Just because you focus time and effort on a particular body part—more planks and crunches, anyone?— doesn’t mean your body will respond the way you want. While genetics will always play a factor in how you look, your biggest problem is not your DNA; it’s the exercises you select and how you activate your muscles while performing them.

Developing the strongest core possible involves all of your muscles, not just the ones you think of when you look in the mirror.

Unlike other exercises where it might be hard to tell if you’re doing an exercise correctly, it’s easy to “feel” most core movements. And, that makes it easy to think that what you’re doing is working.

But, what you don’t realize is that how you perform the exercises you choose — no matter how much they burn — make a big difference in the results you see.

Consider these the rules of effective ab workouts. Follow them, and it’ll ensure that the exercises you do will help prevent injuries like lower back pain and bring out the best in your body.

Core Rule #1: Create Tension in Your Abs

When people think of bracing their abs, usually it just involves the rectus abdominus, AKA your 6-pack muscle, which runs down the front of your body. This is great if you’re getting ready to be punched in the gut, but it usually also involves some level of spinal flexion (think rounding your back) and decreased involvement of other spinal supporting muscles.

Developing the strongest core possible involves using all of your muscles, not just the ones you think of when you look in the mirror.

If you’re standing up holding a lot of weight during a deadlift, you need a lot more than your six-pack to protect your spine and prevent injury.

How to Build Ab Tension

Try this: sit up nice and tall wherever you are and put your hands on your lower back, one hand on either side of the spine and flat to the muscles beside it.

Flex your abs and see what you feel under your hands.

If you felt nothing, you’re likely only flexing your spine and not engaging everything around your spine. Try to flex again, but this time try to bring every muscle around your waist into the mix. Here’s what you want to experience:

1. Feel your ribs pull into your center.
2. Force your shoulders to pull back slightly.
3. Feel contraction under your hands in your lower back, all while feeling incredibly strong and powerful.

This feeling is the one you want to try to replicate with your exercises. Now comes the tricky part. Inhale and exhale without losing that tension. (Also known as bracing.)

It’s tricky because bracing very hard will restrict your breathing, but without breathing you would likely not fare as well in longer duration exercise. Not to mention, passing out in the gym is generally something you want to avoid unless you’re looking to star in the next viral YouTube video.

How to Make Bracing Easier

The Farmer’s walk teaches you how to brace and keep tension while breathing. Grab two dumbbells or kettlebells, stand tall, grip the handles hard, and take them for a walk for as far as your grip will allow. That’s it, but make sure you practice the bracing and breathing.

Core Rule #2: Activate Your Glutes During Core Exercises

If you want a burn in your abs like never before, flex your glutes when you perform core exercises. While it may seem somewhat counterintuitive to use a muscle group on the other side of your body, your glutes have specific functions that directly impact the action of your abs.

Your glutes not only cause hip extension but also cause your pelvis to go through a “posterior tilt.” Think of this movement as trying to roll your hips so that your tailbone comes closer to your knees. This posterior tilt involves a lot of ab activation.

How to Activate your Glutes

Do a plank, but try to squeeze your glutes as hard as possible and see what happens with your abs. If you want even more tension and ridiculous amounts of suffering (and benefits), squeeze your armpits too by pressing your forearms into the floor.

Core Tip #3: Improve Your Mobility

Holding a static stretch for a few seconds or even a minute or more might feel great, but it isn’t likely to increase your mobility. And before you say, “who cares about your mobility,” the answer is your abs care.

More mobility leads to better stability. Better stability leads to more muscle activation. More muscle activation is a key component of better abs, more strength, and fewer injuries.

One very effective method involves short bursts where you maximize tension during core stability exercises. A core stability exercise is anything like a plank, side plank, or half-kneeling hold.

Here’s an example of the process in action.

This concept can be used effectively as part of a warm-up for a workout, or in between challenging sets of more traditional weight training exercises. An example of this would be as follows:

Warm-up version

Perform 3 “reps” of 10-holds of each of the following:

1. Standard plank
2. Side plank (3 reps on each side)
3. ½ kneeling hold with elastic pulling you to the side, each side
4. Glute bridge, max contractions

Repeat for 2 sets each.

