3 Easy Ways to Instantly Improve Your Pull-up and

Chin-up Results

By John Sifferman Creator of The Pull-up Solution

© The Pull-up Solution, John Sifferman, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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Disclaimer This guide is for educational and informative purposes only, and is not intended as medical or professional advice. Always consult your doctor before beginning an exercise program or before using a new type of exercise equipment. The author is not a medical doctor; the author is a fitness consultant. While the information contained within this guide is presented in good faith and believed to be accurate, results are not guaranteed, nor is any warranty given. The author, publisher, and all persons or entities associated with or otherwise acting on behalf of them, shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any of the information contained in this guide. The user assumes all risk for any injury, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by using any information contained within this guide. The user agrees to irrevocably and unconditionally release, acquit and forever discharge the aforementioned entities and persons from any and all claims, liabilities, promises, actions, damages and the like; past, present, or future - known or unknown. Use of the information contained in this guide is at the sole choice and risk of the user.

Introduction Sometimes, all it takes is one little tip, trick, or technique to see a dramatic increase in your pull-up and chin-up performance. It’s like a light bulb goes on and something finally clicks – and you instantly notice an increase in your strength and your ability to do more pull-ups. Obviously, this doesn’t always happen, and there’s no tip or trick in the world that will make pull-ups easy, per se. But sometimes, a little change in pull-up technique will make this hard exercise a little easier, and make you feel a lot stronger! This short guide was written to help you do just that, by providing you with a few simple tips that oftentimes lead to instantly better pull-up results. These aren’t training secrets, per se – just a few tricks of the trade that most people either don’t know about or just don’t think to apply to their pull-up training. Now, none of these tricks will make you any stronger, necessarily, but they will help you have better access to your strength – and be better able to apply your strength – particularly when applying it to the pull-up exercise. Now, in all seriousness, sometimes all the tips and tricks in the world won’t lead to any instant performance improvements. It just depends because pull-ups are really hard - period. But of all the things you can try, this is where I’d recommend starting. I’ve had good success helping people with pull-up training so far, and here are a few reports from people who did get instant results from using some of my suggestions:

3 Easy Ways to Instantly Improve Your Pull-up and Chin-up Results 1. Get a Grip (the right grip) – The way in which you grip the bar is a critical point and the very foundation of the pull-up and chin-up exercises. It’s how you support your bodyweight from the bar. If you don’t get this right, you’ll never maximize your performance. And interestingly enough, most people find that they’ve been doing it wrong all along. There are a few main things you need to keep in mind while gripping the bar: a) Hook your thumb alongside the rest of your fingers instead of wrapping it around the bar. It’s tempting and common to wrap the thumb around the bar. After all, we do have opposable thumbs. But for a strength training exercise, this is a biomechanically inefficient position that puts unnecessary strain on the muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints of the hands, wrists, and forearms. If you hook your thumb alongside the rest of your fingers, you’ll find that it’s a much stronger position and will help you not only apply more strength in this exercise, but also prevent strain and injury on the tiny muscles and connective tissues in and around your hands, wrists, and forearms.

b) Keep your hands and wrists aligned in a neutral position. Many people find that their grip muscles are the first to fatigue during a set of pull-ups/chin-ups. This doesn’t necessarily need to be the case and is often caused from a constant and excessive isometric contraction of the forearm muscles. So, instead of getting a break at the bottom position of the pull-up like most of the rest of the working muscles, the grip will be fully flexed throughout the entire duration of the set and naturally will fatigue quickly. Ensuring that your hand and wrists are aligned properly almost guarantees a boost in performance if you haven’t been doing this all along. So, make sure that your wrist is hanging straight down from the bar (i.e., neutral position), not flexed or extended.

c) Apply only as much grip pressure as is necessary to complete the exercise. Do not crush-grip the bar with all your strength. Unless you are specifically targeting grip strength improvement, simply hang from the bar and let your prime movers do all the work. No white knuckles necessary. 2. Don’t make the exercise any harder than it has to be – Most people make the pull-up and chin-up exercises harder than they need to be because they grimace and strain to get their chin over the bar. This is a mistake and is a surefire way to poor results and possibly even injury. The goal of exercise is to adapt – to get better at whatever you’re

