UNDERGROUND ARTICLES Upper Body Pulling Movement Group (working towards your first Pull Up and beyond) By Greg Mihovich Upper body pulling (UBP) is an act of pulling (surprise!) the weight towards the body or the body towards an object with the arms. UBP, just like its counterpart Pressing, is usually further categorized into horizontal and vertical movement patterns. The prime movers for that movement pattern are the lats, biceps and rear deltoids (the back of the shoulders). The whole upper back, forearms and, in a lot of cases, legs and core act as stabilizers. Once again, if you train for real the whole body is involved. The most prominent and productive exercise examples are, of course, Pull Ups, Chin Ups and Rope Climbing, followed by Body Rows, Renegade Rows and T- Bar Rows. These exercises are very functional for real life applications and engage your whole body if done right. For somebody who is unable to do a single one, Pull Ups seem like a daunting task and I can certainly understand that, being able to perform my first one only at twelve years old. The key here is just like anywhere else – practice and consistency. Part of the problem is a lack of available pull up bars on the streets, beaches and even at the gyms, where the usual ratio of benches to pull up bars is twenty to one. Back in Russia there are pull up bars almost on every corner and, the best thing is, that most of them are of the freestanding kind – the ones that allow you to perform fun gymnastic exercises like Muscle Ups and Pull Overs. And it shows: most of the Russian kids in high school can perform Pull Ups, Muscle Ups and Pull Overs with no problem, while I found the majority of the American kids struggle with even the basic movements. But they perform great when lying on the bench! Another part of the problem is the obsession of the society over the huge pecs, the bench press and its numbers, instead of focusing on increasing the athleticism, as well as the posterior chain and core development. Everything is good in balance and moderation – if you are into huge pecs, they should be balanced by wide and thick back, otherwise it is simply ugly. Pressing and Pulling should go together in a fifty / fifty proportion, not only for esthetical reasons, but for the sake of your shoulders health and vitality. The reason number three that you do not see people cranking out Pull Ups everywhere is that it is hard work, it requires practice and dedication. And most of the people just want to pretend that they “work out”. But you know better, so the road to your first Pull Up, if you cannot yet do one (not for long!), is starting today! There are two basic ways to work up to a one and I suggest that you use both. The first one does not require any equipment and is called “Negatives”. You will jump or help yourself otherwise to the chin over the bar position and than will as slowly as possible yield yourself down – thus the name “Negatives”, as you only perform the negative (eccentric) part of the exercise. This method works because you are always stronger in the eccentric part of any movement. So you are starting in your strongest position in order to work on your weaknesses. Don’t worry that in the beginning you might go down really fast, with almost no control over the movement. Eventually, you will be able to take as many as four or five seconds on your descent. Then you need to add stops and pauses at various points. When you are going down extremely slow with a three second pause at the top, middle and bottom of the movement you should be ready for your first Pull Up! Another technique requires a few looped rubber bands of various thicknesses. Simply loop the band over the pull up bar, put your knee (knees) or a foot (feet) through it and you are ready to go. For best results I recommend you to combine both methods: on one day you would perform negatives with pauses on the other you would do full range Pull Ups with rubber bands. As soon as you are able to perform your first one, keep practicing it, while maintaining a steady diet of both assisted and negative repetitions. As soon as you are up to two or three reps on your own you are ready for special method called “ladders” – a common knowledge in Russia. This method is based on the fact that going up in numbers on your reps, like 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. excites the nervous system, while going down calms it down. So you will perform a single Pull Up, rest a bit, perform two, rest a bit, three… By now you are probably getting the picture. Avoid muscular failure, as your goal is not to fatigue the muscle too much, but to build a pattern of success, while reinforcing the technique and building up the volume (overall number of reps and sets in this case), while staying as fresh as possible. So you should leave a rep or two in the tank. Such ladders (each rep is a step, get it?) could be performed multiple times in one workout or throughout the day to minimize the fatigue even more. Of course, this method could and should be applied to other exercises as well. As for proper technique, three most common mistakes I see people do are: A) Spreading their elbows wide instead of keeping them in B) Pulling only with the arms and not utilizing the lats C) Being too relaxed on the bar and not using enough muscular tension Let me break them down one by one. A) The strongest position for your upper body, no matter for a pull or a press is with the elbows in. Keeping the arms close to the centerline engages the lats and/or the triceps and aligns the body for action in the best possible way. Why do you think wrestlers and boxers fight from that position (the good ones, anyways)? B) The lats are much bigger and stronger than the arms and should be firing (should be engaged) on all upper body pulling motions. One way to learn that is to perform “armless” Pull Ups utilizing the ABS Straps. Remember the filling in the lats during that drill and learn to use them every time you do any kind of pulls with the arms. C) The amount of muscular tension that you generate should be corresponding to the task at hand (selective tension). If performing a few reps on a pull up bar is a challenge for you than it is classified as a maximum effort. The amount of tension that you generate should reflect that and be high. Squeeze the pull up bar, tighten up your abs, cross your feet at the ankles and tighten up the hamstrings and glutes. Become one tight muscular unit with one goal: to pull up. Just do not forget to release all that tension ones you are done or you will be a hurting unit. Greg Mihovich Performance Enhancement & Combat Arts Specialist www.UndergroundGym.com |
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