If you’ve been working out for any amount of time, you know the benefits of regularly doing pull-ups as part of your routine. Sure, cable and machine pulldowns have their place in training the lats and other upper back muscles, especially if you haven’t built enough strength or are too heavy to do pull-ups. When possible, pull-ups are the real deal as you will be moving your body through space. Just try cable pulldowns and pull-ups back-to-back and you should come away thinking pull-ups are much more of a challenge and a superior exercise.
Now, let’s get to how most people do pull-ups. They pull their body up to the bar until the chin reaches bar level, sometimes not even quite that. You know what, there’s nothing wrong with this, as long as you feel your lats working. In the end, most of my overall reps end up being like this as well when I train my lats. This is because I continue repping out after I can’t get any more high pull-ups. These “high” pull-ups are what I want to focus on here.
By high pull-ups, I mean pull-ups where the chest, or even the upper abdominal area, touch the bar. I like them because they tax my lats and other upper back muscles more. They also help me train to progress to muscle-ups, which I still haven’t mastered at this point. All it takes is a few tweaks in how you perform your pull-ups to get much higher up.
Steps to High Pull-ups
The first step to going higher on pull-ups is in the way you grip the bar. The common hanging grip isn’t going to cut it. When I used to do pull-ups with a normal bar grip, I’d basically get my chin to the bar, maybe the neck on the first few reps. This is where a partial false grip comes in.
What is a Partial False Grip?
A false grip has your wrist up high – on top of the bar, or at least level to it. This is done by gripping more with the fingertips with the hands over the bar as opposed to wrapping the fingers around it. It can be very taxing on the forearms, so it’s best to practice by hanging with a false grip on the bar. This will strengthen the forearms, especially as the holds go for longer.
A proper false grip requires some space between the insides of the longer fingers and the bar, with only the tips of those fingers providing the grip. I’ve found that practicing with something small gripped in the fingers will help improve your false grip. Believe it or not, holding a wine cork in each hand will do the job. Try gripping an overhead bar with a cork held in the fingers, and you should feel the difference.
For high pull-ups, a full-blown false grip isn’t an absolute need. A partial false grip, one that’s halfway between a common grip and a full false grip will do the job. As you train to improve the false grip, the partial version will be that much easier to hold through a set of pull-ups.
False grips help the body get up higher when doing pull-ups. Think about it, with the hands turned over the bar instead of below the bar you can see how you would automatically be able to get quite a bit higher up on your pull-ups. The same idea holds true when you consider the placement of the wrists being higher. You automatically start from a position that’s a bit closer to the bar, which means that your body won’t have to cover as much distance to get high pull-ups.
Use Grip Enhancers
The grip will commonly give out before the large back muscles on pull-ups. Even with strong hands and forearms, this remains true – they’re just not likely to be at the level of your lats and other upper back muscles. Anything that helps your grip will be welcome to get more reps and hold a false grip or a partial one.
Chalk makes more of a difference than you may realize. A lot of times, it’s slippage in the grip that causes it to give out. It’s basically game over if you have sweaty palms. Chalk gives you a dry grip, and it creates some roughage for the hands to grip better. The downside is the mess chalk can make, to the point where many gyms prohibit its use.
Liquid chalk is the answer, as it will dry quickly. You just take a small tube of it and get a dab in one of your palms. Rub the hands together and give a few seconds to dry. You won’t make a mess on the floor, and your grip will be good to go for some high pull-ups to the chest.
Wrist straps are also a classic grip enhancer. If you can wrap them tightly around the bar and remain in a partial false grip, you can focus on more high pull-ups without losing your grip. They will at times loosen a bit, or it might be difficult to wrap them the way you’d like. This is usually dependent on the bar you are wrapping them around.
Between the two major grip enhancers, I prefer liquid chalk for high pull-ups, though there are other exercises I’d rather use the straps on. At times, I will use a combination of the two, with my palms chalked up and straps wrapping the bar, particularly on weighted pull-ups.
How Wide Should You Place Your Hands
Now, where should you put that false grip on the bar? For high pull-ups, the optimal grip range would be around shoulder width apart. Pretty much the most natural feeling overhead hanging grip is the best for most of us. Too close a grip will have your hands and forearms blocking your way to the bar. Pulling the elbows down and back is part of doing high pull-ups, and this feels best with a shoulder-width grip.
