- What's up everybody,
Steve Kamb from nerdfitness.com here.
I am joined by two team members of Team Nerd Fitness,
Jim Bathurst and Staci Ardison.
And we're here at Camp Nerd Fitness,
and I wanted to shoot a quick video
to explain to everybody how to do a proper pull-up.
I know it's one of those goals
that everybody is trying to work towards.
And there are a few key things that you want to think about
as you're trying to reach that goal,
and then string a few of them together.
(upbeat dance music)
So Jim,
what do you see when people do pull ups?
What do they do wrong?
And what can they start doing to start doing them right?
- Alright, first off we'll talk about
the difference between chin-up and pull-up.
A lot of times people use the terms interchangeably
but actually when we talk about chin-ups,
we talk about palms facing your body.
Pull-ups are palms facing away.
So chin-ups, pull-ups.
You got it?
Left, right, you know. (laughs)
- So, why are these chin-ups and why are these pull-ups?
- You know what? The exercise gods set that up
ages ago. - Some sort of wizard
years ago. - Years ago, yeah.
- Okay, I was just curious.
- Probably Jack LaLanne,
I have no idea. (Steve laughs)
- This is the front porch, this is the side porch,
and this is the back porch.
- So chin-ups facing like this.
We'll talk about these first.
For a lot of people,
chin-ups are gonna be a lot stronger start off.
So I usually see people doing maybe three chin-ups
for every pull-up they can do.
We'll first start off
and we'll have Staci jump up on the bar in just a sec.
We'll talk about the bottom position, okay?
Now I see a lot of people not get a full range of motion.
They'll lower down, their elbow will still be bent.
Their shoulder is just not in a good position like this.
So when we start at the beginning,
we want the elbow fully extended.
Okay?
And before you begin that chin-up,
we want the shoulders pulled away from the ears.
So let's do a couple of those shrugs up and down.
So that's good engagement.
That's not good engagement.
You want to make sure the engagements, hold right there.
Up up, there you go.
We want to make sure we hold that engagement there,
before we begin to bend the elbows.
You can relax, give your arms a little rest.
Okay?
If we try to pull up like this
with the shoulders up by our ears,
we're gonna have a bad time of it.
- (laughs) We're gonna have a bad time.
- We're gonna have a bad time.
- If you look down, you're gonna fall,
you're gonna have a bad time.
- [Jim] And the shoulders are gonna be out of position.
I'll let her relax just a little bit.
So that's the first cue,
is to make sure we get a full range of motion.
Elbows are fully extended at the bottom.
And then before we start that chin-up,
get those shoulders engaged, down, and away from the ears.
When Staci is ready to pull up,
wait, I'll give you a little rest.
(Staci laughs) I'll give you a little rest.
- She's so excited to do pull-ups.
(Jim and Staci laughs)
- Just hang there for five minutes.
- It's gonna be okay.
- Once the shoulders are engaged and she begins to pull up,
she wants to think about leading with the chest
and keeping things open just a bit.
A lot of times,
and this is usually a matter of
either the people not aware of it
or maybe even lack of strength,
people will tend to curl inwards.
They'll lift their legs up like this.
This is no good, okay?
They look like a little fetal chin-up.
- Can I show you one of those? - Yeah sure, yeah.
- Well first of all when they're doing the pull-ups,
they're thinking that's a...
But that's not a full...
You gotta go-- - All the way down.
- But then, it's the (grunts).
- It's the curl-up like this. (laughs)
(Steve grunting) (Jim laughing)
Now if someone gets their chin over the bar,
I still count that as a chin-up.
Please, I'm not trying to take your chin-up away from you.
I'm not that guy.
Steve might tell you that's not
a chin-up. - No no no, I would never.
(Jim and Staci laughing) I would never.
You know, when people are trying to be good at these things,
working towards a perfect chin-up, that's what I wanna...
- You almost said perfect push-up.
