Why Pull-Ups Aren't the Problem

One of my earliest memories is climbing haystacks.

When I was a wee thing, my dad and my papa owned a hay farm. A farm is a wonderful place to be a 3-year-old—there are tractors to ride, mules to feed, and things to climb. Like haystacks.

The strength that I built climbing bales of hay was helpful when I started elementary school. My first three years I was at a rural elementary school, where there were all kinds of bars to hang from and monkey bars to swing from. I would spend every recess and lunch perfecting my cherry drops and seeing how many bars I could skip while moving across the monkey bars.

This hanging strength served me well as I got older. I am short (5’1”). My solution to everything I can’t reach is to climb on top of something so that I can get to it. Need to reach the top kitchen cabinet? Climb on top of the kitchen counter. Need to reach the item on the top shelf of the grocery store? Climb on top of the shelves (just make sure there aren’t any employees nearby to yell at you to get down).

All of this hanging and climbing means pull-ups are something I have always been able to do. I built the strength and the pathway early, and then I just kept doing them.

This doesn’t mean they were always easy. Like all things, you need to practice them to maintain the ability to do them. At one point in my late 20s/early 30s, it had been about a year since I had done a pull-up. When I tried one on a whim, it was hard. I got over the bar, but it wasn’t easy (and it definitely wasn’t pretty).

I am 46 now, and for several years I have done pull-ups on Mondays and chin-ups on Thursdays. I also took up aerial arts three and a half years ago, so one of my hobbies is climbing things. The pull-ups and chin-ups are a nice complement to hanging, swinging, and climbing.

What a Recent Article Gets Wrong About Pull-Ups

My longstanding history with pull-ups means a recent article in Outside Magazine Online about why pull-ups aren’t a gold standard caught my eye. The information in the article is worth examining—one of my goals is to help people be able to read fitness information in popular media and discern what’s accurate and what’s not. Kind of like scientific literacy, except it’s exercise science literacy.

The article makes two arguments. The first is that pull-ups are challenging if your grip strength isn’t good or you have shoulder issues. The second is that pull-ups are linear—that there is no rotation to the movement.

Every Movement Has a Rotational Component

Let’s start with the second argument first, because here’s the thing: every movement has a rotational component, including pull-ups.

The exercises proposed instead of pull-ups were all good exercises (because really, there are no bad exercises). But four of them—suitcase carries, Romanian deadlifts, face pulls, and inverted rows—don’t involve any more rotation than the pull-up does. The argument laid out in the article for a suitcase carry is that it is an anti-rotation exercise, which means you aren’t rotating.

Because all movement is rotational, in order to walk forward there has to be rotation somewhere, which is what happens in your feet, shins, and thighs as they carry you across the room.

So while the pull-up doesn’t involve turning and facing another direction, it does involve rotation through your arms, shoulders, and, depending on how you are doing it, your chest to get up and over the bar.

Grip Strength and Shoulder Mobility Are Real Barriers

Now let’s look at the first argument, because it’s true.

Pull-ups are hard if your grip strength isn’t good, in the same way that lunges are hard if you don’t have good hip flexibility or quad strength and push-ups on the ground are hard if you don’t have good wrist extension or shoulder strength. Basic bodyweight exercises aren’t accessible for a lot of people.

At first. But if someone wants to lunge, push-up, or pull-up, there is a path towards that goal. The two variations offered in the article, a dead hang or a pull-up with a band, are both valid paths towards a pull-up. But there are a lot more ways to get there than just these two options (and you don’t have to have your feet off the ground for most of them).

Learning how to do something requires strength. The grip strength aspect of a pull-up is real. So is the shoulder flexion required. But both of these things can be improved in ways that are accessible to anyone.

How to Build the Strength to Hang

I have a client who is 74. She has always been active, but she came to movement later in life. Title IX, she tells me, passed after she graduated. High school girls weren’t encouraged to develop their athletic abilities; social media opened her eyes to what could be possible.

One of those possibilities is pull-ups. But first, I told her, we needed to work on hanging.

So we did. Gradually, at first, using the tools I outline below. As her capacity grew, she has been able to hang for longer and we have been able to add more complexity. Capacity is strength, stamina, and flexibility; complexity is progression.

Another client of mine injured his shoulder spectacularly when he was 62. (The details are vague. They included whiskey and a flight of stairs.)

I helped him regain his strength and range of motion. I gradually introduced supported hanging movements. He has zero interest in pull-ups, but today he is 70 and regularly does leg raises and shrugs while hanging from his hands. His shoulder is pain-free, strong, and his grip strength is excellent.

With time, patience, and an emphasis on the experience versus the end goal, people build capacity. And gradually, they are able to take their feet off the floor and put their weight into their hands.

How to Practice: Hanging, Rings, and Stall Bars

Building the capacity for hanging also requires consistency. If I am working with someone who wants to be able to do a pull-up and it currently looks like a far away goal, we start with the building blocks of hanging variations every session. Do something a little bit, regularly, and eventually it gets easier.

The actual act of pulling up requires an understanding of how to use the arms and the torso to move up while gravity is pulling you down. There are some great low ring exercises you can do to build the pathway. One of my favorites can be seen in the video below. You start at the top of the chin-up position, and then reverse out of it. My feet are supported the entire time, so I can focus on what I am doing, instead of freaking out because I don’t know whether my hands can support me. This teaches what the action feels like at the top of the chin-up or pull-up.

Another way to work on this is using rings or stall bars, starting in a supported hanging position with the feet on the ground. You use the support of the legs to groove the pathway so you can clearly sense and feel the action of the arms.

Does Everyone Need to Do a Pull-Up?

A lot of people have zero interest in doing a pull-up, and that’s totally fine. We live in a world where unless you are climbing on top of counters because you can’t reach things or you enjoy pulling your body up, away from the ground, climbing is an unnecessary action.

But if you enjoy using your body to climb, whether it’s ladders, rocks, a pole, or some sort of aerial apparatus, pull-ups are a great conditioning exercise.

Or maybe you just want to be able to express your strength by pulling your bodyweight up and bringing your chest to a bar. That’s a perfectly valid reason to learn how to do pull-ups, too.

I was talking to my sister earlier this week. She goes to a 6:00AM workout, four days a week. That morning’s workout had been particularly challenging. She had worked hard. She struggled with some of it.

“That will be the hardest thing you do today. Everything else will be easier,” I said.

She thought about it for a moment. “You’re right. I had never thought about it like that.”

Pull-ups are hard. Exercise is hard. But doing things that are physically hard builds strength. And strength makes everything a little bit easier.

If you are interested in building strong, supple shoulders for climbing, aerial, or life, sign up here to find out when the Strong, Supple Shoulders program drops.