Can you do pull-ups?

digit started this discussion · 11/1/2012

There's been a lot of hype recently about a new study which argued that it is extremely difficult for some people to do pull-ups, even though they are otherwise fit. In other words, the exercise may depend on individual anatomy, and may not be a great indicator of overall strength. Here's a blog post summing it up: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/why-women-cant-do-pull-ups/ Personally, though, I've found that my ability to do pullups has tracked pretty well with my ability to lift myself up on the pole (climbs, pole holds, etc). So...I would love to hear from some other veeners....Do you find the pull-up to be a good exercise to train for the pole? Or...are there some of you who can do amazing aerial work, but not pull-ups?

WellWhy Women Can't Do Pull-UpsWhy is it so difficult for even fit women to do pull-ups?

40 replies

SashaMae · 11/1/2012
I LOVE pull-ups. A year ago, when my boyfriend bought the pull-up bar, I couldn't do a single one! Since then, I've upped it to 14 (on a good day) and if I take a 2 minute break I can do another set of at least 10. It feels SO good. I think it's a great conditioning excersize for pole. I've also started to do v- ups on the bar. It's awesome. My back is huge! I'm starting to bust out of bras though :/
NinaPoles · 11/1/2012
I can easily climb, have strong inverts, and have no problem with harder tricks like Extended Butterfly and Caterpillar, but I can not for the life of me do a pull up (on the pole or on a pull up bar), so this is good news for me! I am 5'9", with a somewhat unproportional leg/torso ratio (short upper body, long legs), and I have never been able to get close to a pull up, no matter how much I work at it..
LillyBilly · 11/1/2012
I do pullups - I don't know how many exatly. It depends of the hold - different holds work different muscles. When my palm is facing me ("women's hold"), I can do ~4 one-handed pull ups on my good side. At my best, I used to do 20 poleups on every hand (right hand higher and then the left), but I haven't done that in several months so I probably can't do it any more. I can also climb using my arms only on static as well as spinning pole. All the intermediate-advanced girls in my studio do pull ups as well. I believe that doing pullups will help certain pole tricks, but not all of them, and that doing other strength excercises is a must for most strength-based tricks. There are also so many other things one must work on to be good at pole - flexibility, technique, core strength, balance and control, that I find that my improvement with this pull ups alone hardly affects my overall performance. I definitely don't think that one's ability to do pullups is the sole indicator of fitness/strength or anything else for that matter. Everyone's anatomy is different - women tend to have weaker upper-body in relation to their overall strength than men, and strength in different area varies among women as well. I have strong upper body, but my calves are really weak. Other people will have strong legs, but weak arms etc. In addition to that - it is silly to assume that if you practice in a certain way, your performance will improve in every concievable aspect. If I run, I will be a good runner - not a good weightlifter. If I do abs curls I will have strong abs, not strong legs. To be good at pullups - you need to practice doing pullups. Strength doesn't "leak" from one part of your body to another.
CapFeb · 11/1/2012
I can't do pull ups. I can't do things like scissor climbs and whatnot, and I've been doing pec and tricep workouts twice weekly for two months with no improvement what so ever, so I'd be relieved to hear that I'm not the only one who just sucks at pull ups. I can do aysha, aerial SM (in princess) and some other advanced moves, but if someone held a gun to my head and said "do ten pull ups or die", it wouldn't be a pretty outcome for me.
LillyBilly · 11/1/2012
@CapFeb - my point exactly. I've been working on my Ayesha for months and I can't do it for the life of me. What did I get from all my pullups?
chemgoddess1 · 11/1/2012
Gah....I just red something in the last 2 months about proper positioning for pull ups and for the life of me I cannot find it. A few years back for the life of me I could not do a single pull up. I know I can now but not sure how many. Best way to train them for me was doing negatives. Have a stool to stand on then bend your legs and resist down.
ARoulette · 11/1/2012
I can do 3 pull ups without touching the floor after that my arms give out lol..but I can do it.
NikkiP20 · 11/1/2012
I also love pull-ups! After my beginner silk classes Im always asked what they can do between classes and the answer is always pull-ups. And if they can't do pull-ups yet, I tell them to work on negatives. Or if you can do one and you have a pull-up bar at home, put it in a door that you walk through frequently and do a pull-up every time you walk through :)
MoxieMeg · 11/1/2012
I can't do a pull up...yet. But I've been working through these, and it seems to be helping me quite a bit. I like how systematic it is. Baby steps, all the way. :) http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/3-pullups
Women's HealthNail A Pull-Up In 6 Weeks Or Less With Our Exclusive Strength Training PlanBeginners welcome.
azblanco · 11/1/2012
I have been wanting to invest in a pull up bar! I cant do any yet. Any particular set up that you all can recommend??
Dancing Paws · 11/1/2012
I have no idea if I can. Gotta try at a playground or something. I had bought one if those doorway things, but my doorways are too wide!
Elektra Vallens · 11/1/2012
Pull-ups are great conditioning for a lot of things on the pole. I recently found out from some acrobat friends that when they were in circus school, they did four different kinds of pull-ups, two of which were new to me: palms facing away, palms facing towards you, palms facing away with hands next to each other, and mixed grip- one hand facing you, the other away.(This last one you would switch off which hand faces which way for even conditioning) Each version works slightly different muscles, as well as keeping you from getting bored if you're doing sets. (And man, are the hands together ones hard!) Also, it was mentioned earlier that pull-ups didn't seem to help for building strength for ayeshas. My guess is that push-ups would be better, since it's closer to the pushing motion of the lower arm in an ayesha.
