(upbeat techno music)
- What's up. It's Chris Heria.
Today, I'm gonna teach you how to do the perfect pull-up.
The pull-up is one of the absolute best exercises
for building strength and muscle in your upper back.
It's personally one of my favorite exercises.
And even being able to do just one
is an amazing achievement,
because once you can do one pull-up,
you can easily turn that one pull-up
into 10 pull-ups in a row.
And I'll be showing you
how to train for that specifically in today's video as well.
And once you can do pull-ups, it's gonna unlock the door
to so many other advanced pulling exercises
that you're gonna be able to utilize
in your workout routines
to take your gains, strength, and performance
to a whole new level
when you're not just looking strong, you're actually strong.
And that's why you see pull-ups
in so many top athletes' workout regimens.
And pro fighters to gymnasts,
pretty much any professional athlete
is gonna be utilizing the pull-up.
And for good reason
as you're able to pull your entire body weight
with every single rep
increasing your relative and your absolute strength.
And the best thing about pull-ups
is you can pretty much train them
anywhere you have a place to hang.
And by utilizing pull-up variations and progressions,
it's like having access to a whole gym.
But as beneficial as pull-ups are,
there are still people that can't do them
whether they don't know a how or where to start
or whether they're just doing them incorrectly.
But regardless, today,
we're gonna be solving both of those situations.
And I'm gonna have you do your first perfect pull-up today
and show you how to increase your repetitions
so that you're able to do a lot more.
All you're gonna need to do
so that you can properly follow along
is download the Heria Pro app
in the app store or Google Play store.
Open up to the YouTube workout section,
you should be able to find this routine.
Smash the like button on this video,
and we are ready to get started.
Now the primary muscle groups used in a pull-up
is gonna be your lats and your biceps,
but we're also gonna be recruiting and targeting
our rear delts, our rhomboids,
and our core with each pull-up repetition.
Now, before I show you how to do your first perfect pull-up,
I'm gonna go for five reps, show you what it looks like.
I'm gonna break it down for you.
(upbeat techno music continues)
All right. So there we have the perfect pull-up.
And what makes this pull-up perfect
is the form on how you perform this exercise.
Now, before I begin to show you
exactly what you need to do to build your strength
to be able to do your first perfect pull-up,
let's go over the perfect pull-up checklist.
First things first,
you wanna stand directly underneath the bar.
We'll be working
with different hand placements in the future,
but for now, we're gonna have our hands in shoulder width
or just outside of shoulder width.
You're gonna be gripping the bar with your palm forward
and your thumb locking your fingers into place.
You want a very solid grip on the bar.
That alone makes your pull-ups a lot easier.
And your also only as strong as your weakest link.
So you wanna make sure to have as strong grip.
Before you start your pull-ups,
you wanna be in a dead hang position
with your body in a tight straight line
feet together and pointing your toes if you can,
squeezing your glutes, engaging your core,
your lats, with your chin facing up,
a big chest and retracting your scapulas.
This is an active dead hang position.
And this is the form you want to have
at the beginning and ending of every single rep.
Maintaining this form is also gonna ensure
that you're not swinging.
So you're really able to focus
on the intended muscle groups.
And you wanna maintain this perfect form
and position with your body,
the entire duration of your pull-up repetitions
until you come off the bar.
Now, when you're ready to initiate your first rep
keeping perfect form in mind,
you wanna start off slightly lean back,
engaging your back and your rear delts,
which is gonna allow a greater range of motion.
You're gonna be pulling to your chest
versus straight up and down,
which would only give you a range of motion
towards your neck line.
This is one of the main key points
that makes this the perfect pull-up.
A lot of times when you're doing pull-ups
only up to your neck,
you're not gonna nearly see as much results,
strength and benefits from the pull-up
versus if you are actually pulling up
all the way to your chest with every single rep.
So you wanna make sure to be leaning a little bit back
so that there is a clear movement path
straight to your chest line,
initiating more of a row with your arms
like the opposite of a push up
versus pulling straight up and down.
You can see right there.
But if I rotate my arms down and in,
and I use more of a rowing motion.
Lean back.
Well, you can go a lot higher than your chest line.
So your main goal would be to pull all the way up
while maintaining perfect form
and have your chest reach the bar.
And if you're just starting off doing your reps like this,
you're gonna need to be as explosive as you can
with every single rep.
If you know you have the strength,
but you're still having trouble
with the range of motion to reach the bar to your chest,
you need to be very mindful of the way that you're pulling.
