pull up variations: 20 different types of pull ups
Sick of your plain old pull ups? I’ve included 20 pull up variations to spice up just about any strength training routine. Try them out–you can even try a new variation every 6-8 weeks. Adding some different pull up variations will help add a little exercise selection to your program to help emphasize slightly different fibers within the muscle–and help break through any strength plateaus you may be experiencing. Try one (or more!) of these today!
1.) Regular Old Vanilla Pull ups:
These are the standard, vanilla standard. They won’t ever go out of style, and they will always be effective at building a bigger, stronger back.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques.
How to Perform: Choose an overhead grip with your hands at roughly shoulder width. Keeping your abs and glutes tight, pull your chin over the bar and then slowly return to the starting position
2.) Underhand grip chin ups:
Underhand chin ups are a bit easier than regular pull ups, and they involve the biceps a bit more than the regular overhand grip variation.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques.
How To Perform: Choose an underhand grip with your hands at roughly shoulder width. Keeping your abs and glutes tight, pull your chin over the bar and then slowly return to the starting position.
3. Weighted Pull ups
These are king for strength development of the vertical pulling movement. Conquer these and regular pull ups will be a piece of cake.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to perform: Attach weight to a weight belt and belt up. Or, put a weight between your thighs, or wear a weight vest. Either option will work.
4. Mixed Grip Chin ups
One hand over, one hand under. No distinct advantages here, but might help you hold onto the bar a bit longer if you find that you often lose your grip during high rep sets of pull ups.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques.
How to Perform: Put one hand overhand and one hand underhand. Hang from a bar. Keeping your abs and glutes tight, pull your chin over the bar and then slowly return to the starting position. Be sure to alternate so each hand is used in both the over/under positions.
5. Pull up, Pull Over
This exercise adds a brutal twist to the traditional pull up. It also adds a really tough eccentric (negative) from the top of the pull up.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Hip Flexors, and Triceps
How to Perform: Hanging from a Pull up Bar with an overhand grip, first perform a pull up. Then use your hip flexors to bring your legs up and over the bar, while holding a static pull up position. Turn your body over and straighten out your arms (flex your triceps) to straighten out.
To reverse back to a hanging position, roll forward over the bar into a pull up position, and then slowly straighten out your arms to reverse to the starting position.
6. Levers / Ice Cream Scoopers
This exercise is a favorite of sadistic gymnastics coaches. 😉 It is hard and involves an isometric contraction of both the biceps and the lats to add extra difficulty to the exercise.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hanging from a pull up bar with an overhand grip, first perform a pull up. Then shift your weight back, straighten out your arms while you use your lats to lift your lower body to roughly a 90 degree angle. You want to make sure you keep your glutes tight to keep your body straight.
Then shift back into a pull up by bending your arms and letting your body descend underneath your arms.
7. Rope Pull up
This one is really hard; it is a great choice for obstacle course racers who have to use unconventional movements in training to prepare for races. This exercise involves a mixed grip on the rope, while keeping your legs down (or in a pike to the side of you, if you are really masochistic).
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes, Hip flexors (if legs at 90 degree angle)
How to Perform: Holding on to the rope in a hand over hand fashion with your body to one side of the rope, pull up and then straighten out your arms to return to start. You can experiment with keeping hands close together and hands farther apart. Both will include a huge grip training component. Make sure you do an equal number of sets with your body on either side of the rope.
8. Band Assisted Pull up/Chin up
This exercise is a great regression on the standard pull up. It will help you develop the strength to complete full pull ups. It also helps you to develop grip strength and “feel” a true pull up long before you have the upper body strength to actually perform one.
Programmed for sets of 5-8, these can help you gain strength while you are still a pull up newbie. Even people who can do pull ups can also perform band assisted pull ups. Higher rep sets, like sets of 15+, will help these more experienced trainees to add more training volume and an aspect of metabolic fatigue to their pull up training.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Loop a band through a pull up bar, right in front of the center of your body. Facing the bar, put one knee through the band and let the other leg hang down. Start at the bottom position. Using your lats and bicep muscles, think about pulling your elbows back and down. The rep is complete when you pull your chin over the top of the bar. Slowly lower down to return to start.
9. One Arm Pull up
Nothing says Prowess with the pull up better than the one arm pull up. This exercise is a great developer of each lat and bicep independently and also the core muscles that help to stabilize the spine laterally, like the external and internal obliques and quadratus lumborum (QL). Supporting your body-weight with one arm will also really strengthen your grip, which will translate to your regular pull ups and heavy deadlifts.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes, Quadratus Lumburum
How to perform: Hang from a bar with an overhand (or underhand) grip and first stabilize your lower body. Then pull your chin over the bar. If you can’t quite master the one hand pull up (I haven’ either!), feel free to put one hand on your other wrist to give yourself about a 10% assist from your other side. Make sure you do an equal number of sets for both your right and left sides.
