Exercise guides · Back
How to do a pull-up
How to perform a strict pull-up — grip, scapular position, and full range — plus a progression that gets you from zero reps to your first, and how to add weight after that.
- The hang — arms straight, shoulders pulled down out of the ears.
- The top — chin over the bar, elbows driven down to the ribs.
- Primary muscles
- lats
- Also works
- biceps, rhomboids and teres major
- Equipment
- pull-up bar
- Type
- compound, pull
- Level
- intermediate
- Also called
- Pronated Pull Up, Pull Up, and Pullup
The pull-up is the best upper body exercise most people cannot do. That gap is what makes it worth writing about: unlike a bench press, you cannot start with an empty bar, so the first rep needs an actual plan rather than more enthusiasm.
It is also the lift where partial reps are most tolerated. Chin nowhere near the bar, a bounce out of the bottom, arms never straightening — all of it passes unremarked because the rep count is what people record. A strict pull-up done through full range is a different exercise from what most gyms are doing.
The set-up
- Grip the bar slightly wider than shoulder-width, palms facing away. Wrapping your thumbs is optional; many people find a thumb-over grip lets them feel the lats better.
- Hang at full arm's length with your feet off the floor. Cross your ankles or bend your knees behind you to stop them swinging.
- From the dead hang, pull your shoulders down and back — out of your ears — without bending your arms. This is a scapular pull-up and it is the start of every good rep.
- Brace your abs and squeeze your glutes so your body forms a rigid line rather than a hinge.
The rep
- Pull by driving your elbows down toward your ribs, not by yanking with your hands. Think about pulling the bar down to you rather than you up to it.
- Keep your chest up and lead with the upper chest toward the bar.
- Continue until your chin clears the bar. Half reps build half a back.
- Lower under control all the way to straight arms. The lowering half is where a large share of the strength is built, and it is the half people skip.
- Reset the shoulder position at the bottom before the next rep, without bouncing out of the hang.
Common mistakes
- Kipping to get the rep
- Swinging the hips to generate momentum turns a strength exercise into a coordination one. It has a place in CrossFit, where it is a deliberate technique with its own standards. It has no place in a set you are counting as back training.
- Not straightening the arms at the bottom
- Stopping short of a dead hang makes the set easier and shortens the range where the lat is most stretched. Full extension every rep, even if it means three reps instead of six.
- Shrugging into the pull
- If your shoulders rise toward your ears as you pull, the traps are taking over from the lats. Set the scapula down first, then pull — that ordering is the whole cue.
- Only ever training the top half
- A lifter who can do eight sloppy reps and one strict rep does not have a pull-up problem, they have a range-of-motion habit. Drop the count, keep the range.
Sets and reps
If you cannot yet do one, train the pieces — hangs, negatives, and band-assisted reps — three times a week. Once you can do five, weighted pull-ups progress like any other lift.
| Goal | Prescription | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Working toward the first rep | 4 sets of 3 negatives | Jump to the top, lower for 5 seconds. Three times a week. |
| Building reps | 4–5 sets, 2 reps short of failure | Stop before form breaks, not after. Total reps matter more than set count. |
| Weighted | 4 sets of 4–6 | Belt or dumbbell between the feet. Add weight like any barbell lift. |
Variations worth knowing
- Chin-up
- Palms facing you. More biceps, usually a few more reps, and a good way to get strict range while you build toward pull-ups.
- Lat pulldown
- The same pattern with a load you can set below your bodyweight, which is exactly what most people need. The best substitute while working toward a first rep.
- Inverted row
- A horizontal pull under a fixed bar with feet on the floor. Builds the upper back that a pull-up needs and scales simply by moving your feet.
Questions
How do I get my first pull-up?
Three things, three times a week: dead hangs to build grip and shoulder position, slow negatives from the top position, and band-assisted or machine-assisted reps for volume. Most people who train those consistently get their first rep within two to three months. Losing excess bodyweight helps more than any single exercise.
Are chin-ups easier than pull-ups?
Yes, for almost everyone. The supinated grip brings the biceps in more strongly and puts the shoulder in a slightly more advantageous position. They are not a lesser exercise — they are an excellent one, and a fine place to start.
Wide grip or narrow?
Slightly wider than shoulder-width suits most people. Very wide grips shorten the range and stress the shoulder without training the lats any harder, despite the persistent belief that they build width.
Should I use straps?
Only once you are adding meaningful weight and your grip fails before your back. For bodyweight sets, letting the grip work is a feature.
How many pull-ups should I be able to do?
Ten strict reps is a solid general standard for a man, five for a woman, with a large and unavoidable dependence on bodyweight. Someone 25kg heavier doing five reps may be considerably stronger than someone light doing fifteen.
How do I track bodyweight exercises properly?
Log the reps, and log the added weight once there is any — the two together are the progression. Workout Chat records bodyweight movements the same way it records barbell ones and charts them on the metric that movement actually progresses by, so a set of eight strict reps is not lost just because there was no weight on the bar.
Log it the moment you rack it.
Type “pull up 3x5 at 80kg” and it's recorded, charted, and checked against your best.
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