The Pull-Up

The Book

The Book - Atmasvasth - A Guide to Ageing Healthfully

A 15-point guide to living long, healthy

AtmasvasthBhavin Jankharia

The Detailed 15-Point Guide to Live Long, Healthy

The 15-Point Guide - Detailed

The detailed 15-points guide to live long, healthy

AtmasvasthBhavin Jankharia

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In our atmasvasth quest to live long, healthy, the big guns that prevent disease are physical activity, eating sensibly, sleeping well, vaccines and not falling followed by tests that detect disease early so we can control and treat better…high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high lipid levels and a few cancers.

If however we needed to focus on one thing only, it would be physical activity, a combination of walking/running and strength training, of which, as we age, strength training is probably the more important. 

And while we need to strengthen all our muscle groups with resistance training, there is one movement which is the big-daddy of them all…the pull-up. 

For the last 60-years of my life, I have never been able to do a pull-up. I had read that almost 90% of the world’s adult population cannot pull themselves up even by a couple of inches and so conned myself into believing that perhaps it was a specific body shape, likely governed by the right genetic profile that allowed those other 10% to do pull-ups…and I was not one of them.

As Wikipedia says [1], “the pull-up is a closed-chain movement where the body is suspended by the hands, gripping a bar or other implement at a distance typically wider than shoulder-width, and pulled up.”

Like an apex predator, the pull-up is the apex strength training variation. I have been lifting seriously for the last 7-8 years. I can bench press 14-20 kg of dumbbells each for 15 reps across 3 graded sets and I pull and push with higher than average weights for people my age, across pullovers, rows and shrugs. 

ChatGPT helped me create this pyramid of strength training exercises to give you an idea of where the pull-up is, in the scheme of things.

With all other exercises, you pull and push other weights, but with a pull-up, it is you versus you. You have to pull your body weight up. Perhaps the only other body-weight drill is the push-up, where you push your own body weight up from the floor, but you are still taking support of the floor and your legs to push yourself up, which reduces the body weight you are pushing to just around 64% [2]. The pull-up is you pulling up 100% of your body weight.

Didn’t I say that I was never able to do even one pull-up ever in my life?

Oh, I was able to do assisted pull-ups…jumping from the floor or a bench, or using a bench for support or even using loop bands…but those don’t count, unless they let you finally do one pull-up on your own.

So, my only new year resolution for 2025 was to be able to do one pull-up. Just one.

Like you see in inspirational sports movies (e.g. Rocky), every workout day, thrice a week, I would start with one pull-up…I do chin-ups with my forearms supinated…which are as good as pull-ups with the forearms pronated [3] as a study by Dickie J and colleagues has shown…in case you are a purist, who wants to argue.

I have a trainer who has been a guiding force, but it just wouldn’t work. Jan and Feb, I could barely lift myself up a couple of inches and March and April, perhaps another two. My trainer would take videos to document progress and sometimes if he angled the video upwards, it looked like I was doing better than I actually was…but that was just trick photography to trick my mind. 

I did some self-analysis and realized I was using my muscles inappropriately. I was trying to pull myself up with my arms, rather than the back muscles, which are the true drivers of this variation. 

I was able to add another inch in April and May, but by then my 25-years old daughter who also wanted to prove to herself she could do a pull-up was able to hoist herself up a few inches more than me and I felt that I was never going to be able to match up. 

Then there were vacation breaks.

In July and August, I started making a little progress after I recalibrated and started first by just activating my lats and traps by simulating a pull-up before actually doing one and focusing on my breath. I was able to add a couple more inches, but the end-result was always…disappointment. I don’t think there is any other exercise that can humble you the way the pull-up can…it looks so deceptively simple [4]…all you need is a solid bar or a tree-trunk and you have to just pull yourself up…how hard can that be. For a while I kept conveniently blaming everything on a mental block that was perhaps holding my body back.

One evening in early October, I started the same routine. I held the bars with my gloved hands, the fingers wrapped around the metal, I started shrugging my lats and traps up and down, then crossed one foot over another, straight as a malkhamb rod and focusing my mind on the back muscles, pulled myself up and my chin was suddenly over the bar. There was no one to witness it…my trainer, my wife and my daughter had all been doing their own routines and no one was able to visually appreciate what I had managed to do. 

I tried again after telling them, but that was in-between other upper body sets and I couldn’t replicate it…but they believed me anyway because there was no reason not to. 

If my mind had been holding me back, then that block had been blasted. The next day, I came back to the gym room to do only pull-ups, on my own, and I was able to do one pull-up the first time. Fatigue then reduced the amount I could pull myself up during successive tries, even with 2 minute breaks…I was fine with that.

Since then, I have been able to do one pull-up each day easily, if it is the first thing I do, when my muscles are fresh and haven’t been used for any other exercise variation. But I am unable to pull myself back up for a 2^nd rep, so now that’s the next goal…to be able to do more than one pull-up at the same time and then hopefully at least 5 reps in one set.

The pull-up has probably been around since even before humans evolved from apes…the need to pull oneself up over tree branches and other obstacles probably made this an important ability to possess. The pull-up was likely used as an exercise method by the ancient Greeks, but the modern pull-up dates itself from around the 1850s [5]. 

We need to strengthen and train different muscles of our body to prevent disease, keep sarcopenia at bay and to live long, healthy. But if there is just one exercise you want to focus on, then make it the pull-up. Like with running, it is you versus you and all you need is a bar that can hold your weight.

Try it today or tomorrow. See how you do. And see what you can do to get there, if you are among that 90% that is unable to do even one. 

If a 60-years old like me can finally do one pull-up, even if it is just one rep right now, how hard can it be for everyone, especially if you are younger?

Footnotes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull-up

2. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/12/an-ode-to-pull-ups/671903/

3. Dickie JA, Faulkner JA, Barnes MJ, Lark SD. Electromyographic analysis of muscle activation during pull-up variations. J Electromyogr Kinesiol. 2017 Feb;32:30-36. doi: 10.1016/j.jelekin.2016.11.004. Epub 2016 Nov 28. PMID: 28011412.

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-the-pull-up.html

5. https://physicalculturestudy.com/2018/05/11/the-history-of-the-pull-up/amp/