In-between sets version

1. Exercise A (any move you’re doing in your workout)
2. Front plank, 3 x 10 seconds

Complete this series as a superset before resting.

1. Exercise B
2. Rotational planks, 8 reps each side

Complete this series as a superset before resting.

Exercise C

Glute bridge leg swings, 8 each (Complete this series as a superset before rest)

Core Tip #4: Add Speed to Basic Movements

Using speed doesn’t simply mean trying to set the record for how quickly you can blast through an entire set of an exercise. This is about the time taken to complete a single rep, all while maintaining tension in your muscles.

When working on speed, the goal is to make the movement as fast as possible, then recover enough to allow for a similar or faster speed to occur. Think of this as an intensity continuum: you want to push yourself to create maximum intensity on each set and rep.

Consider the difference between doing a seated military press (usually a slower speed movement) and an Olympic weightlifter doing a jerk press. The movement is exactly the same with respect to the involvement of the upper body, but the jerk press is faster in execution and requires a lot more timing and technique to execute properly.

How to Add Speed

Try doing a basic exercise like a bird dog. You could do a “neuropulse,” where you try to make your arm and leg movements as fast as possible and recover back to the starting position without falling over.

You could do something similar with a stomping motion to increase drive velocity through your hips, knees, and ankles.

This would be an incredible way to prepare for exercises such as squats, deadlifts, Olympic lifting, or sprinting.

Core Tip #5: Master Your Breathing

How you breathe during a max-weight squat, sprint, sparring session, or a yoga class should be very different. And learning how to tailor your breathing to specific activities won’t only make you better at what you’re doing, but it’ll also have a surprising core and abs benefit.

Here are a few things you should consider based on the activity you perform.

How to Breathe During Max Lifts

If you’re looking to lift a max weight, you would likely benefit from taking a massive inhale prior to starting the rep and then holding your breath. You want to squeeze your breath as hard as possible to help increase spinal stability and core pressure to prevent losing control of the weight.

How to Breathe When Sprinting

If sprinting is more up your alley, breathing in a pulsed manner when your foot hits the ground would give you an instantaneous burst of stability and core activity that would help propel you down.

This is preferred over long, slow breathing or holding your breath. This is similar to sparring, where timing your exhales to your punches would help you generate more power and last longer before you run out of steam.

How to Breathe For Yoga

For mobility or activities like yoga, longer and deeper inhales and exhales are ideal. It can be a little tricky to understand, so let’s break it down.

Try this: Sitting up nice and tall, put your hands on your stomach and take a deep long inhale, trying to fill your belly. If done correctly, you should feel your stomach press out into your hands.

Exhale nice and slowly and see how your abdominal muscles feel. They’re likely soft and supple.

Now try to take a big inhale, then close your mouth and squeeze your abs hard, like squeezing a balloon without letting the air out. Your abs will likely feel solid and like you’re not going anywhere. Then, breathe out hard and try to flex the abs as hard as possible while doing it.

Lastly, keeping your hands on your stomach, take a fast hard sniff in through your nose. Feel what your abs did, and then exhale in a sharp, short, and hard breath like a martial artist throwing a jab or punch.

Your abs probably had more of a twitch-type contraction where they saw a massive shapeshift, became rock hard for an instant, and then went back to their resting state. This quick on-off cycle is one of the keys to athleticism and speed development.

These quick and simple tips will not only help you see the difference in better-defined and stronger abs, but you’ll feel the difference when it comes to moving weights, running, and being more athletic.

Better Abs, Better Core, Better Body

Want to upgrade your core training? Then check out “Advanced Core Training.” This #BornApproved product has been tested and vetted by Born Fitness coaches.

[Editor’s note: Born Fitness receives no compensation for the recommendation or purchases of Advanced Core Training. As part of our editorial integrity, compensation is not involved in any content recommendation, unless otherwise mentioned.]

READ MORE: 

The Abs Workout: How to Transform Your Midsection

How to Fix Your Posture

Mom’s Got Abs: How Kristen Shed the Baby Weight

Dean Somerset is an exercise physiologist in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Between writing articles for publishers like Men’s Health, T-Nation, and Bodybuilding.com, Dean trains a variety of clients, from medical rehabilitation through to world and Olympic champion athletes of various sports, and even paralympic athletes. He also enjoys squats and cookies, not necessarily in that order.