You can very well be just pulling straight up
and not have your shoulders rotated and forward.
Scapulas pulled back
and pulling straight to your chest like a row.
And those are the four main key points
that are gonna have you unlock your perfect pull-up
having a solid grip on the bar,
having an active dead hang with perfect form,
engaging your entire body in a tight straight line
squeezing your glutes core and your back,
chin up chest up and your legs tight together,
pointing your toes.
Third, leaning back, retracting your scapulas
and using a rowing motion to pull
versus pulling straight up.
And fourth, aiming to have at least your chest reach the bar
with every single rep.
Eventually, the more you do pull-ups this way
and build up your perfect pull-up repetitions,
you're gonna get a whole lot more skilled
and stronger at pulling as I mentioned before.
Eventually you'll be able to pull-up
way higher than your chest line.
Something like this.
But that of course comes with time and consistency.
And now I wanna get into exactly you should be doing
if you've never been able to do a pull-up before
or if you can't do one currently.
The very first thing I want you to do
is not to try to do pull-ups
with a resistance band or anything like that,
but to actually do the very first progression
to the pull-up,
that's gonna be Australian pull-ups.
So you wanna find yourself a low bar
that could be a dip bar at a park,
the Smith machine at a gym,
or even two chairs at your house.
Although it'll be best to try it with a bar first
before using chairs in your house.
Let's go ahead and break down the Australian pull-up.
It looks like this.
(soft techno music)
So as you can see with the Australian pull-up
is also many different variations.
And using these different grips and hand positions
are gonna emphasize different areas of your back
and just increase your overall pulling strength.
So you wanna make sure to be utilizing
all the different grips and variations as well.
Also using the 21s method is another great way
to build your Australian pull-up strength
and your pulling strength overall
to prepare you for the real perfect pull-up
as well as increase your repetitions
once you can already do the pull-ups.
The 21s method is doing seven repetitions
on three main ranges of motion.
Doing seven repetitions halfway up and halfway down,
seven halfway down and halfway up,
and seven repetitions full range of motions
is gonna ensure that you're strong
from the bottom of your repetition all the way to the top
and building the strength needed
for the last bit of range of motion
to have the bar reach your chest.
You can use this method with any grip
or any pull-up variation as well,
pretty much any other exercise
that you really want to build some solid strength with.
And just like the perfect pull-up
with your Australian pull-ups,
you also wanna maintain perfect form,
and it's the same exact form that you're gonna use
for your perfect pull-up as well.
So let's break down that form live really quick.
You wanna start with a tight, tight rip
and start walking down,
keeping the bar close to your body
so that you know where your chest line is at.
Right here is my chest line.
So from here, I'm gonna lower my body all the way down.
This is how I know that pulling right here to my chest
is perfect form.
I don't want my hips down too low and pulling like this.
I want my core engaged.
My scapulas engaged, my back engaged,
super tight grip on the bar,
squeezing my glutes,
and digging my heels into the ground
all the way up all the way down.
(Chris inhales heavily)
Now, absolutely anybody can do this exercise.
Even your grandma can start doing this
to start learning her first pull-up as well.
What makes this exercise difficult is the angle.
So if you start off with a very high angle like this,
you're gonna have a lot less resistance.
You'll be able to focus more on your form.
It's a great place to start off,
especially if you're a complete beginner
that hasn't built a lot of strength.
The lower you start to angle yourself,
the more weight and resistance
you begin to apply to this exercise.
The lower the angle becomes,
the more difficult the exercise becomes,
applying more resistance onto the exercise
but building more strength as well.
And you're starting to roll more resistance,
which is also gonna get you a lot stronger.
So you wanna scale this exercise.
The stronger you get,
you start to go lower and lower.
A complete beginner can start off with just three reps.
Wide, three reps shoulder width, three reps closed.
Do that for sets.
Try doing that every single minute, on the minute
for at least 15 to 20 minute.
That's gonna greatly improve your repetition.
And eventually you're gonna be able to do
five wide, five shoulder width, and five closed.
Totaling 15 consecutive repetitions.
And this is essentially how you build your repetitions.
As I mentioned before, utilizing the different hand grips
also gonna increase your overall pulling capabilities
a lot faster
versus just pulling with one hand grip or position.
It's also gonna allow you
to do more repetitions consecutively,
whether you otherwise couldn't
in the same hand position as well.
Use this technique to increase your pull-up repetitions
from any progression
whether we're doing it from Australian pull-ups
or even real pull-ups hanging on the bar.
