The pull up is one of the greatest exercises for training your full torso. It incorporates a wide range of muscle groups, making it perfect for full upper body strength. It is a compound movement, which means that it loads several joints and mechanisms at once.
Compound movements are incredibly important in training. Firstly, they are incredibly efficient. Rather than working each individual muscle, one after another, you can work them all at once. You work an incredible amount of muscle mass with each pull up, meaning fantastic gains in an incredibly short time period. Secondly, compound movements teach your muscles to work together. You don’t just want big muscles; you want muscles that work well. The pull up is a foundational movement, one of the most functional ones going.
But what are these muscles? What does this compound actually work? (Hint: a lot, an awful lot).
Muscles Worked by the Pull Up
A pull up or chin up will work your back muscles, primarily the latissimus dorsi, trapezius & rhomboid, as well as the arms, specifically the biceps & triceps. Pull ups will put more emphasis into the lats, whilst chin ups put more into the arms, as we will see below. For even more emphasis into the lats, aim for wider grip pull ups.
However, this is far from all they work. In fact, there are few, if any, muscles in the torso (or even the whole body) that pull ups and chin ups don’t bring into each and every rep.
Latissimus Dorsi
Pull ups primarily work the latissimus dorsi, or lats. These are the large fan shaped muscles that stretch the full length of your upper back.
In fact, their etymology speaks volumes about their shape and aesthetic: ‘latissimus’ means broadest, whilst ‘dorsi’ means back (as in dorsal). Their function is to bring your arms down towards your waist and pelvis.
The lats are a powerhouse for the back. Having strong lats will carry over into pretty much every lift going: every lift will benefit from decent back musculature, and they are key to this.
A strong back takes more than just strong lats, however. Happily, pull ups bring in plenty of support from surrounding muscles.
First up, we have the teres major. Your teres major attaches between your shoulder blade and upper arm. It works synergistically with the lats to bring your arm downwards. Whilst your lats raise you up from a hanging position to the pull up bar, your teres major brings your arms down and towards your pelvis, lending the whole movement a lot more power and stability.
Trapezius
Then there are the trapezius muscles (or traps) of your upper back. The traps are stabilizing muscles whose function is to secure your shoulder blades through any movement. They come into play during any form of pull up, though tend to work harder during wider grip pull up variations.
Rhomboid
The rhomboids sit just behind the trapezius muscles. They play a similar role during pull ups, stabilizing your shoulder blades. They are also key for elevation, rotation and adduction of the scapula, which all come into play during pull ups (especially more dynamic forms like muscle ups and kipping pulls ups).
In fact, your scapular and shoulder stabilizers are fundamental to correct form and safe practice during any kind of pull up. They keep your shoulders stable.
Your rotator cuff muscles, comprised of the teres minor and infraspinatus, help to pull your arms back whilst your elbows are in a splayed position. Neutral grip, strict pull ups will particularly rely on them.
Biceps
Then there are the biceps, key for arm flexion (and formidable gun shows!) They are very heavily activated during pull ups, second only to the lats. Chin ups will particularly elicit activation and overload through them, especially as you pull yourself up to the pull up bar (the concentric phase of the lift).
Pectorals
Let’s start with the pectorals, or pecs. We generally think of pec training in terms of push ups, bench presses, and dips. Whilst these are all fantastic for overloading them, pull ups actually bring a little pectoral activation to the table.
They come into play slightly during the concentric phase of each pull up, then a little more as you lower yourself through the eccentric phase.
Forearms
You won’t get very far in your pull ups without strong forearm muscles. Pull ups rely on, and promote, a strong grip. If you want to work on your grip strength, they are a must. This means working the forearm muscles, giving you plenty of strength and muscle mass to round out your arms.
They are key to gripping the pull up bar and effectively manoeuvring yourself around it. In turn, pull ups are amongst the best exercises going for building forearm mass and strength (alongside farmer’s carries, deadlifts, and rack pulls).
The thicker the pull up bar, the more the muscles in your forearms will have to work to keep you in place. Narrow grip pull ups will also tax them particularly heavily.
Triceps
Similarly, the triceps play a role during pull ups. These are the muscles opposite the biceps. As such, they work antagonistically with the biceps, helps you to control your arms movements.
They are particularly active during the eccentric portion of each lift, keeping you stable and enabling healthy, safe flexion through your elbow. The long head of each triceps also works synergistically with the lats, helping you to bring your elbows in towards your body.
Abdominals
Finally, pull ups are amongst the best core exercises going. You are mechanically unstable during a pull up. This means that you have to control your full body in quite a major way, keeping your legs and torso steady through each lift. Your deep core muscles (transverse abdominis and internal obliques) do this for you, alongside your erector spinae and the muscles of your pelvic floor.
How to Do the Pull Up
Pull ups are amongst the most technically demanding and muscularly challenging exercises going. Though they may seem like a straightforward, ubiquitous exercise, they are actually quite advanced.
This shouldn’t put anyone off, however. Pull ups are a top tier exercise for muscular growth and upper body strength gains, and anybody can learn to do them with a little practice, a little patience, and a bit of hard work. No matter where you are in your lifting journey, you will never be too far from your first pull up.
