The pull-up is one of the original and most difficult bodyweight exercises to perform, even seasoned gym-goers can struggle to complete it correctly.
Pull-ups are an upper-body, compound exercise that will activate a number of muscles in your back, shoulders, and arms at the same time, including the lats and biceps. They’re a great way to increase your pulling strength, which will assist you with other lifts involving the lats. That’s not to mention the grip strength improvements you’ll see over time.
How to:
Take a firm grip of the bar with your palms away from you or down.
Take a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip and hang down with your arms extended. If your feet and still touching the ground cross then over behind you.
Keep a tight core, as you don’t want to start swinging, around under the bar, and retract your shoulder blades together.
Drive your elbows down towards the ground and your upper chest towards the bar. This is normally the part where people start to swing or use momentum so make sure your core is tight and keep you stable.
Once you are at the top, chin above the bar and level with your chest start to lower yourself nice and slow towards your starting position.
If you are struggling to master this movement, their are ways of getting better at it such as dead hangs, assisted pull ups or using a lat pull down machine are all a great starting block.