Now, while you're building your pulling strength
with Australian pull-ups on the low bar,
you want to be building your grip strength on the high bar
with active dead hangs.
I'm gonna get into the position so you know how to do it.
We're gonna have our shoulders rounded forward
Up. Grab the bar.
Really, really tight grip.
Feet, tight, tight, tight together.
Scapulas retracted.
Squeeze your core.
And the harder you grip the bar,
the less you're gonna swing.
(soft techno music continues)
You just wanna hold this for time and build your endurance.
Once you can hold that for a minute,
you're gonna see how much easier it is
to be able to do pull-ups.
Even if you can already do them.
This is a huge game changer
that really increases your pull-up repetitions,
strength, and endurance.
You also wanna make sure
that you're doing scapula shrugs for repetitions.
That's basically the first gear that you use
when starting to initiate your pull-up repetition.
The stronger and easier it is to retract your scapulas,
the easier your pull-ups are gonna be.
So you wanna get into a dead hang position.
Active dead hang,
retracting your scapulas, and coming back down,
making them nice and relaxed,
but still keeping a tight, tight, tight grip on the bar,
and keeping your body
in a tight, tight straight line position.
Activation of the scapulas.
Bring them back down.
Come all the way up,
and bring your shoulders down to your ears.
(Chris inhales heavily)
Retract your scapulas all the way up.
Try to be as nice and tall as you can.
You don't wanna bend your arms.
You wanna keep your arms straight.
You're only pulling your body up
by retracting your scapulas from your shoulders.
(Chris inhales heavily)
So you wanna work on those.
You can do reps of 10.
Remember, I have the whole routine and guide
on how to do all of this step by step.
So all you need to do is just download the Heria Pro app
and follow along.
Now, once you've been following
along with the Heria Pro app,
and you've been training your Australian pull-ups,
your dead hangs, and your scapula shrugs for a while,
it won't be long until you can do some jumping pull-ups.
So I'm gonna go for a couple reps
show you what that looks like and then break it down.
(upbeat techno music)
And as you can see,
I really emphasize on the negative portion of that movement.
Like I always say, drilling the negative
of any exercise is eventually gonna build your strength
to be able to rep out that movement.
So with your jumping pull-ups
you wanna keep the same perfect form
preparing yourself for the perfect pull-up.
So you wanna make sure to already have the technique
in the form down solid.
All right. So there you have it.
A jumping to reach the top of your pull-up,
you don't have to use all the strength required
to be able to perform the concentric portion of the pull-up,
but you're still gonna be able to work on your pull-ups
with perfect form and build the strength required
or repping the negative portion
of coming down nice and slow with perfect form
for every single jumping pull-up repetition.
And of course, as you jump up to the bar with the pullup,
you wanna be directly underneath the pull-up bar
utilizing perfect form in your entire body
keeping it straight and tight
and trying to be as explosive as possible,
pulling the bar straight to your chest
while maintaining a solid tight grip.
And those are the key ingredients and exercises
to mastering your first perfect pull-up
as well as increasing your repetitions.
And once you can do your first perfect pull-up,
have many routines on how to increase your repetitions.
For example, starting off with your one perfect pull-up
and doing one wide, shoulder, and close
building up that strength
like we were doing with the Australian pull-up
every minute, on the minute for 15 to 20 minutes
until we can do two in a row wide, shoulder, and close,
which equal six repetitions consecutively, and so forth.
And once you fatigued and can't do any more pull-ups,
you can always just drop down
to the next hardest progression,
which would be jumping pull-ups.
You do those wide, shoulder, and close as well.
Until you fatigue, and can't do those repetitions anymore,
you just drop set down the progressions,
going to the next hardest progression,
which would be the Australian pull-ups
until your arms are completely dead.
And then you finally move on
to dead hangs and scapula shrugs.
That's the best method
to increasing your pull-up repetitions
and your pulling strength
that I've been using for the past 12 years.
And during the day,
you can also use the grease the groove of method,
which is just practicing a set of pull-ups multiple times
scattered throughout the day
so that with every set, you're not completely fatigued,
and you can actually practice
on your form and explosiveness,
but that's basically it.
If you follow within the Heria Pro app step by step,
you're gonna be doing pull-ups like a pro in no time.
And that pulling strength
is gonna transfer over into way more exercises
developing your physique and your ability as an athlete.
So if you learn something and enjoy the video,
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My love and peace out.
(soft techno music)
Smash that like button, guys.
(gun firing)