The post Why Your Ab Workouts Don’t Work appeared first on Born Fitness.

1. You have shoulder pain and want to do something about it. 
2. Your shoulders don’t hurt, and you want to keep it that way.

Either way, you’ve come to the right place if you want to end your shoulder discomfort and be able to move freely and perform exercises without pain.

I’ve spent my life working with a mix of rehab patients and strength athletes, which means my job requires me to become an expert in pain management and prevention.

Because let’s be honest: no one likes shoulder pain, and — even worse — no one likes doing a bunch of exercises that don’t seem to solve the problem. 

Shoulder pain has two different variations: you might experience acute pain (“Ouch! I did something and now my shoulder hurts.”), which makes it feel like your shoulder is only an issue when you perform certain moves. Or, you could have chronic pain, which is a constant discomfort or an achy soreness. 

Many people who perform a bunch of rotator cuff exercises to protect their shoulders are misusing their time.

In either situation, there are many commonalities that lead to both types of shoulder pain. There are many shoulder movements that can have a massive impact on whether you’re able to perform an exercise without causing damage or irritation.

The mechanics of your shoulder are complex, which means exercise technique matters a lot. But as you’ll soon see, there’s one factor that’s most important to healing and keeping your shoulders healthy. 

Exercise or Execution: Why Your Shoulders Really Hurt

Let’s begin with a simple disclaimer. I’ve spent my life helping people rehab and live pain-free, and no matter who I work with, it’s clear that no Internet article can diagnose and fix your problems.

If you’re here for a little achiness or prevention, then this will help. But, if you’re experiencing severe pain that hurts all day — or you’re recovering from a major injury or surgery — then you should get checked by a medical professional to see what’s going on and first consult with your doctor or physical therapist. 

With that out of the way, let’s make sense of your shoulder pain.

Shoulder pain is common among people who lift weights. It’s not just amateurs or weekend warriors getting hurt. It also applies to Powerlifters, CrossFitters, Bodybuilders, and even the Highland Games guys. And studies of highly-trained Olympic lifters show that they also struggle with shoulder pain.

The exercises that tend to cause the most trouble are pressing movements like the bench press or standing overhead press (also known as the military press).

Here’s the thing about those exercises: the movement itself usually isn’t the problem. In fact, the movement is quite simple—you just push the weight in a straight line. It’s pretty hard to mess that up.

So, if the movement isn’t the issue, then what is? It’s the position you’re in when you go to perform the exercise. Let’s take the overhead press and start with a simple example of why this causes problems.

The Shoulder Question You Didn’t Consider

An easy way to understand your shoulder pain is to think about running. If you rarely (or never) run and then are asked to sprint multiple times, what is likely to happen? Maybe you pull a muscle, feel a strain, or suffer some other injury that occurs from going from one extreme (no use) to another (high-intensity reps).

The same is true for overhead movements. Most people go through their days without bringing their arms over their heads at all. Instead, they spend the day in various hunched positions: looking at phones, staring at laptops, slouching in desk chairs.  

Over time, you lose the ability to extend your mid and upper back (this is known as your thoracic spine). To “extend” your upper back here would look like a “head up, shoulders back” position. Its opposite is the shoulders-rounded-forward hunchback that is your existence.

The thoracic spine directly impacts what your shoulders can (and can’t) do. If you’re unable to extend your thoracic spine, that in turn limits how your shoulder blades can move. The more your upper back starts to look like Quasimodo, the more difficult it is to get your shoulders into the proper position to press a weight overhead.

In other words: you struggle with the movement because your shoulder blades don’t know how to move correctly. I’m going to get technical for a moment to explain exactly why this is such a pain in the ass…or in your case, your shoulders.

Just know this: if you can’t move your shoulder overhead correctly, all the other small structures around your shoulder blade are working overtime, and like most things in life that get overworked, they quickly become pissed off and that’s why you have shoulder pain or get injured.

Why Your Shoulders Lack Mobility

Nerd alert: If you want to skip the detailed reason why your shoulders are not moving correctly, simply skip the next 4 paragraphs.

