It’s time to work on pull-ups. Here’s our plan.

Including how the hell to actually use a band for this (with video!)

Photo by Martine Jacobsen on Unsplash

I’m going to admit something that you might judge me for a little, considering I’m a ~fitness professional~. I don’t care! I’m living my truth: I’ve never done a full, unassisted pull-up in my entire life. I’ve wanted to do one for about 12 years, and have worked on it here and there, but still: never done it.

I’m not sure what my excuse is. Long, gangly arms? Sensitive wrists? Scarred for life about anything to do with hanging from a bar since my elementary school principal first grade teacher (oops, Mom texted me to correct this) publicly shamed me for being unable to cross the monkey bars? (True story. Not sure if this is actually the root though.)

The truth is, pull-ups are really freaking hard, and it takes a lot of work and discipline to do them, and despite being a fairly religious regular exerciser and being unafraid of hard things, this particular hard thing has been very difficult for me to sustain.

But this is my year, and in case you’re on this journey, too (shoutout to HTM subscribers Martha and Nancy!), I wanted to share some strategies that my friend and former CrossFit coach Maillard Howell shared with me for my recent New York Times article, as well as a bit more detail on how I’m personally tackling this goal.

As a side note, why is this worth doing? Partly because trying scary things and realizing you’re stronger than you thought can be really fun and great for your confidence and comfort in your body. And, partly because challenging your muscles through a variety of movement patterns is great for you, and vertical pulling is a movement pattern that is hit really effectively in the pull-up. Your lats get a major challenge, as do your biceps, abdominals, your grip strength, and so many other supporting characters.

So: Here’s how we’re working on it.

Reframe what “counts.”

This should be included in advice about achieving pretty much any physical goal, tbh! (It’s also a central ethos behind how I approach my Workouts of the Week — doing one or two rounds of the circuit totally counts!) As Maillard said in my article, even if you aren’t getting to an unassisted pull-up just yet (or even…ever), progressing from an inverted row (like a ring row or a TRX row) to a banded pull-up, or a banded pull-up with a really thick band to one with a less-thick band, is still progress and should be celebrated.

I’m definitely squarely in banded pull-up territory, and I’m glad to have a variety of bands at my disposal as I work through my program. Yesterday I had to do a bunch of eccentric pull-ups (more on these in a moment), then a bunch of regular pull-ups, and I used a slightly thinner band for the eccentric ones and a thicker band for the regular ones. If I make it to a lighter band by the end of the month, I’ll feel great.

Strengthen the supporting characters.

Maillard told me about a client of his who works in high-level government security and enlisted his help to prepare for a physical fitness test she had to take for work, which included doing a pull-up — but seemed surprised when he had her begin with rows, bicep curls, and core and grip-strengthening exercises. “She expected me to just start making her do pull-ups, but there’s a whole cast of supporting characters that has to sync before you get to this point,” he said. “It’s not just the shoulders, it’s lats, shoulders, biceps, triceps, core, grip.”

So yes, working on banded pull-ups of various kinds will be part of your work, but you’ll also want to incorporate exercises — like rows, dead bugs, curls, and more — that strengthen all these other muscles. (Not to plug the WOWs too much but you’ll find so much of this work there!)

Learn the art of using a band for pull-ups.

This can be a little tricky, and if it’s feasible for you to have a trainer or a knowledgeable friend show you how, that would be great! But here’s the basics, as best as I can explain it. If this is too hard to digest in text form, watch the video below!

• If you have a pull-up bar at home, or you’re using a bar at a gym that doesn’t have its own bands, it’s worth investing in a set of bands. These are large looped bands, much thicker and longer than the kind you’d loop around your ankles. It’s tough to know in advance which ones you’ll need, but Power Systems has a good variety. (You know I hate making you buy stuff, and I promise I am not getting any kickback from Power Systems. It’s just where I usually buy my workout gear like this.) I’m currently mostly using the black/medium band but switching to a thicker one when I need to.

• Loop the band around the bar (like this).

• Wear shoes! It can be uncomfortable to have a bare or socked foot resting in the band, and you may feel steadier and safer in shoes. Any kind is fine, really. I wear my Uggs or Birkenstocks most of the time when doing this at home.

• Place a stool, stepladder, or other relatively tall and sturdy surface just behind the bar, and stand on it.

• Place one foot into the loop, then place your hands on the bar.

• Step your banded foot off the stool or ladder and slowly let it lower toward the floor as you carefully remove your other foot from the stool or ladder.

• Place your non-looped foot in front of your looped foot, crossing your ankles.

• Do your pull-up work (or your dead hang practice!), then carefully return your feet to the step and remove the band from your foot.

Think about timing, and know your banded options and pull-up variations.

As with so many other things, a lot here depends on your starting point and your ability to be consistent in your work. If a banded pull-up isn’t a reasonable starting point for you yet, working on the accessory work mentioned above 2–3 times a week for about 3–4 weeks might be a good place to begin. Then you can switch up your programming in about a month. When you’re ready, at any point in this process, you can start incorporating some of the following:

• Banded pull-ups: Use the band setup described above to perform a set of pull-ups.

• Eccentric pull-ups: With or without a band, starting at the very top of a pull-up and slowly lowering your way all the way to the bottom.

• Static pull-up holds: With or without a band, start at the very top of a pull-up and simply hold that position for a period of time (maybe 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or 30 seconds to start).

• Dead hangs: With or without a band, hang at the bottom of a pull-up and simply hold that position for a period of time (ditto above).

• Turtle-giraffes: With or without a band, start at the bottom of a pull-up, and without bending your elbows, lift your shoulders toward your ears, allowing your body to lower slightly, then pull your shoulders away from your ears, allowing your body to lift slightly.

You can progress things by increasing the weight you’re using for accessory work, decreasing the thickness of the band, and/or increasing your reps and sets.

Follow a program.

If it’s possible for you to work with a trainer on this process, amazing. If not, there are quite a few pull-up progression programs you can find and follow online. Some are better than others! (I found one that was like, “Day one, do 10 pull-ups. Day two, do 20 pull-ups.” Ooohh-kayyyy…) Unfortunately, the one I’m using and found randomly is from a trainer who full-throatedly promotes and markets herself based on weight loss, so I’m not comfortable linking to it publicly, but if you really want to know you can DM me.

This one is pretty good, although it doesn’t mix in as much supplemental work as I think we probably need. Look around and see what you find — if you uncover a great one, let us know in the comments.

(Note: I am not really comfortable designing a pull-up progression because, as mentioned, I’ve never done one before! Maybe I’ll feel a bit more confident programming for this once I’ve actually achieved it. Ha.)

The program I’m following involves four days of work followed by one day of rest, for 30 days total. This isn’t really feasible for me because I absolutely cannot find time or energy for exercise most weekends (children!!!!), but I’m adjusting accordingly.

I’m going to tell you right now: This work is tough. I do not feel very comfortable doing it! It’s not easy to make my way through each day on my program even though the total time is less than 7 minutes. But I’m determined. I can do hard things. So can you.

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Okay, what do we think? What other pull-up questions do you have? Are you with me??

xo
Anna