Burpees, thrusters, and overhead squats are typically the first exercises that come to mind when people think of working the body head-to-toe. But there’s one exercise that deserves a place on that list: the pull-up.
Despite the fact that the pull-up is often seen as just an upper-body strengthener, reading a list of the muscles pull-ups work makes it clear that the exercise effectively targets far more than just your arms, says Danelle Rivera, CPT, a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor at Crunch Fitness. "The pull-up may be upper-body focused, but it’s a full-body experience and movement.”
Yet, many people shy away from doing them. Why? Well, because they're hard AF! “You start from a hanging position on a horizontal overhead bar," explains Rivera. "Then, you have to literally pull your body up to meet the bar."
Like other hard things, though, pull-ups are still worth doing. In addition to helping improve athletic performance on the field, track, or pickleball court, strengthening the pull-up muscles will make living your everyday life easier, says Rivera. “The more muscle mass our bodies [have], the more coordinated and less prone to falling or other injuries."
Here's what you need to know about pull-ups, including how they're done and which muscles they work. You'll also find everything you need to know about variations to use if you can’t yet do one.
What Muscles Do Pull-Ups Work?
The short answer—nearly of them. Pull-ups work the lats, pecs, shoulders, biceps, triceps, and forearms as well as chest-down muscles like the core, glutes, quads, and hamstrings, says Rivera. “The pull-up is a pretty mighty exercise that uses or engages muscles from just about everywhere in the body."
The primary movers—that's the muscles responsible for the bulk of the force—are the pulling muscles in the upper-body like the the back, lats, biceps, and forearms. To a lesser-extent, the exercise also uses the pushing muscles in your top-half, like the chest and triceps.
Plus, a controlled, stiff body is easier to move through the air than a flailing one. So, if you want to do your pull-up, you’ll need to engage your lower body and core, too, she says.
Muscles Used in a Pull-Up
- Back: Rhomboids, trapezius, lats, erector spinae
- Shoulder: Rear delts, anterior delts, teres major, teres minor, infraspinatus
- Arms: Biceps, triceps, forearm, grip
- Chest: Pec major and pec minor
- Core: Obliques, abs, serratus anterior
- Legs: Glutes, hamstrings, quads
Benefits of the Pull-Up
Doing pull-ups and benefitting from them comes down to just how many muscles the exercise strengthens and how it impacts the body. Here's a more detailed look at the potential benefits of regularly doing pull-ups.
Improved Posture
The pull-up may work nearly every upper body muscle, but the upper-body muscles that are most significantly strained and trained are your lats, according to certified strength and conditioning specialist Jake Harcoff, CSCS, a head coach and owner of AIM Athletic. These large, triangle-shaped muscles on either side of your back just under your shoulders, also support posture and back health, he says.
Developing lat strength can translate to improved posture because they can literally pull your shoulders and chest out of a slumped position. This reduces the risk of slouching and associated back pain, he says.
Enhanced Grip
Learn how to do a pull-up and you’ll become the official pickle jar opener of your household, especially because you're improving your grip every time you do pull-ups. Not only will pull-ups improve your grip strength, but they also will make daily tasks such as carrying groceries easier. They even boost performance in sports that require strong hands and forearms, says Harcoff.
“Your grip strength is tested and improved through pull-ups because maintaining a firm hold on the bar throughout the exercise activates the forearm muscles,” he adds.
Boosted Sports Performance
Functionally speaking, the core acts as a conduit between the upper and lower body, playing an important role in force transfer from the legs to the arms during athletic movements like throwing, says Harcoff. “This integration of strength across the body can enhance performance in a variety of sports."
Increased Relative Strength
Strength can be classified as either absolute or relative. Absolute strength refers simply to the total amount of weight lifted, while relative strength compares the amount of weight lifted to an individual's current bodyweight, explains Harcoff. While absolute strength is generally regarded as more impressive, relative strength translates to greater functional fitness.
Because the pull-up is an advanced-level bodyweight exercise that requires a lot of relative strength, the ability to do one reflects that you are quite strong compared to your weight, he says. The more pull-ups you can do, the higher your relative strength score becomes, which ultimately translates to greater independence throughout life as well as more functional fitness during an emergency like pulling yourself up out of the ocean.
Improved Balance
To keep your body from being loosey-goosey while you’re levitating through the air mid pull-up you have to clench your core. The result? Additional core strength, says Rivera.
This, in turn, translates to better balance. Not only does this translate to improved coordination in and out of the gym, but it also reduces the risk of falling and experiencing fall-related injuries, she says.
Exactly How to Do a Pull-Up
Prerequisite strength aside, one of the hurdles you have to overcome to get your first pull-up is figuring out form. Proper pull-up technique also makes the movement easier explains Harcoff.
If, for example, you try to initiate the exercise with your biceps rather than your lats, you’re asking for much smaller—and therefore weaker—muscles to do the bulk of the work, which makes it harder, he says.
So, how the heck do you do a pull-up with good form? Rivera offers this step-by-step guide on how it's done.