This is not an infomercial. (Staci laughing)
Alright so for the chin-up, like I said,
we want to keep the shoulders back,
we wanna keep the chest up,
we wanna keep the body open.
Okay?
All of them are going to be working together.
If anything starts to collapse,
then the whole system starts to collapse.
So we'll get Staci back up on the bar.
Elbows are fully extended.
Shoulders engaged, away from the ears.
And then as she pulls up,
the body is open, shoulders back.
Boom, chin up right over the bar, chest to the bar.
Hold it.
No I'm kidding, come on down.
(Steve and Staci laughing)
And relax.
So again, keeping things nice and open like this.
- Just stay here for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Now if you're strong in the chin-up,
you might, again, find yourself maybe a little bit weaker
in the pull-up, as I mentioned.
So, make sure that you still have that same good form
for the pull-up.
So rock and roll.
Palms facing away in that pull-up form.
Engage the shoulders and then big pull up.
Pull, pull, pull, pull. - Yeah, good one.
- And come on down.
So again, this is a little bit tough for her right now.
She's also done a thousand push-ups in the
previous take. (Steve and Staci laughing)
So if we start to see the shoulders
lift up a little bit like this
in the chin-up or the pull-up,
we can also work ourselves up onto a box
with an assisted chin-up or pull-up.
So let's pop that box into position.
Now,
so Staci will hop on up.
We want to make sure we have a box that's high enough
so that when she comes over to the bar,
her toes are on the box and her chest is on the bar.
That's the perfect height.
If it's any higher than that, again,
we're not going to be able to assist
in that full range of motion.
Now, it doesn't matter how much weight
you're putting under your feet.
You might feel like you're putting 100% of it,
it's probably only 99% and you're probably not that bad.
But, like I said,
you want to put as much weight as you need to on the feet.
So let's actually start with chin ups-on this one.
So palms facing.
Okay.
What Staci is gonna do is, she's gonna get up on her toes.
So get up on more on the front part of your toes instead.
And then from here, see.
If I took a picture of this right now,
so get into a really nice good perfect chin-up form.
If you took a snapshot from the waist up,
it looks like a perfect chin-up.
That's exactly what we want and it's assisted that way.
She's then going to lower herself down.
Toes are still on the box.
Okay, we're at the bottom position we talked about.
Elbows are fully extended,
she's going to engage her shoulders.
And then use the feet and the arms simultaneously
to pull herself up.
Chin over the bar, chest to bar.
Let's do it one more time with the assisted chin-up.
Okay, engage the shoulders.
Chest up to the bar.
Now let's flip our hands around.
So we saw the pull-up from before, okay.
And again, we're a little tired.
It was a little bit out of position.
Make sure we're in a good position here,
palms facing away in our good pull-up form.
Now let's drop below the bar.
Elbows fully extended.
Engage the shoulders before you bend the elbows.
And then go nice and slow.
Slower, slower, slower.
Let's try it again.
Let's try it again, you got it.
(Steve and Jim laughing)
So engage the shoulders.
Chest up, chest up.
Use those feet as you need to.
Boom.
So as you can see, with the box as an assist,
we can get a higher range of motion.
We can get the shoulders into a better set position
throughout and especially at the top.
- Great. - There you go.
- Pull those shoulders back.
Just the thing that I think I see too many people do
is just violently swinging and throwing their body
to get above the bar.
And like you said,
if you get the chin above the bar to start,
that's awesome. - That's a chin-up.
- That's a chin-up, it counts.
As you get more comfortable with them,
it's something you can work a little bit more towards
to have that proper, perfect form.
So that you can start crushing multiple pull-ups in a row,
multiple chin ups in a row. - Muscle-ups.
- And this is what works you
toward the mother of all exercises, the muscle-up.
Thank you so much for watching.
Make sure you check out the rest of our videos.
And head over to nerdfitness.com to join the rebellion,
and level up your life today.
- Looks like we got ourselves a good ol' fashion dad-off.
(arcade music)