Pull ups for Strength Athletes

Pull ups for strength athletes? Are pull ups a suitable exercise for strength athletes? Should weightlifters and power lifters perform pull ups or is this exercise simply too easy for the advanced trainee?

While some may believe pull ups are inferior for barbell-based strength athletes, the truth is that strength athletes of all calibers should include pull ups in their routine.

Pull ups can help any strength athlete progress to the next level and become a stronger, more bulletproof barbell athlete.

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Pull ups are a Joint-Friendly Exercise

The pull up is a compound exercise.

Compound  exercises distribute the joint load between multiple joints. These exercises reduce the risk of overload of any one joint. Often, compound exercises are considered joint friendly.

Pull ups are a very joint friendly exercise. They are a great exercise for strength athletes who constantly beat themselves up with the iron.

Pull ups for Strength Athletes:  not just for skinny guys (and girls)

The pull up and other bodyweight exercises are not just for skinny guys.

The pull up is an excellent exercise for all barbell and strength athletes, no matter their experience or caliber.

Smaller athletes can add weight to make the exercise more challenging, while heavier athletes will be challenged with their own body weight!

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Progressive Overload in the Pull up

The strength athlete can employ various methods to add challenge to their pull ups.

Strength trainees can begin weighted pull ups, add holds or slow negatives, reps, sets, or time under tension, and/or extra training sessions with the pull up.

No strength athlete will ever “outgrow” the pull up.

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Body Composition and Strength to Body weight Ratio

Pull ups also provide an excellent gauge of progress and strength to body weight.

Gaining weight may make the barbell squat, bench, and deadlift a bit easier due to increased muscle mass. But if excess fat is gained during a massing phase, pull ups will become more difficult.

If the trainee has improved their muscle to fat ratio by gaining weight, their pull ups should be just as easy, if not easier, after the gaining phase.

The pull up exercise also provides feedback on the trainee’s dieting phase. If the athlete has lost fat, and little or no muscle, their pull up performance should have improved. If the athlete has lost too much muscle, pull ups will be harder after the dieting phase.

In this way, pull ups provide the trainee with honest feedback about how their body composition has changed during bulking or cutting phases.

If your “bulk” has made your pull ups harder, you might have gained too much fat.

The pull up helps strength athletes to determine their relative strength–at heavier and lighter body weights. 

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Spinal Decompression

Barbell squats, deadlifts, overhead press, clean and jerk and snatch all compress the spinal discs. This is not inherently harmful, but balancing spinal compression exercises with decompression exercises can enhance back health.

The pull up is a spinal decompression exercise and it is a great choice for barbell athletes.

Strength athletes can even put pull ups between deadlifts or squats to create more back-friendly training programs.

(Read Pull ups for Lower Back Pain to learn more about how and why the pull up can be useful for lower back health).

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Bracing Technique and Core Positioning

The pull up requires core bracing and tension through the abs, lower back, and glutes.

Barbell athletes typically do a good job bracing for spinal compression exercises like squats and deadlifts. But few apply proper bracing and tension techniques to exercises like pull ups, push ups, and other “non-barbell” exercises.

Learning how to control and stabilize the spine and lower body in all exercises can help the strength athlete to prevent lower back injuries caused by carelessness and sloppy technique.

Reinforcing bracing and tension in the pull up (among other exercises) can also help the strength athlete to improve force production and strength. The strength athlete needs to learn how to generate full body tension and tightness during all exercises, even at submaximal weights or loads.

No matter the exercise, strength athletes need to apply the old adage “move light weight like it is heavy and heavy weight will move like it’s light.”

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: The Lats

Properly performed, pull ups strengthen the lat muscles.

Stronger lats will make a better weightlifter or powerlifter.

The strength athlete must tighten their lats to safely perform the bench press, the deadlift and the barbell squat. Doing so will help to stabilize the spine and prevent spinal injury, and will also help the athlete to develop and display maximum strength.

Tight lats are also necessary during the set up position for both the snatch and the clean and jerk exercises.

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Strong Arms and Biceps

Pull ups build strong arms and upper body tendons.

Slow negatives in the pull up exercise can help build thick, strong, bulletproof bicep tendons.

Performing pull ups and other exercises to strengthen the bicep tendons can help the strength athlete reduce their risk of bicep tendon injury with maximal weights in the deadlift. 

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Strengthen the Grip

Hanging from a bar and pulling up your own body weight can help strengthen your grip. This can improve your ability to hold on to a heavy deadlift.

The pull up can strengthen your grip, lessen your reliance on straps, and help you feel more secure pulling heavy weights in the deadlift.

Pull ups can make it easier to hold on to a heavy deadlift.

Pull ups for Strength Athletes: Bulletproof Shoulders

You should balance horizontal pressing with horizontal pulling. Really, you should row as much (or more) as you bench press. In addition, you should strive to do as much vertical pulling as you do vertical pressing (pull ups as often as overhead press).

Keeping a balanced ratio between upper body pushing and upper body pulling exercises can help you maintain balanced upper body development, improve your posture, and reduce the likelihood and occurrence of shoulder injuries.

In addition, pull ups can allow you to decrease your risk for shoulder impingement. At the bottom of the pull up position, you can allow your shoulders to “unpack” towards your ears. This position increases sub-acromial space–that is the space between your acromion and Supraspinatus Tendon. This can prevent the likelihood of impingement between these shoulder structures.

If you are a strength athlete, you should probably include pull ups in your routine. They will help you get stronger, keep your lower back and shoulders healthy, improve your grip and help you build muscle. These are all big wins for the barbell athlete.