How to Do a Pull-Up
- Reach up and grab onto a horizontal pull-up bar overhead, hands shoulder-width apart, and palms facing away from your body.
- Extend your arms fully and lift your feet (if you need to) so that you're in a dead hang position.
- Squeeze the bar with your hands, thinking about rotating your pinkies toward the bar as you do to engage your lats.
- Draw your belly button toward your spine, pull-up on your quads, and clench your glutes to create full-body tension.
- Keep your elbows in toward the body and think about breaking the bar in half to pull yourself straight up to the bar.
- Continue pulling until your chin passes the plane of the bar—or however high you can go.
- Pause at the top for at least one second to maximize exercise effectiveness.
- Keep your middle and lower body contracted and straighten your arms to return to the start position.
Pull-Up Variations to Try if You Can’t (Yet) Do a Pull-Up
No doubt, the long list of benefits of doing pull-ups probably makes you want to add the exercise into your workout rotation. The good news? You can do just that—even if you don’t yet have the requisite strength to do a standard pull-up.
“It’s a difficult movement," says Joe Rodonis, a certified personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach with Tonal. "So if you can’t do a bodyweight pull-up today, that’s OK.”
In the meantime, you can work toward your first pull-up, as well as reap similar health and fitness benefits, by performing the movement patterns and training the muscles used in pull-up, he says.Here are seven easier pull-up alternatives to try if you can’t yet do a pull-up—but would like to eventually.
Lat Pull-Down
If you have access to a cable machine, hook in the pull-up bar attachment, take a seat, and start pulling, says Rodonis. “A pull-up is essentially a bodyweight version of a lat pull-down."
By allowing you to adjust weight by five or 10 pound increments, the lat pull-down machine makes the movement pattern accessible to those who can’t yet pull their bodyweight, he says.“Start with a weight you can control and slowly increase weight, repetitions, and tempo as you practice the movement from a seated position."
Dumbbell Row
One of the most effective ways to improve lat strength is the dumbbell row, says Rodonis. Depending on what equipment you have access to, you could do a standing bent-over dumbbell row with two dumbbells.
Or, grab a weight bench and just one dumbbell and perform a single-arm dumbbell row. Both row variations will effectively work your lats and midline, he says.
Chin-Up
When you perform a pull-up, your hands are positioned on the bar with your palms facing away from you, says Harcoff. This is known as a pronated grip. Some people find that grabbing the bar with your palms facing toward you or in a supinated grip is easier.
This shifts some of the work from the lats to the biceps and chest, he says. “The supinated version is usually referred to as a chin-up."
To try a chin-up, grip the bar with your hands shoulder-width apart, palms facing toward you. Next, think about pulling your thumbs into the bar and squeezing an orange with your lats to pull yourself up.
Cable Chin-Up
Cable chin-ups are the same idea as the lat pull-down, says Rodonis, but with a reverse grip which puts a larger emphasis on the biceps and chest. To try it, set up a cable machine with a pull-up bar and grab it with palms facing inward.
Neutral Grip Pull-Up
There are also pull-up variations that can be done on neutral grip bars where your palms face each other. These are referred to as neutral-grip pull-ups, says Harcoff. Some people find this variation easier, and it's worth giving it a try if you have access to a neutral grip pull-up bar and are close to getting a standard pull-up, he says.
Ring Pull-Ups
If you have hanging rings or other suspended handles (like TRX bands), Harcoff suggests trying ring pull-ups. This customizable exercise involves pulling your body up toward the sky, while keeping your feet on the ground, he explains. The more horizontal your body is, the harder the ring pull-up variation will be, while the more vertical your body is the easier it will be.
To try a ring pull-up, grab onto the rings with a neutral grip and walk your feet out a few steps away from the rings. Straighten your arms and engage your core so that you look like you’re in a reverse high plank position. Then, pull yourself up to the rings. Harcoff suggests picking a foot placement that allows you to do five to 10 ring pull-ups at a time.
Banded Pull-Ups
For the uninitiated, band-assisted pull-ups involve securing a resistance band to a pull-up bar and then, hooking it around your foot or knee before assuming a pull-up position on the bar. The band helps offset some of your weight, thus making the pull-up easier than it would be without the band, explains Harcoff.
“Begin with a thick band and stick with that band until you can perform 15 (or so) reps with that specific band,” he says.
Once you can consistently hit that goal, switch to a slightly thinner band, which will force you to do a smidge more of the leg work in the exercise, he says. “Continue progressively decreasing band thickness as you build strength until you can perform pull-ups without any band at all."
Bottom Line
Pull-ups may not be easy, but given just how many muscles the exercise and its variations work, it’s absolutely worth doing or working up to, says Harcoff. “Through time and intentional practice you will eventually be able to do a pull-up, so keep at it."
In the meantime, start with smaller, achievable goals, he says, such as completing five pull-ups with a green band or pulling 80 pounds on the lat pull-down machine. Achieving these smaller wins can activate your dopamine system, providing motivation and a sense of accomplishment that will help you stay committed and working toward doing a pull-up down the road, he says.
