We are all familiar with that most popular quote by Ben Franklin -
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
No, we don’t care about that one anymore.
I’m talking about the one about pull ups -
There are only 3 possible reasons why a man would not be able to do a pull up:
Because he is too fat.
Because he is too weak.
Because he is too fat and too weak.
- Ben Franklin
Thomas Jefferson even thought that if you could not do a pull up, then you should really only be counted as 3/5ths of a man.
You are probably thinking to yourself, “No one cares what some dead white men in wigs had to say.”
But actually, after doing a lot of research on cross-cultural pull up philosophy, I found that this whole idea behind pull up performance appears to be universal.
Check this out:
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by whether or not it’s men are too fat and too weak to do pull ups.”
Who said that?
Ghandi said it.
But even modern millennial heroes have weighed in on this.
“Man cant do poool ups, he a bitch ass mu-ffugah.”
- Lil Wayne
I include the weighted pull up as one of the ‘SBS Big 4.’
Simply because, as has been discovered, to get good at pull ups you can’t be fat and you can’t be weak.
The point of this writing isn’t to shame anyone with the wisdom of the aforementioned great minds.
It’s rather to motivate you to improve your pull up because of the following benefits you get from doing so:
You will look better (because they incentivize leanness).
You will feel better (because you will carry around less bodyfat).
You will build a lot of muscle in your upper back, lats, and arms.
You will have more confidence.
You will impress other guys at the gym.
You will make more money.
You will never test positive for Covid. (Because you will realize that sodomizing your nose regularly is a stupid practice).
How do we improve our pull ups?
By focusing on the following things:
Build the muscles heavily involved in the pull up, primarily the teres, upper and mid lat, the rhomboids, and the biceps. I got you covered there if you simply execute the programming as written and you do your work sets like you have a pair of balls.
Track your macros and maintain a calorie deficit if you need to drop bodyfat. Get leaner. I can give guidance down to even the exact amounts of protein and calories to consume per day based on your current body composition, but I do not shop, weigh your food, and eat it for you. You have to do your part here.
Practice the actual pull up. As I’ve written about before, getting better at any exercise is skill specific. So while you can use lat pulldowns and rows to build the muscular strength required to become proficient at pull ups (along with low-ish bodyfat levels), you will have to practice the actual pull up.
Please understand that I have assisted hundreds of guys in gaining the ability to do pull ups proficiently and by far the number one way to work your way to your first pull up (besides dropping bodyfat) is to practice controlled eccentrics (negatives).
Jump up to the top position where your chin clears the bar and take 5 to 6 seconds to lower yourself.
Mix in some band assisted pull ups to develop the neuropathways and skill of the movement.
And use a full range of motion.
Grab on to the bar, pull yourself up to where your chin clears the bar. Think about driving your elbows back and down.
Then lower yourself until your elbows are fully extended.
Don’t lose tightness in your shoulder girdle at the bottom by loosely hanging. That is beyond full range and is transferring stress to other tissues that we don’t want peak forces transferred to.
And don’t kip.
The goal here is to get stronger and build muscle, unless you are training specifically for gymnastics or for the circus.
Go hard today!