10. One Arm Towel Assisted Pull up
This is a very advanced pull up exercise that will help you develop the strength needed for one arm pull ups, while also allowing you to “Feel” a one arm pull up before you have the strength to complete one. This is also an intense exercise for your forearm and grip, making it a good choice for advanced exercisers.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes, QL
How to Perform: Use a Towel, Rope Cable Attachment (Shown) or other strong piece that you can loop over the bar, which you can expect to hold up even supporting the entirety of your body weight. Loop the towel over the bar, and hang onto the free end in one arm. Choose an over or underhand grip with the other hand, hold onto the bar tight, and hang down. Your towel-supported arm will be slightly bent to start, while your other arm is straight. Stabilizing through your core muscles, pull your chin straight up, centered between your two hands. Pull your chin over the bar, pause 1 count, and then slowly straighten out your arms to return to start. Make sure you complete an equal number of sets for both left and right sides.
11. Ring Pull up
A little tougher than the traditional pull up, this is a great choice for advanced trainees. Ring pull ups are also great for those with shoulder problems or those trying to reduce cumulative stress on their shoulder joints. Why? As you pull up, you will naturally externally rotate your shoulders and end with a more neutral grip. The neutral grip is very shoulder friendly.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to perform: On very sturdy rings, hang in an overhand position (no false grip). Keeping your abs and glutes tight, let your hands rotate as you pull up. You will finish the movement with your palms facing each other. Then slowly straighten out your arms to return to the starting position.
12. Corn-eater Pull up
This is a great “show off” exercise. The real training benefit is that you will increase the training stress on one lat and bicep at a time. This exercise can also help you build up the strength needed to do one-arm pull ups.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang from the bottom of a pull up bar with abs and glutes tight. Pull yourself up towards your right hand, then shift your weight to the left side, before descending down back to center. On the next rep, pull towards your left hand first, then move to the right, before descending down. Make sure you perform an equal number of reps for both right and left sides.
13. Flexed Arm Hang
The flexed arm hang is an isometric exercise for the lats and biceps. It can be used in a beginner pull up program to help you work up to full pull ups. Some physical fitness tests still use the flexed arm hang for women, so if you need to train it for that purpose, it can be useful.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang from a pull up bar with straight arms. Perform a pull up (if able) and hang at the top for 15-30 seconds, working up your time per set and your number of sets over time. If you are unable to do a pull up, use a bench high enough that you can go straight to the pull up position, or use a spotter.
14. Pike Pull up
This exercise really involves your abdominal muscles, reducing the amount of training time you need for your abs, plus it makes your pull up way harder.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang from a pull up bar. Perform a half leg lift so your legs end at hip height. Keep contracting your abs hard to keep your legs up while you pull your chin over the bar. Then slowly descend down to return to start. Sets of 5+ with your legs in a pike position are really tough!
15. Pull up to Leg Raise
This exercise will help you build the strength for the pike pull up and incorporates a dynamic (not isometric) contraction for the abdominal muscles.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang from a pull up bar with an overhand grip. First pull your chin over the bar, hold for one count, and perform a full or half leg lift while your chin is over the top of the bar. Then lower your legs before you descend down slowly.
16. Gironda Pull up
This is an extremely tough exercise for the lats and takes the lats through a greater Range of Motion. If you have trouble feeling your pull ups in your lower lats, this exercise will definitely help you.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang on to a pull up bar with an overhand grip. Pull your body over the bar and pull your body backward slightly while you arch your upper back slightly. Your chin will likely touch the bar and you will end up in a pronounced arch position. Pause 1 count at the top. Slowly lower down while you let your body return to a straight position.
17. Wide Grip Pull up
This exercise hits the lats a little harder and the biceps a bit less than the traditional pull up. These include a shorter range of motion than the traditional pull up, but they are still harder for most people.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang on a pull up bar with an overhand, wide grip. Contract your lats and arch your back slightly to bring your chin above the bar. Slowly return to the starting position by straightening your arms slowly.
18. Eccentric Pull up
You actually build more strength and muscle in the eccentric portion of the squat (negative) than you do in the concentric portion (“up”). You also strengthen your tendons more and add more time under tension, as well as metabolic stress. Read here to read about how eccentric training can create more muscle damage and help you build more strength.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How To Perform: Hang from a pull up bar with an overhand grip. Pull your chin over the bar, and then pause at the top for 1 count. Then slowly lower down. Emphasize the lowering portion by taking 3-5 seconds on the “down” motion.
19. Behind the Neck Pull up
Avoid this exercise if you have shoulder pain or history of shoulder injury.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Hang from a pull up bar with a wider than normal grip. Pull your chin in front of the bar by pulling your elbows way back and down.
20. Negative-Only Pull up
Another good beginner variation to help you build the strength to do full pull ups, especially if you really control the lowering portion.
Muscles Involved: Lats, Biceps, Forearms, Rhomboids, Abs, Spinal Erectors, Internal and External Obliques, Glutes
How to Perform: Set up a box so you start the pull up with your chest above the bar–eliminating the concentric (up) portion of the exercise. Slowly lower down. Position yourself back on the box so you can start each rep from the top position.