To perform regular pull ups:
- Try jumping up to a pull up bar with your palms facing the bar in an overhand grip, your arms about shoulder width apart. Grab on, grip the pull up bar tightly, and hang for a second with your arms extended, elbows straight.
- If this is too difficult, you can instead stand on a block or stool in front of the pull up bar, grip the bar, and get into your hanging position from here.
- Retract your scapulae by pulling your shoulder blades back and down. This will activate your lats for the reps to come whilst also keeping your shoulders safe and stable. Tense your core slightly so that your torso remains strong.
- From here, bring your elbows back and down and lift yourself upwards with a pulling motion. Bring yourself up until your chin is above the pull up bar, hold, then lower yourself. If you can, try to lower yourself more slowly than you raise yourself – this is where a lot of the muscular stimulation will come from.
- Pause at the bottom, then repeat for your desired rep range – or as many reps as possible.
Working through the pull up
You will likely only be able to get a couple of pull ups in a row at first. This is normal – in fact, it’s impressive. The first pull is always the hardest. From here, try to add an extra pull up or two every couple of weeks. You’ll be at a straight ten pull ups soon enough.
Preparing for pull ups
There are also lots of preparatory and accessory exercises you can perform to strengthen the relevant muscles for your pull ups.
My favourites are the dead hang and scapula retractions.
To perform dead hangs, simply get into the starting position from above, gripping the pull up bar, hanging from it. Then stay here, keeping your lats and core tight. See how long you can hold on for and gradually extend over time. This will prime your body for mechanical strength whilst working on your gripping power.
Scapula retractions begin here. However, there is a little movement involved. From the dead hang, you want to raise yourself slightly whilst keeping your arms fully extended the whole time. You’ll do this by bringing your shoulder blades together and downwards, aiming them towards your back pocket. Really squeeze them, tighten your lats, then lower yourself. This is one rep. Try to go for sets of 10-12. Every movement should be slow and controlled – this will further prime your body for mechanical strength, will also work on your gripping power, and will work shoulder stability.
There are also lots of full range of motion back strengthening exercises you can incorporate as pull up assistance movements into your regular regime.
Pull Up Assistance Moves
These exercises should all both help to prepare you for pull ups, help you to progress with your pull ups, and work the same muscles, playing into the same aims as you will have for pull ups.
Inverse pull ups
Often also called negative pull ups, inverse pull ups make use of the eccentric portion of the pull up whilst cutting out the difficult concentric phase. They are great for building back muscle and strength, working on gripping strength, and training your core. They are also great finishers for a set of pull ups. Simply perform as many reps of regular pull ups as possible. Then, when you can’t do any more, switch to inverse pull ups – it works as a sort of drop set for your pull ups.
To perform an inverse pull up, begin as you would a regular pull up. However, jump up to the bar, using the force of your jump to bring your chin above the bar. Catch yourself at the top, hold for a breath, then lower with control. This is one rep.
Pull downs
Lat pull down machines mimic pull ups whilst being a lesser version of them. They are mechanically more stable, are more variable in their intensity, and can be scaled easily to your own needs and fitness levels.
Hanging leg raises
Hanging leg raises sort of take your dead hang to the next level whilst also giving your abdominal muscles a lot of stimulation. You will want to jump up into a dead hang to begin, as if you were going to go into some regular pull ups. However, you should face away from the pull up bar.
From your dead hang, move your hips back slightly (an inch or two, no more) whilst bringing your knees up to your chest. This is a good beginner version.
For a more advanced version, keep your legs straight. Raise your feet up until they are ninety degrees from the ground.
You can also experiment with twists, bringing your knees or feet up alternating between each side. This will bring a bit more oblique muscle activation into the exercise.
Common Pull Up Mistakes
Everything above may sound simple enough. It isn’t, though. As a mechanically insecure compound exercise that uses as many muscles and joints as it does, the pull up is actually very technically difficult. As a result, there are plenty of common mistakes that even seasoned lifters make, especially as fatigue begins to set in.
- Leaving out the glutes
We all think of the pull up as an upper body exercise. This is fair enough – it is used to work the full trunk and arms. However, your lower body is important, too. You can’t afford to switch off below the hips. Squeeze your glutes together. This will keep you stable and strong through the movement.
- Starting out wobbly
With this in mind, you need to start strong. I mentioned this above in passing – you can’t simply grab a pull up bar and start swinging away. Muscle activation is key. You need to begin by bracing your core, retracting and tightening through the shoulder blades, and squeezing the bar. This will keep you stable and ensure that every muscle fibre needed is involved with each rep.
- Half-repping
You should aim for as full a range of motion as possible. This will teach your body good technique in the long run, ensuring full and proper mind-muscle connection through every stage of the lift. It will also optimise the amount of muscle fibre involved in each rep, meaning greater strength and mass gains over time.
If you struggle to finish a full rep – bringing your chin up above the bar – consider looping a resistance band between the bar and your feet. This is an assisted pull up: it will give you a little assistance until you’re ready to go it alone.
