How to Do Pull Ups

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Sue Conrad and I'm going to demonstrate how to do a pull up. A pull up is a good upper body workout. It requires a lot of upper body strength that many people don't have, so I will also be showing some modifications to this exercise for those of us who are a little bit upper bodily challenged. There are many different grips as well, I mean you can do an overhand grip, underhand grip, and a wide grip depending on what apparatus you're using for your pull up. I'm going to start with an underhand grip, and if you're a little bit shorter you may need some assistance getting up. So you can use a chair or whatever's available. Start up, and then pull your body down. When you're doing your pull ups you want to make sure that you keep your back nice and straight, shoulders relaxed, and you want to try your best not to swing. You don't want to use momentum bringing you up to the bar, so if you need some extra assistance you can have someone hold your feet and help slightly push you up and elevate you, or you could have a chair underneath, like halfway down so you don't have to go all the way down to the ground for your pull up position. So there are several different ways you can have your grip. You can have underhand, overhand, wide grip, close grip, and with some pull up bars you can even hold your hands at the sides. So you're going to work your upper body muscles at different angles and benefit increasing your upper body strength."