CapFeb · 11/1/2012
Push ups definitely did help me more for aysha, I was just stating that I can do aysha (having a hard time doing it on chrome, though, my bottom hand has negative grip) and other advanced moves without ever being able to do a pull up. In essense, I was agreeing with LB that a pullup isn't an accurate assesement of overall fitness. I can do like, tiny tiny tiny pull up motions when attempting (and failing) scissor climbs, and I accept that I will probably never be able to do arms only.
byrdgrrl · 11/1/2012
I can do what I call ghetto pull-ups where I stand on my toes and pull from there. Basically, pulling up but not from a dead hang. I also use my silk, instead of a bar, so I'm grabbing vertically instead of horizontally, kind of like pole-ups.
PlatinumAni · 11/1/2012
Yep. Haven't been doing them lately but I will tonight to see how many. I hadn't been able to do pullups for a decade before poling. :)
chemgoddess1 · 11/1/2012
I just went and tried and I did 4 totally cold. My pull up bar also has handles that stick out at a 45 degree angle from the bar and that was what I used.
ofezo · 11/1/2012
I did the P90X program, and initially I could only do 1 or 2 but I worked my way up to about 10. I actually find the ones with my hands closer together easier (maybe because when you hold the pole and pull up on it, the hands are next to each other?)
abcollins1 · 11/1/2012
Close grip pull ups are easier because you are able to use your biceps more to help pull you up. Wide grip is harder because you use your back muscles only in order to pull your body weight. Right now i can do 3 unassisted wide grips from a dead hang, and about 10 close grip ones. If you want to get better at pull ups, you gotta do more pullups. What i do is start with a set of unassisted pull ups, as many as i can get, then do 3 more sets of assisted pull ups, each set to failure and increasing the assistance with each rep. Other good things to work on are lat pulldowns. shrugs, and bent over rows to strenghten the overall muscles of the back. I wouldnt say that pull ups should be used for an overalll fitness assesment, however I think they are the gold standard when determining if the muscles of the back and much of the arms are strong. It wasnt until I really started to focus on building a back that i could do any pullups.
JBStarryEyedGirl · 11/1/2012
Someone posted that article on facebook too, and there was a huge flood of comments from polers about how many pull ups they could do! LOL. Personally, I'm up to 4 good deadweight pull ups. My goal is 10, (and super impressed someone wrote they can do 14!) I started pole 2 years ago and couldn't do a single pull up. About a year ago, I started using a pull up bar, and I started doing silks and saw huge gains. Love being able to hold myself up, it has definitely helped me a lot with pole. I think everyone should try a pull up challenge! How about at least 1 pull up by Christmas? =) SV challenge along with our splits challenge?
Haley Bug · 11/1/2012
I just tried and did 2. I just did some jump rope. I still can't do them from a dead hang, but with my elbows bent standing on the ground I can officially do them. Happy day! lol <33 P.S. I've never been able to do one, so this is HUGE! 🥂
Gwynhafra · 11/2/2012
I can't do any unassisted pull-ups yet, but I've been working on it since March. (I took some time off pole to develop more upper body strength so I can be safer.) When I went back to pole class this week, I realized that even though I can't yet do a pull-up from a dead hang, the work I've done toward that goal has really paid off for pole strength! (I'm still beginner level-- can't invert safely yet.)
Kyrsten · 11/2/2012
I can do a few, but they aren't my favorite exercise... I can do about 10 on the pole and maybe about 4 on a bar? I'm kind of bottom heavy so I don't really like pure arm strength exercises lol.
Lina Spiralyne · 11/2/2012
I do them twice a week at the gym. 8 proper ones down to straight arms in a row, then rest and do some other exercise, then 8 more. I'm not good at doing the pole climb without using legs. I think it's just that we become good at what we do and fine-tuning our technique for those specific exercises. Once I had a friend with me at gym trying out my routine. She did a lot worse than me on each of the exercises but I don't think the actual difference in strength was as big as it seemed. It was just that my body knew exactly how to do those things from experience.
michaelaarghh · 11/2/2012
Pull ups and chin ups are different and work different muscles. Pull ups are when your palms face away from your body with your arms at shoulder width apart, and chin ups are where your palms face towards you. Pull ups use shoulder adduction, and chin ups use shoulder extension - they both work the lats differently. Chin ups are "easier" because they use your biceps more than pull ups do. SO just thought I'd clarify because I think some people use the terms interchangebaly and they are not the same thing. My boyfriend first bought the chin up bar about a year ago and I could not even do one. Literally, could not pull my weight up whether I was in a chinup or a pull up. Now I can do about 5 pull ups, and maybe 10-12 chin ups. But, I've hurt my wrist recently and the grip needed kind of pulls on that area so I haven't trained on it in a while, and have no doubt lost some of my ability to :(
Storypole17 · 11/2/2012
I also am doin P90X and there are tons of different pull ups you do in those workouts! I am able to do about 6-10 in a row depending on the type. However pole pull ups are different and seem to use a bit more bicep and even tricep over a standard wide grip pull up which feels like all lat work! I've always had more upper body strength like a guy though...I think if you understand what muscles are needed to engage, anyone can train to do at least one pull up :-)

Load more replies (page 2 of 2)