- Flopping at the top
Bringing your chin above the bar isn’t the end of the movement. At the top, you need to squeeze. This will get you ready for a slow, steady, controlled downward movement. It will also force all the muscles engaged, especially in your core, to work a little harder. Pause for a breath, give it a squeeze, then lower down again.
You also don’t want to use too much momentum, as this will simply take tension out of your muscles and work them far less fully. Break the lift into four distinct phases. Hang dead, then pull yourself up, then hold here, then lower yourself under control. At the bottom, stop at a dead hang, and carry on.
- Sticking to the same routine
A regular pull up is good. However, there are plenty of pull up variations you can make the most from to ensure full ranges of motion and muscle fibre recruitment. Try hammer grips, kipping push ups, muscle ups, chin ups, and anything else you can think of.
Also, don’t stick to the same weight. If you find a dozen pull ups getting too easy, try adding weight. You can do this by hanging plates from a chain attached to your lifting belt. You can simply grab a dumbbell between your ankles.
There is always room for progression. Change up your workout routine to make the most of your pull ups.
Benefits of the Pull Up
Pull ups are amongst the best compound movements for full body strength, especially through your upper back and arms. There are few exercises so well-suited to building mass (eliciting hypertrophy, or muscular gains) through your torso. There are few so well-suited to challenging and building up your core.
Firstly, of course, they are compounds. This means plenty of joints involved, lots of muscle mass, and lots of energy used.
Secondly, they will build up ferocious strength through your grip and back. This will carry over into your other lifts. It’s rare to find someone proficient in pull ups that doesn’t have good deadlift numbers, for example.
This will all also lead to improved posture. Your full back will be strengthened, meaning that it will be better held in place by its own musculature. This means a lower risk of injury or pain in your back, especially as you age.
Finally, pull ups are very versatile, easy to perform almost anywhere, and are pretty easy to scale. When lockdown hit in 2020 and I couldn’t get to my gym, I bought a few pieces of home gym equipment. A pull up bar formed the centrepiece – I hung it in the frame of my living room door and immediately had a way to build my upper body strength. As above, when I got proficient, I simply added plates and dumbbells to ensure I kept progressing.
The sheer number of variations are important here, too. I could switch between pull ups, chin ups, kipping pull ups, muscle ups, weighted and high rep pull ups, single arm (I wouldn’t recommend this to beginners – the chance of injury is quite high) close grip, wide grip… the list goes on.
Incorporating Pull Ups Into Your Routine
There are a couple of ways I would advise using pull ups in your training.
Strength athletes
If you’re a strength athlete, I would use them as a secondary mover on rowing, deadlift, or hip-hinge days. Complete your primary movement – deadlifts, cleans, jerks, and so on – for your desired sets and reps. Then use pull ups between that and your assistance work. Perform 3-5 sets at a low number of reps, perhaps 5-8. This will train your core, upper back, arms, and forearms to deal with the kinds of weight you’ll be shifting on the barbell.
Then go onto your assistance work or conditioning from here.
Bodybuilders
Bodybuilders can use pull ups in a similar way. However, you will want to go for higher rep ranges, keeping in the 8-12 hypertrophy range, and you should feel free to use it as your main mover on back days. Complete 3-4 sets of 8-12 as the first exercise of the session, before moving on to your accessory work.
Antagonist movements
Alternatively, strength athletes and bodybuilders alike can use pull ups as an antagonist exercise on overhead pressing days. It works in the exact same plane of movement, using the opposing muscle groups to the ones you’re working with your presses. Throw a set in before your main lift to prime your body. Superset for optimal training and time efficiency. Use it after your main lift as an accessory, or superset with an accessory movement like a dumbbell overhead press or kettlebell clean and press.
Calisthenics
Pull ups will also feature very prominently in many guises in calisthenic training. Here, you will often want to use them as the main mover of a training session. Pay closer attention to form and staying slow and strong rather than aiming at a set number of reps.
The Difference Between a Pull Up & a Chin Up
Pull ups and chin ups are variations on a theme. They are far less different than you might imagine. They both offer relatively equal amounts of stimulus, work the same muscle groups, albeit with a bit of change in emphasis, and are both perfect for any resistance training program.
There are a few differences, however.
This stems from the difference in grip position. A pull up will have you gripping the pull up bar with your palms facing forwards, away from your body. A chin up will have your palms either facing each other or, more classically, facing your body.
Hence the change in emphasis. Though the basic movement is the same, that change in grip changes how much work each muscle group will do. A classic pull up will place more emphasis on the latissimus dorsi and lower trapezius, with less in the biceps and pectoral muscles. A chin up will reverse this, placing less emphasis on the latissimus dorsi and lower trapezius, with more in the biceps and pectoral muscles.
Basically, if you want to focus more on your back, perform pull ups. If you want to focus more on your arms, perform chin ups.
Chin ups are also a little more mechanically secure. This means that they are easier to perform, especially for beginners. They may represent a good steppingstone to the full classic pull up.
However, there is no isolation here. All pull ups are compound movements. All work multiple body parts. Every muscle listed at the top of this article will be worked to a greater or lesser degree by any form of pull up or chin up. All forms will lead to muscle and strength gains.