In order to lift your arm 180 degrees overhead, the scapula, or the triangular bone on the backside of your shoulder that kinda looks like a wing, must rotate about 60 degrees.

You get into trouble when you can’t get this movement to occur. If your thoracic spine is rolled forward, it limits your ability to move your scapula (AKA the shoulder blade).

As a result, in order to get your arm overhead, you’d have to move the entire shoulder joint—which requires a lot of its structures to move through a bigger range of motion than they can manage properly.

This also limits the ability of the upper arm bone (humerus) to make solid contact with the socket of the shoulder (glenoid fossa) to help bear the load of the weight being moved. As a result, the soft tissues of your rotator cuff and joint capsule have to pull double duty.

[Nerd alert over]

Think of your shoulder blade rotation like hip mobility on a deadlift. If you can’t move your hips back far enough so you can grab the weight, something else has to move in order for you to get down and grab the bar. This is why so many people hurt their back on deadlifts.

That “something else” usually winds up being your lower back. And, if your back is doing the work of your hips, you’re going to get hurt.

The same goes for shoulder movement. If soft tissues and joint capsules are doing the work that the bigger muscles like your deltoids were intended to do, you may get away with it for a while. But, you’re eventually going to have a problem.

Why Rotator Cuff Exercises Are Misused (The Fire Hydrant Rule)

Using the explanation above, this is why many people who perform rotator cuff exercises to protect their shoulders are misusing their time.

No amount of band rotations (those exercises where you bend your elbow 90 degrees, grab a resistance tube, and then rotate the forearm to pull the tube away from the body) will improve your thoracic spine mobility.

Sure, doing those moves will help your rotator cuff be strong and powerful. But, it’s the equivalent of grabbing a bigger bucket to catch water from a fire hydrant instead of just turning off the hydrant itself.

If you address the things that are really causing poor shoulder mechanics, you can stop the problems at their source.

Why Bench Press Causes Shoulder Pain

The bench press can cause similar issues for the shoulder, but for a slightly different reason.

In order to set up properly for the bench press, you have to pull your shoulder blades together and down in order to create a strong and stable base of support.

Here’s what you should do before every bench press set. (The first 15 seconds of this video are the most important):

There are just two problems:

1. Not everyone realizes that pulling the shoulders together and back is part of the setup. (And if that’s you, now you know. Go forth and conquer.)
2. Some do know this but don’t have enough thoracic mobility to pull their shoulder blades back and tight.

In either case, without the proper setup, the front of your shoulders wind up paying the price.

If your shoulders aren’t pulled back and locked in, when you lower the weight toward your chest, your upper arm bone has to move around within the shoulder capsule to allow the bar to get down.

This can result in the arm moving forward—a motion called anterior glide. And anterior glide puts a lot of pressure on the tissues meant to keep the joint together, like the biceps tendon and rotator cuff muscles, causing them to be irritated or even damaged.

How to Fix Your Shoulder Pain 

Here’s the good news: Many of the problems with the overhead press and the bench press are rooted in issues with your thoracic mobility and shoulder blade movement. This means fixing those issues will help you feel better during both of those exercises (and plenty of others, too).

Instead of loading up on 15 different variations of rotator cuff exercises, let’s address both of these common movement problems—thoracic and scapula issues—at their source. Then, you can set the stage for more appropriate shoulder pressing movements with less discomfort.

Shoulder Pain Solution #1: Breathe (But, do it correctly)

The first thing you should do to correct your thoracic positioning is to spend just a few minutes doing a little breathing drill, which my friend Tony Gentilcore is going to demonstrate for you here:

https://youtu.be/EtpB8dM4cEM

You’re probably thinking, “Breathing? What?” But stay with me.

Your breathing holds a big influence over the position of your torso. Not breathing correctly tends to limit thoracic motion, which as we discussed earlier has a direct effect on shoulder motion. So, when you perform these drills:

• Breathe deep, with long slow inhales and forceful exhales.
• Go slow and focus on getting more movement versus just doing the reps. Quality should always come before quantity.

Shoulder Pain Solution #2: Foam Roll Like a Pro

Next up you’re going to bring in the foam roller to work on the tissues in your thoracic spine directly. Pay close attention to how we’re going to use it.