doing – not to exhaust yourself. The pull-up/chin-up exercises should and will fatigue the muscles of your arms, back, and core, but they shouldn’t utterly exhaust you. And you’re goal is to make them look and feel easy. Try out these ideas to make the pull-up/chin-up exercises as easy as possible: a) Relax as much as possible. Namely, make sure that your head, neck, and face are as relaxed as possible. Do not strain your neck, grit your teeth, or do anything else that causes unnecessary tension. Your face muscles aren’t going to help you get over the bar. So, don’t waste energy flexing them! Instead, relax everything that is not necessary to complete the exercise. Focus your tension on your arms, back, and core musculature – the muscles required to complete the exercise. If you notice any tension in your head or neck, double check your technique and re-evaluate. b) Control your breathing. Learning how to breathe properly while strength training can dramatically improve your performance. So much energy is wasted from inefficient breathing patterns. So, if you want to maximize your performance, you need to learn how to breathe properly. There are many different techniques for varied skill/conditioning levels, but there’s one technique that is most appropriate for the widest variety of people. Simply put, while pulling yourself up to the bar, you should be exhaling forcefully so that when you’ve reached the top, there is very little air left in your lungs. Similarly, while lowering yourself from the bar, you should allow air to get sucked back into your lungs instead of actively inhaling. Just relax your throat and lungs and the air will come back in like a vacuum. Allow the inhale to happen passively. Do not actively inhale. Instead, focus your attention on the forceful exhale using the transverse abdominus muscle (i.e., the same muscle you feel contracting when coughing). This should effectively squeeze the air out of your lungs while ascending towards the bar. If you use this technique, you’ll be working with your lungs, not against them, and will learn how to allocate just enough energy to complete the exercise. It may be hard to believe, but just breathing effectively may single-handedly increase your strength and power. So, don’t under-estimate the potential of a forceful exhale. 3. Use your whole body – You run into trouble when you start thinking of the pull-up exercise as an arms and/or back exercise – even worse, is the idea of it being a “back and biceps” exercise. The pull-up and chin-up are actually full body exercises, and if you recruit your entire body to complete it, the repetitions will be much easier – and you’ll be able to do more total work. So, when performing the concentric portion of each repetition (i.e., pulling yourself upwards), tighten your whole body – not just your arm and back muscles. More specifically, focus on contracting the entire corset of muscle surrounding your core, and also squeezing your thighs and glutes together. Tighter is lighter. At the very least, maintain this tension throughout the entire concentric portion of the repetition. Optionally, you can relax a little during the eccentric/lowering portion of the

repetition to give your stabilizer muscles a break in between reps, but don’t get too sloppy or you might run into other problems. Bonus Tip: Make your last repetition count. At the end of each set, perform a 3-step flexed arm hang to squeeze a little bit more benefit out of the last repetition and give yourself a little conditioning boost before retiring for the day. Instructions: At the top position of your last repetition in any given set (with your arms fully flexed and chin over the bar), perform a flexed arm hang for time (i.e., hold the top position of the pull-up/chin-up). When it becomes moderately difficult to maintain the position without excessive shaking or fatigue, begin a slow negative repetition by gradually lowering yourself from the top position. Try to work up to a 10-second negative repetition before you finally reach the bottom, dead-hang position. Once in the dead-hang position (i.e., just hanging from the bar, elbows locked), don’t let go until you absolutely must. Hold on as long as you can, and remember to maintain proper alignment and tension throughout the duration. Doing this during the last repetition of each set, or even just at the end of your final set, will contribute to increasing your pull-up and chin-up results by building up your grip endurance among other things.

More Information: If you’d like to learn how to perform pull-ups not just properly, but optimally, to maximize your results and minimize the risk of injury, then check out my detailed pull-up technique tutorial at the link below. I’ve been told by many people that it’s the most helpful free tutorial on the internet, but I’ll let you be the judge of that: Click Here to Learn the Best Way to do Pull-ups and Chin-ups

About the Author

John Sifferman fell in love with pull-up training at the ripe old age of eleven after his Dad setup a homemade pull-up bar in the basement of his home. Since then, John has had an ever-growing interest in physical training that has led him to work with people from all walks of life to assist them in their pursuit of better health and fitness. John became a certified personal trainer through the National Strength and Conditioning Association in 2006 and has been

teaching, coaching, and training people in various capacities ever since. In 2008, John launched his popular Physical Living website, where he continues to share about health-first fitness and physical culture with his readers around the world. John lives in the beautiful state of New Hampshire with his wife, children, and akita dog. Connect with John: Physical Living Facebook Twitter Youtube Email Newsletter

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