Some drills to help you improve your chin-ups/pull-ups 💪🏻
I made a goal for myself to get my chin-ups back up to where they were prior to pregnancy a number of months after my baby was born but it became clear to me that my core probably wasn’t totally ready, unlike my impatient brain 😝. I tabled it but have recently decided I’m ready to devote energy to this again.
I wrote a 4 week pull-up specific improvement plan and have been running it for the past week. Here are some exercises that help you address and improve upon different aspects required to really nail your pull-ups.
🔹Scapular pull-downs – If you’re not quite ready to do scapular pull-ups hanging from the bar, these are a good way to start to gain awareness of your scapular positioning. Your scapula moves throughout a pull-up but you should initiate your pull by depressing and retracting (rounding over slightly and pulling more with your biceps is a common tendency)
🔹Adding pauses – These can really help you gain strength and own all positions of your pull-up. Even if you can’t perform many or any unassisted pull-ups, you may still be able to gain strength with controlled negatives and iso holds in various positions as you’re stronger on the eccentric or lowering portion (and doing isometric holds) vs the concentric or pulling up portion.
🔹Hanging hollow body hold – pull-ups require a lot of core and grip strength and this helps you train both. As you fatigue, the tendency is to lose tension in your core and allow your body to “snake up” as your legs bend and come up. Training a hollow body position can help to strengthen your pull-up position.
🔹Bottoms-up kb press – These are obnoxiously tough when you’re just starting them, especially with a large kettlebell like the one I’m using 🙈. These help you train your grip, core strength, and shoulder stability, which all translate to pull-ups. If you do them from standing they can help you develop full body tension.
🔹TRX “rollouts” – Another way to train anti-extension to strengthen your core for pull-ups.
🎵Joel Corry x RAYE x David Guetta – Bed (KREAM remix)
➡️For plans and all access membership go to katiecrewe.com