Those are called T-Spine Extensions. Let’s talk about what the movement is not:

• It is not you rolling around a whole bunch. In fact, watch that video again. Notice that the roller doesn’t move at all.
• It is not you trying to get a bunch of movement by flaring your ribcage out. You want to keep your abs engaged throughout this drill so that the movement is coming entirely from your upper back.
• It is not your goal to touch the ground with the back of your head. You’re not trying to be Gumby here.

What you are trying to do is get a little more up-and-back movement out of your thoracic spine. That’s all. The motion will be subtle and may be difficult to feel at first.

But work at it, and you’ll soon feel a little more freedom in your upper back and shoulders. That’s what you’re going for here.

Advanced Exercises To Relieve Shoulder Pain

You’d go a long way toward having better shoulder mechanics just by adding the moves shown in those two videos to your warm-up. But, if you want to go further, you can jump into the deep end of the pool with this clip from The Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint:

In this video, you’ll find more awesomely impactful breathing drills—including one that works the smaller muscles in the thoracic spine, so much that a guy actually starts shaking.

The clip starts out with those. And, if you’re the type of person who secretly loves band rotator cuff exercises, be pumped: Later in the clip, you will find band exercises, except these will have a lot more impact on improving your shoulder movement and position overall:

• Beginning at 7:08, you’ll find the “Band W,” which activates the muscles around your shoulder blade and the lower part of your trapezius.
• At 8:56 you’ll see Tony demonstrate two more band exercises—the Windshield Wiper and the Wall Walk—that will light up the muscles in and around your back, especially your serratus, or the muscles on the sides of your ribs up by your armpits. Bonus: A strong serratus helps give you a “V” shaped torso.
• Lastly, when you reach the 12:12 mark you’ll get a move that lets you correct some of these issues in one shoulder at a time—a helpful way to correct imbalances.

These movements can act as a warm-up for your workout, fillers between sets of presses to help keep the motion gliding along nicely, or as the workout itself if you’ve been experiencing pain and want to improve your mechanics.

But again, if your shoulders always hurt, you should speak with a qualified therapist. There may be something more specific you could be doing, and you’ll want to make sure these aren’t going to do any harm. (The moves are very safe, but it’s worth checking.)

Here’s one more thing to keep in mind whenever you perform a shoulder exercise: Use your abs.

If you have limited movement from your thoracic spine, a common mistake is to just lean back with your lower back and avoid doing anything with your upper back.

This is both risky and counterproductive since you’re simultaneously putting extra pressure on your lumbar spine while also decreasing tension on the muscles you’re trying to work in the first place. By bracing your abs, you can help limit this and be sure that you’re getting movement in the places you actually want to move.

READ MORE: 

How to Fix Your Posture

6 Exercise Upgrades for Better Results

Foods That Fight Inflammation

Dean Somerset is a kinesiologist, strength coach, author and public speaker who specializes in injury and medical dysfunction management through exercise program design. The seriously in-depth “The Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint,” which Somerset and Gentilcore teamed up to create, is available online. Born Fitness is not an affiliate and has no financial stake or interest in the product, other than our general want for Dean and Tony to succeed in life since they’re good guys who offer great info.     

The post The End of Shoulder Pain appeared first on Born Fitness.

Your arms and back have to do an enormous amount of work to lift your entire body, which is why being able to perform many reps is an effective way to improve not just the obvious muscles — your back, arms and forearms — but can also help you build incredible core strength.

In fact, as an exercise physiologist and strength coach, I’d go so far as to say that the pull-up is the world’s most under-appreciated way to develop your abs—and every other muscle in your midsection, for that matter.

All of that is great, but there’s one problem: It’s an exercise that gives a lot of people a lot of trouble, regardless of whether you’ve been training for years or just started.

If you are struggling to perform a pull-up — or you wish you could do many more — I’ll share a few simple-to-learn techniques that aren’t taught enough and will change everything about your pull-up performance.

By the time you’re done, you’ll not only be surprised by how quickly you can improve, but also by how many of the methods used to increase your upper body strength aren’t actually pull-ups.

Can’t Do a Pull-up? Start Here

If you can’t do any pull-ups, odds are you’ll blame it on your lack of back strength. To become stronger, you might start doing countless 1-arm rows and other dumbbell or barbell exercises.

