Back To Basics: Five Exercises to Improve Your Pull Strength

Taken By Coleman Becker at Priest Draw

Pull-ups are one of my absolutely favorite exercises and it’s an integral part to climbing training. My previous post gave five exercises to progress to a pull-up. These next five exercises are a bit tougher!!

#1 THE PULL-UP

Grab the bars shoulder width apart with your hands facing away from you. Engage your shoulders and pull your chin over the bar! Lower back down in a controlled manner. Your core should be engaged as while you are doing these!

#2 THE CHIN UP

Grab the bar should width apart with your hands facing you. Engage your shoulders. Pull-up until your chin is above the bar. Lower back down in a controlled manner.

#3 WIDE PULL-UP

Instead of placing your hands shoulder width apart on the bar, you are going to place them 1.5 to 2x wider than your shoulder width. An easy way to figure this out is to pretend you are dancing to the “YMCA” song. Make the “Y” with your arms and that should be your pull-up position. Engage your shoulders and pull your chin over the bar. Lower in a controlled manner.

#4 COMBO PULLS

This is a combo of exercises #1, #2, and #3. Do a pull up with your hands facing away from you. Switch your hands to face towards you to do a chin-up. Then move your hands to the wide pull-up position with your hands facing away from you. Do a wide pull up and all of this counts as one rep! Make sure your set-up is sturdy so you don’t tip it over.

#5 THE TYPEWRITER

This exercise is definitely the hardest out of the five. Place your hands on the bar as if you are doing a wide pull-up. Engage your shoulders and pull until your chin is over the bar. Maintain that position as you push your body to one side of the bar and then all the way over to the other side of the bar. As you can see in the video, my set up isn’t very sturdy so when I push to one side, the apparatus almost tips over. Make sure your set-up is sturdy!!