Pull-ups are a great upper body exercise, because they work so many different muscles at once: the lats, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, wrists, and core. They also improve your grip strength. There are many different variations of pull-ups to choose from. If we are using pull-ups to simply build strength, the strict pull-up is a great option.
Many of us cannot perform strict pull-ups, though. That is completely okay! There are many ways to scale this movement. The following video shows several ways to scale the pull-up, including band assisted pull-ups, lock-off, pull-up negatives, and ring rows. Any of these options will provide a great workout.
Jumping pull-ups can also be a great option, especially when the workout contains large sets of pull-ups.
Sometimes we perform pull-ups not just to strengthen the upper body, but as a cardio and full body exercise as well. Unless otherwise specified, when we are performing a large number of pull-ups in a WOD it is perfectly acceptable to perform kipping pull-ups or butterfly pull-ups.
These versions will take time and effort to perfect, but they are great for developing coordination. A future post will describe progressions for learning kipping and butterfly pull-ups.
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