While those exercise will make you stronger (and are a part of the solution), they won’t guarantee that you’ll be able to do more pull-ups. That’s because pull-ups aren’t just about your back.

Even if you have a really strong back, you can struggle with pull-ups if you have a weak core.

Core stiffness, or being able to create tension throughout your torso, is a key part of successfully doing a pull-up.

Your shoulder blades are connected to your torso. A stiff, stable core gives your arms something strong to pull on. And that can have a massive impact on your ability to lift your body.

So if you are struggling with your pull-ups—or can’t do a pull-up at all—train your core with these moves.

(If you prefer to watch all tips, here’s a video breaking down a lot of the progressions we’ll discuss today. In it, you’ll see my friend and fellow coach Tony Gentilcore demonstrating a lot of the moves discussed here.)

Hollow Body Holds

Start by lying on the floor. Lift your arms overhead (biceps in line with your ears), keeping your elbows straight.

Cross your hands and your ankles. Then press your hands and ankles into each other to create tension, and lift up into the hollow body position.

Let’s talk about that term “hollow” for a second. You might hear it and think: “belly button to spine.” DON’T DO THAT.

In a good hollow position, your abs are securely braced, as if they were about to take a punch. Take a breath in and squeeze. If anything, your abs will move slightly outward.

Start by holding a hollow body position while pressing your hands into each other and pressing your ankles into each other. This builds some of the body tension related to the position of hanging from a bar.

Hold this position for 5 seconds or 2-3 breaths per rep, maintaining as much head-to-toe tension as you can (more on how to create tension). Take a 5-second break, then repeat for 5-6 reps per set. Over time, you can increase the duration of your holds. If you can maintain tension for a full minute, that’s really good.

Hollow Body Horizontal Pull-ups

Next, you’re going to use a dowel or broomstick. Hold it in both hands as if it were the pull-up bar.

Start with your arms straight and elbows locked out, as if you were hanging from a pull-up bar. Then, while you hold the hollow position, bend your elbows to pull the bar across your face and toward your chest line, mimicking the pull-up movement.

The goal here is to maintain the core strength requirement while including an arm movement that replicates the pull-up—all while trying to breathe.

Hold the hollow body and try to complete 8-10 reps, breathing out as the bar comes to your collarbone.

Hollow Body Leg Raises

Are you a boss at the hollow body work? Great! Then it’s time to take it up another notch.

You can create some additional arm stimulus, and increase the challenge to your core, by doing a leg raise. Keep both knees locked out and cross one foot over the other. Pull down on the stick and lift your toes toward it. You may even be able to touch your toes to the bar, depending on your level of strength and control.

The big thing to remember here is to maintain tension throughout your lats to help pull your torso up. Squeeze the bar as hard as you can in your hands and think about pulling down on the bar as much as you are pulling up with your legs. This tension in your arms, back and core will help you lift your legs more easily.

Perform a set of 5-8 reps.

Stability Ball Rollouts

Another exercise that develops core stiffness is a stability ball rollout. There are two ways you can perform the movement, and both are helpful to your pull-up quest.

Option #1: Try to keep your abs tensed and press your hips forward, allowing your arms to extend out as you move. Then pull back with your hips.  This version will place more emphasis on your abs and lower back, while taking some of the work off of your shoulders

Option #2: Do the same thing as you did in option #1, but use your lats to try and pull the ball back with your elbows to return to the starting position. In this version the shoulder angle is changing, which means the muscles that control the shoulders will be under greater load.

Complete 5-10 reps of either option, or both if you’re a little crazy.

How to Build Strength on the Pull-up Bar

Before you start pulling, it’s helpful to build your skill hanging from the bar.

Bar Hang

You might struggle at maintaining a dead hang from the bar due to grip strength. Hanging for 10-30 seconds can be a simple and very effective way to build the grip strength needed to perform pull-ups.

Hanging Shoulder Shrugs

When you can conquer that challenge with ease, your next goal is pulling your shoulders down and tight to your ribs while holding the same hollow body position you used on the ground.

Hold that position for 5 seconds per rep, breathing out forcefully with each contraction.

