Pull-Up

A pull-up starts from a dead hang and ends with the chin clearing the bar. A chin-up uses an underhand grip and trains the biceps slightly more heavily. Both are valid; pull-ups are usually considered harder at equivalent body weights because the supinated position of chin-ups gives the biceps more mechanical advantage.

The dead hang is where most people skip work. A full dead hang means scapulae elevated and arms fully extended — not a micro-bend to protect the elbow. Starting from a proper dead hang trains the full range of lat lengthening and makes the exercise harder and more valuable. Partial range of motion pull-ups build partial range of motion strength.

Progression for beginners: band-assisted pull-ups, negative-only (jump up and lower slowly), or lat pulldown as a sub while building the pulling strength. There is no shortcut to doing them strict — just doing them (assisted and negative) consistently until you can.

For advanced lifters, weighted pull-ups (belt with plates, vest, or holding a dumbbell between the feet) follow linear progression the same as barbell lifts. Many strong lifters can out-pull their deadlift numbers when it comes to volume — pull-ups expose back endurance the deadlift does not require.

• Start from a full dead hang — shoulder blades up, arms straight
• Depress the shoulder blades before pulling — "put your shoulder blades in your back pockets"
• Drive the elbows to the floor, not toward the hips
• Chest leads up — not chin craning forward
• Lower under control — do not drop from the top
• Full extension at the bottom before starting the next rep

• Kipping or swinging — useful for gymnastics conditioning, not for building lat strength
• Chin crane at the top — the chin getting over the bar should come from the lat pull, not the neck extension
• Partial range of motion — both dead hang and full chin-above-bar are required for a strict rep
• Elbows pointing forward instead of down — usually a grip-width or shoulder mobility issue
• Skipping the dead hang — where most people miss lat length training

• barbell row→