The pull-up is one of the most commonly performed, and misperformed, exercises in the gym. In this video,Atheal X is going to show you how to never do them incorrectly again and give you the fixes for the 10 most common pullup mistakes. Whether you can do 10 pull-ups or more now or struggle to do one, you’ll find this incredibly helpful and I guarantee you will be doing more reps by the time the video is over.
The first thing you need to be aware of is how you are gripping the bar. If you grip too narrow you will shift the focus of the movement from the stronger back muscles to the weaker muscles of the forearms. You want to make sure you are just outside of shoulder width with the hand placement for optimal performance on this exercise.
That said, the brachioradialis and brachialis are muscles that are going to be contributing to the pullup and your ability to do the most reps possible so you are going to need to train them. You just don’t want them being the main drivers of the exercise. To supplement your back muscles in the exercise, be sure to include some cross body hammer curls as shown to increase the strength of the forearms and your overall strength on the pullup.
Regarding the grip placement, it isn’t enough to just get the hand spacing down. You also want to be sure that you direct your pressure in the right way. Most people simply pull straight down on the bar or worse, they pull outwards because they’ve been told this will increase the activation of the lats. Both of these aren’t optimal. The best thing you can do is squeeze your hands inward towards each other and down at the same time. This will engage much more upper body muscle activation that will make your body feel as if it is floating up above the bar on every rep, instantly.
