Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Power of Pull Ups for Overall Strength Development

By Marcus Martinez

Pull ups are a powerful exercise that unfortunately, many people avoid like the plague. The reason is simple, pull ups are difficult! Many people have trouble doing one pull up, much less a workout incorporating many. That's too bad because pull ups have the ability to dramatically increase shoulder, back, and grip strength in no time.

Pull ups are an excellent strength exercise that give you a lot of bang for the buck. There aren't too many other body weight training routines that can hit so many muscles in your upper body. Just hanging from the bar can help increase your grip strength, much less than a full pull up routine. You'll see benefits in your arms, shoulders, back, and your abs.

It doesn't matter if you can't even do one pull up; once you start trying you'll be reaping the benefits of the exercise. You just need to build up to the point of incorporating entire sets into your workout plan. The best way to work up to this is by using a technique call Greasing the Groove.

Kettlebell guru Pavel Tsatsouline teaches the Grease the Groove technique to show people how to increase their ability to perform an exercise. Here's how it works: over a long period (1 to 8 hours), you do as many reps as you can of an exercise. So for pull ups, you would do at least one rep every time you walk by a pull up bar. If you do it throughout the day, even if you're only able to do one rep at a time you'll still have done a number of reps and have built the strength needed to eventually do multiple reps during one set.

Say you don't have access to a pull up bar for a whole day (if you'd like to buy one, I recommend the Tactical Athlete Pull Up System). No problem! You can Grease the Groove during your gym session. During an hour long workout, try doing a few pull ups every 5 minutes or so. By the end of the hour, you'll have done at least 10 to 12 pull ups.

One piece of equipment that gave me the ability to do pull ups at home or anywhere I wanted was the Tactical Athlete Pull up System (TAPS). It assembles to become a free-standing pull up system. I use it at home or take it with me. It assembles in about 15 minutes and is perfect for group training or outdoor training.

The height, portability, and stability of the Tactical Athlete Pull Up System are what make it special. The adjustable height allows you to do exercises with a full hang, no matter how tall you are. The portability also allows you to put it up wherever you want to workout, whether that be in your garage, backyard, or at a park. For doing pull ups, nothing beats it.

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