I do still do a couple of sets of wide-grip pull-ups when I work my lats. It’s very possible to get high pull-ups with the wide grip, as long as you pull the same way (pulling the elbows down and behind you).
Scapular Pull-ups
Another important step to getting high pull-ups is to involve the upper back muscles from the beginning of the rep. Starting from a hanging position and having your arms working to start your way up isn’t going to get you the best results, but this is the way so many trainers do this exercise.
The best way to get the back involved from the get-go is to contract the back muscles by pulling the scapulae down and in. Doing this while the arms are still straight and hanging from an overhead bar is known as a scapular pull-up. Starting out with a scapular pull-up will enable the stronger back muscles to do most of the work instead of the weaker arms to get the chest to the bar at the top.
Practice the scapular pull-up by hanging from the overhead bar and pulling up with the back muscles while the arms remain straight. You won’t be moving very far at all – the point is to get used to a small part of the overall pull-up.
Leaning Back for Higher Pull-ups
Now, you’re ready to do a set of pull-ups – hanging straight down from the bar with at least a partial false grip with you starting upward with a scapular pull-up. However, at the top you still end up with just your chin getting to the bar, and you still can’t get your chest up there. So what now?
The key to getting your chest to touch the bar on the pull-up is to hold your body at an angle instead of straight up-and-down. This means that you should be leaning back with your feet forward and your chest in line with the bar. It doesn’t take much of an angle to get into the proper position – just enough to have the chest going to the bar.
Taking Advantage of the Negative
Once you get your chest to the bar, try to hold for a second before lowering back down in a controlled manner. The eccentric, or negative, part of the movement is integral for strength gains. This is part of the muscle- and strength-building processes and can’t be neglected for optimal gains. Not to mention that just dropping uncontrollably can lead to injury.
Another way negatives can aid you in your quest for high pull-ups – and pull-ups in general – is to do just that part of the exercise. If you can only do a few pull-ups, or can’t do any at all, you can use a platform to get yourself up to the bar at the top of a pull-up and just perform the eccentric part of the exercise. This will have you lowering slowly to build strength that will lead to more full pull-ups. As you repeat this, eventually pulling up to the bar and even getting the chest to the bar pull-up will become more possible.
Short isometric holds when you touch the chest to the bar, or come close, can help build more strength in that position. This makes getting high pull-ups easier and helps you get strict, picture-perfect form on the exercise. You can also try challenging pull-up variations like the typewriter pull-up – which is a wide-grip pull-up hold that has you going side to side while maintaining a high pull-up position.
Training Splits
Once you have the proper form down for high pull-ups, you’ll want to train enough to continually build strength without overdoing it to the point of overtraining. In my case, I train my back just once per week, which includes my pull-up routine. I do have another day where I just do bodyweight training, and that includes some pull-up training as well – just not as much.
I don’t do a ton of sets either. Around 7 or 8 pull-up sets total, and that includes a couple of sets of weighted pull-ups and a set or two with a wide grip. As far as high pull-ups with body weight, it’s really only 3 or 4 sets to do the job. After pull-ups, a few sets of straight cable lat pushdowns, and a drop set on the lat pulldown will finish off my routine.
Going Beyond
When you’re doing a set of pull-ups to the chest, there’s no reason to stop when you start coming up a bit short. You will only get so many reps where you get all the way up there, especially at first. Keep going by doing more traditional pull-ups to the chin or neck to really work the lats. Over time, more full reps will be had.
As with just about any other exercise, resistance can be added to make chest-to-bar pull-ups even more of a challenge. Ankle weights, dip belts, and weighted vests all work great for continued strength gains. You can also attempt muscle-ups to continue your progressions past chest-to-bar pull-ups.
Conclusion
There’s certainly nothing wrong with traditional pull-ups and lat pulldowns. If you’re comfortable with where you’re at with your training, keep at it. However, if you want a new challenge and to perform the type of pull-ups that are a level up, try to master high pull-ups. Here’s to your lifting journey!
