Build Upper Body Muscle & Strength At Home
Pull-ups are simply one of the finest body weight exercises that can be carried out for your upper body. Pull-ups workout your core, back, arms, and shoulders working out almost every muscle in the upper body. Pull-ups can be performed virtually anywhere that you can locate a bar to cling from.
We all know about the normal pull-up; how tough they are! This exercise in itself demands great power, and if you cannot perform at least 20 standard pull-ups in a row, then I suggest you do not attempt any of these advanced pull-up versions until you can.
If you are going to include pull-ups into your home exercise routine, you are going to need a pull-up bar. There are some ways you can take advantage of pull up bars today and different ways you can adjust them to your routine. Despite being one of the older pieces of exercise equipment on the market, it continues to be an extremely reliable and vital piece of equipment.
This piece of equipment offers an intense exercise for anybody looking to build several different muscles. Some of the muscle groups you can build muscle for including the biceps, shoulder muscles, pectorals, and many of the muscles on your back. The amount of repetitions and sets you do can also impact how much muscle you build.
The great thing about pull up bars is that there are no limitations as to what you can do. If you purchase a bench, you are limited to how many plates you have. Of course, you can always go out and buy more plates, but this becomes extremely expensive. With a pull-up bar, you are only limited to how many repetitions and sets you can do. This leaves the door wide open for improvement over time.
4 Pull-Up Variations For Superhuman Strength
1) L-Sit Pull-Up – No other body weight exercise can turn your core into a ripped washboard like the L-sit pull-up. Performing a set of these demands the power of a gymnast. The main focus of this movement is your form. While hanging from the bar in a starting pull-up position, extend your feet up so that your legs are directly out and parallel to the floor. Proceed to do as many pull-ups as you can while keeping your legs in place and preserving the “L” position.
2) Weighted Pull-Ups – This is the exercise that will give you great strength increases as well as the back of a Greek god. The best way to add weight to your pull-ups is to purchase a weighted vest, but if you want a cheaper way to perform the weighted pull-up you have a few options. If you have dumbbells, you can rest a dumbbell on its end directly underneath your feet when hanging from the pull-up bar. Hug your feet around the handle of the dumbbell, just under the weight on the top side and start executing weighted pull-ups. Another way to do weighted pull-ups inexpensively is to place some weight in a knapsack. When doing this, I advise wearing the knapsack on your front for more shoulder work and on your back to emphasize the lats.
3) Wide Grip Side Pull-ups – Begin with your hands gripping the bar as wide as you can but still comfy enough to do a pull-up. For this movement, choose one of your gripping hands, either your left of your right and pull your chin straight over that hand. Lower yourself back to the starting position and keep going, alternating which hand you pull to on each repetition. This movement will put a higher weight on one pulling arm triggering your power to skyrocket. This pull-up variation is also an outstanding way to build up ample strength to do a one-armed pull-up.
4) Single Armed Pull-up – Performing a single armed pull-up is a bit challenging and takes superhero.This exercise is pretty straight-forward to perform. Bar with one hand and pull. If you need to cheat a little bit, then you may grab the wrist of your pulling hand with your non-pulling hand.
If you are looking to add shape and tone to your upper body you have to include pull-ups or some type of pulling exercise. Push-ups only target half your upper body. Whereas pull-ups hit the other half of your upper body and gives you that nice V-shape everyone is after. But depending on your age, weight, sex and your level of conditioning will determine if pull-ups or modified pull-ups would be best for you.
Home Pull-ups Workout Benefits
Stimulate & Develop More Muscles. As a closed kinetic chain (CKC) exercise, you can simultaneously hit secondary muscles to a greater degree (e.g. you hit biceps and triceps significantly). CKC exercises are important when increasing both training frequency and training volume, as they allow you more ‘bang for your buck’!
Improve Balance & Core Strength. Another advantage of pull-ups as a CKC exercise by definition, is improved training of core and stabilizing muscles (e.g. you have to balance and control the rest of your body while lowering and then pulling your body back up).
Simplicity. The correct technique is easy to learn, yet the exercise can yield remarkable results in the upper body. As mentioned earlier, there are other easy-to-learn technique variations that allow you to make the exercise more manageable if you are not yet strong enough.
Build Upper Body Muscle & Strength. This exercise develops several muscle groups, including the back, upper chest, forearms and the upper arms and deltoids (even the glutes and abs to an extent). This exercise allows you to continuously progress since you use body weight, but can also add external weight when you need a challenge; thus, you have the potential to build muscle fast.
We would like to send a special thanks to Kelly Joyner, the founder of RegularityFitness, for her contributions on this article. Kelly has been working in the fitness industry for many years, and she likes to spend some of time blogging about trending fitness topics with her partners on RegularityFitness. You can also connect with Kelly on Twitter.
Tags: exercise, fitness, home fitness, home workout, pull-ups, pullups, workout
