Matt: What’s up, guys. Matt here with Project Unbroken, and today want to talk about how to start building pull-up strength to do a strict pull-up. So, we have a couple of options here in my gym, and I’ll show you the first one that we usually start with, is essentially a jumping pull-up. We’re going to go over the mechanics, but a lot of times just kind of getting used to running through that range of motion is going to be really important for learning how to do a pull-up, and intensity’s going to play a big part in that. So, instead of just jumping up there and trying to dead hang and pull yourself up and maybe get halfway up there before you fail, it’s just going to not be a good way to move forward.
Matt: So let’s get a couple wins under our belts, and I’ll go through some different ways to do that. Jumping pull-ups, you want to situate yourself so when you’re standing the pull-up bar is right underneath our wrist. All right. We’re not trying to be too high up on that. You want to be able to utilize a little bit of your legs jumping up to help you pull overhead.
Matt: For these, I’m going to grip just outside my shoulders and I want to think about active shoulders. What I mean active shoulders, I want to think about external rotation, so kind of turn my shoulders out this way, start turning on some of my lats and scapula muscles in the upper back. So, from here I’m going to get right underneath the bar. I’m going to dip down and jump, and when I jump I’m going to try to pull my chin over the bar, and I’m going to jump right back down.
Speaker 2: If they have a pull-up bar that’s higher, they can obviously use a box or any type of standing thing-
Matt: Yeah. If your pull-up bar’s a little bit higher, find a bench or a box. Get it set up about the same way. This is a little high for me, but whatever, we’ll just pretend, same thing. The next step this is going to be important, and I would probably tie all these together a little bit. So we have the jumping pull-ups.
Matt: The next step is going to work a little bit more on the strict movement. All right. This is kind of taking away a little bit of our body weight. I have a bar set up here in the squat rack. I’m going to kind of set down, slight bend my knees so my weights back in my heels, and I’m going to get active shoulders turning those external rotation on. Pulling up, chin over the bar, and then back down, and this you got to use your legs a little bit and your core to kind of help stabilize you as you’re pulling up over that bar.
Matt: So, again, here’s a few more. External rotation, active shoulders, pull up, and then back down. So you’ll see I’m trying to keep my torso nice and upright. I’m not pulling into my chest like that. That’s more of a row, which is a great workout. We’re trying to build the muscles that are going to move us up and down vertically. All right. These are going to be really good to work in.
Matt: When you start to build some more of that strength, we could start messing around with bands a little bit. All right. Here at the gym we have all different types of bands, different resistances. These ones are really going to help you out a lot. This one’s kind of somewhere in the middle. What we want to focus on is keeping these strict though. We’re not worrying about kipping or moving around at all until we start to build that strict pull-up strength.
Matt: I’ll do this kind of facing you. I’m going to pull this down, put one of my feet in the bands. Make sure it’s under the middle of your foot. You don’t want this thing slipping of your foot and slapping you in the face. I’m going to cross my other foot in front for the same reason just to keep everything locked in and the same pull-up stance. Squeezing my belly, rotating my shoulders externally, so getting everything fired up in my lats and in my upper back, and then looking straight forward. Pull up and then down.
Matt: So, what this band is doing is kind of just assisting me a little bit, taking away some of my body weight to help me pull overhead. Again, I’m not trying to utilize too much of a kip or any kip at all really. I just want to work on focusing 100% on using these muscles in my back and in my shoulders to pull my chin over the bar.
Matt: These are three really good places to start that are safe. You’re not going to be dangling from the high pull-up bar struggling to pull yourself up. These are all very doable. The jumping pull-up is a great place to start. If you can find a lower pull-up bar or set up a barbell in that lower position, that’s going to really help, and then when you feel comfortable with that, so working up to a heavier band and then we can adjust from there.
Matt: We’ll have more videos like this coming, but if you’re working on getting that strict pull-up strength, these are three really good places to start. Thanks for watching guys.
