The king of back moves. Dead hang to chin over bar.
Lead with your chest and drive elbows to your hips. Full range every rep, no half pulls.
The pull-up is bodyweight back training at its most honest, from a dead hang to chin over the bar with your lats doing the heavy lifting and your biceps assisting the climb. The overhand grip and full range load the back through its longest stretch, which is why wide, developed lats and pull-up strength go hand in hand. Every pulling machine in the gym is, in some way, practice for this.
Dead hangs for grip, lat pulldowns to build the pulling strength, and slow negatives, jump to the top and lower for five seconds. Stack those for a few weeks and the first full rep arrives sooner than you think.
Grip. Pull-ups are overhand and slightly wide, hitting the lats hardest, chin-ups are underhand and bring more biceps into the pull. Both are elite back moves, most people find chin-ups slightly easier.
No. Full range is dead hang at the bottom to chin clearly over the bar, as the steps say. Cutting the bottom stretch is where most fake pull-up numbers come from, and it skips the range that builds the most back.
