can do 1 pull up at the moment. Instead of trying for more than 1 in each set. Complete 1 set of 1, 3-4 times throughout the day. Do this for a few weeks then aim to take that one rep to 2 but with the same frequency. You’ll be surprised the impact this will have one your pull up strength!

4. Improve Your Overhead Mobility

We all know by now that we spend far too much time driving, on our phones, at our desk etc. This puts us into a slouched position, something that our body adapts to. When performing the pull up we want our body to do the opposite and ‘open up’ to allow us to grab the bar overhead and perform a pull up. Therefore your body’s mobility in that overhead position is very important. Don’t worry though, here’s 3 mobility drills that can help you improve this.

Bar Hangs

Foam Roller Reach

Prayer Style Reach

5. Work On The Upper Back

This is an area of the body that doesn’t get enough attention. It’s extremely important to be strong enough in the upper back to support the head, neck and shoulders but also take some stress off the lower back. It’s also an area that has been poorly coached over the years with far too much focus on improving the weight being lifted. We need to encourage good strength and mobility in this area. This isn’t about just seeing how much weight you can ‘row’. More about how well the scapula moves and whether we are using the right muscles at the right time. 

Test out the true strength of your upper back with these 3 exercises.

W to Y

Handcuff to Head

Banded W to Y’s

I hope you found this short blog useful and helpful. The pull up is a great exercise to improve at but it does take Commitment & Consistency!

If you would like anymore information about the programs we offer at M3 Perform please email us at info@m3perform.com.