Hanging Leg Raises

Have the hollow body hang down cold? Good. You can add in some leg raises to really take it up a notch.

Start with a bent knee leg raise. The key is to not sway.

If that’s no problem, try a straight leg raise. Again, you want to avoid rocking back and forth. The movement should be slow and controlled.

In all likelihood, you will find at least one of these moves challenging. Because your goal with these is quality, not quantity, you can use “micro sets” to accumulate volume. Try to hit 10 amazingly good reps total. To do that, you might need to perform 5 sets of 2, or 4 sets of 2-to-3, or 3 sets of 3, and so on.

If you wanted to get a little crazy, you could try to bring your toes to the bar. Use your arms to help pull-up on your torso to get a more horizontal angle on the movement.

Pull-up Training: Mastering the Movement

Now let’s “grease the groove” of the movement in a way that will help you develop strength if you’re a beginner, and provide value if you’re more advanced.

Flexed Arm Hang

The flexed arm hang is a simple, yet underutilized move that will have all the muscles in your back and arms firing hard.  

To perform the move, just grab the bar and jump up. Keeping your chest as close to the bar as possible, hang there as long as you can tolerate. When you start to feel yourself coming down, fight the lowering for 3-5 seconds so you can get some eccentric strength development out of the move.

Try to maintain 10 to 30 seconds per hold, accumulating up to 30 seconds in a workout.  For eccentric reps, try to keep it to a max of 5 reps of 3-5 second eccentric lowering unless you want to look like a T-Rex for a few days after your workout because you’re too sore to extend your elbows.

Band Assisted Pull-ups

Once you are able to do flexed arm hangs (and the 3-5 second lowering) with skill and control, you should be ready to try the pull-up.

If you want to ease yourself into the movement, start by using a band for assistance.

The thicker the band, the more assistance it provides. Similarly, placing two feet in the band versus just one gives you more help when you perform the move.

Start with the thickest band you need in order to execute the move, then work down to smaller, thinner bands over time.

(More ways to use resistance bands in your workouts here.)

The “Pernicious Pull-up Power” Workout Routine

So how do you put all of this together into a realistic pull-up training plan you could use on a regular basis? Glad you asked.

You want to “train for the movement” frequently. Three to four times a week is ideal.

Notice I said “train for the movement” and not “train the movement itself.” That’s because not all of your sessions need to include pull-ups. In fact, you’ll only perform actual pull-ups one day per week on this plan.

Here’s a sample calendar of what this pull-up training plan looks like:

DAY 1

Hollow Body Holds – 4 sets x 5 reps/set x 5 second hold per rep

Bar Hangs – 4 x sets x 6 reps/set x 5 second hold per rep

Flexed Arm Hang – accumulate 30 seconds

DAY 2

Hanging Shoulder Shrugs – 4 sets x 5 reps/set x 5 second hold per rep

Hollow Body Horizontal pull-ups – 4 sets x 8-10 reps/set

Hanging Leg Raises – 10 total reps

DAY 3

Hollow Body Leg Raises – 4 sets x 5-8 reps of smooth controlled tension

Eccentric pull-ups – 4 x sets of 4-5 reps working on 3-5 second eccentrics

DAY 4 (Pull-up day!) 

**If you can’t do a pull-up, perform…

Band Assisted Pull-ups – aim for a max of 3 reps per set

** If you can do pull-ups, then….

Pull-ups – start with a single max set, then perform 3 sets of 50% of this number. For instance, if you do 6 on the first set, do 3 sets of 3.

Following this pattern will help you develop pull-up specific strength in your back and arms and the core stiffness needed to accomplish the movement. Since there are a max of three moves per session, you can combine this simple calendar with your current training program.

Pull-ups may never be easy. But by training for them specifically, you’ll soon be able to do a lot more than you think.

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Dean Somerset is a kinesiologist, strength coach, author and public speaker who specializes in injury and medical dysfunction management through exercise program design. The seriously in-depth “The Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint,” which Somerset and Tony Gentilcore teamed up to create, is available now. Born Fitness is not an affiliate and has no financial stake or interest in the product, but we do genuinely think Dean and Tony are rad, and are way better at pull-ups thanks to their knowledge.      

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