How to do More Pull Ups

Pull ups are a tough job! When doing a pull up workout, one has to pull up one's whole body weight by using the force of the back muscles ! So its never easy, especially for beginners. So, do not be discouraged if you manage only 1, 2 or none at all, on your first attempt. This article will give you hints about how to do more pull ups, effectively.

Pull Up Exercise and Muscle Growth

Before going for an exercise, like doing pull ups, one must understand the proper technique of doing them and the set of muscle groups it is intended to develop. The pull up exercise routine targets the back muscles and especially the one called 'Latissimus Dorsi' and connected muscles which form the connection between the shoulder and the lower back.

Every exercise is about the development of a certain muscle group. Exercise stimulates the muscle to grow. The way to make a muscle tougher, is to subject it to stress and challenge its strength. As in every exercise routine, you raise the stress level and reach your 'pain threshold', the muscle gets challenged and is forced to grow!

The pain threshold is the zone where you know you are making your muscles go a little beyond what they are used to. This is what prompts growth and this is where we start getting better. However, you should raise the intensity of that particular workout slowly, one more repetition at a time. In exercise, extremes should be avoided! Remember, anything that is subjected to too much stress suddenly, snaps! So mastering any exercise and developing your body is all about patience, dedication and regular determined effort, increasing in intensity. In short, what you use, gets better and strengthens, while what you do not use, you lose. This is true about every muscle including your brain!

Proper Pull Up Technique

Coming back to pull ups, let us understand the method and equipment to do a pull up. What you need is a firmly fixed horizontal pull up bar, high enough for your own height and strong enough to support your weight. If, you are working in a gym, it won't be a problem as they usually have a pull up bar installed.

Hang on the bar with palms facing away from you body. Your both hands should be straight and preferably equally spread apart from the bar center. Let your chest be out and shoulders behind. Now look straight and pull up your whole body weight, till your chin is well above the bar. Now slowly lower your body back to the initial straight elbowed position. This completes one pull up. Breathe in before you go up and breathe out at the top.

Do not jump on the bar and start the pull up or use leg jerks to pull yourself up. The leg jerks divert the concentrated effort that the back muscles are normally subjected to. Avoid jerks and go for fluid movements. Go slow when you are pulling yourself up and lowering down. This puts more sustained stress on muscles and aids their growth.

How to Increase Your Pull Ups

Now that we know how to do a proper pull up, we can come to the main purpose of writing this article. Following is the way in which you can increase your pull ups:

Persistent Effort

How do you get better at anything in life? You keep doing it and hang in there without quitting. If you want to increase your number of pull ups, you need to do exactly the same thing, literally hang in there! Even if progress is slow, remember persistence always pays. So the mantra to do more pull ups is to keep 'doing them'.

If you are able to pull off 2 pull ups today, try doing one more the next day. Once you can comfortably do 3, increase target again. Keep doing this and one day, you will go beyond 10. One step at a time and persistent effort daily, will surely increase your number of pull ups.

Some people may recommend using resistance bands or assistance machines that aid you in pulling yourself up. I won't recommend that because I believe its always better to start off with the real thing and without handicaps! This way, you take longer to learn but the muscle growth that you will get this way, will be far more than the assisted effort. Play some nice motivating music while you do your pull ups and work out. I personally prefer playing the the theme song from the movie 'Rocky' called the 'Eye of the Tiger' or the other training theme. Hang in there and keep at it, you are bound to succeed!

I hope you got a good idea about how to do more pull ups! The idea is plain and simple; to get better at something, keep doing it! There is no other way out. Even if there is, it won't help you, there are never any short cuts in muscle building! So hang in there and keep pulling yourself up!