The Pull-up The pull-up is one of the most essential movements of CrossFit. It involves strength, endurance, and coordination throughout the entire body and can be paired with almost any movement or set of movements and make a great workout. Pull-ups can also be pretty intimidating, especially for newbies. For many people getting a pull-up is their #1 CrossFit goal, then getting the more advanced chest to bar and butterfly pull-up down the road. Here are a number of ways to get better at pull-ups for people of all experience levels. THE KIP If you are new you have probably noticed people flying around on the pull-up bars during workouts looking like they are doing some crazy dance move that somehow helps them do tons of pull-ups. This is called the kip. The kip makes for a more efficient movement as it involves momentum and using the entire body to send the body over the bar instead of just the arms and back. It allows us to do more pull-ups and do them faster. The essentials of the kip are: 1) The swing 2) Turning over of the hips 3) Pushing away from the bar at the top/restarting the swing To start to learn the kip you have to start with learning the swing and initiating from the shoulders, pushing the head and chest through the arms then pulling back with your body. It may seem like the legs and feet are doing all the action here but it is actually the upper part of your torso, mostly the shoulders. The turnover of the hips is what generates the power to propel you up to the bar as the arms pull. Think of it like you are jumping up to the bar, closing the hips then throwing them back open while you pull with the arms. Perhaps the most important part of the kip is at the top. Many people have a problem with restarting the next pull-up because they just drop straight down from the bar and lose their momentum. Momentum is key, so literally pushing away from the bar to restart that swing you started at the beginning is essential. Improving the mechanics of the kip is the #1 way to get better at pull-ups. Being more efficient in the movement will allow you to do more pull-ups longer regardless of your strength level. GETTING STRONGER The kip is an amazing tool to help perform workouts with a lot of pull-ups. Since it is a total body movement, however, it doesn’t build pure pull-up strength as well as strict or “dead hang” pull-ups do. So if you struggle with pull-ups because of strength (which many people do especially starting out), or if you want to keep taking away bands and work towards one day doing unassisted pull-ups, then doing some sets of strict pull-ups a few times per week will help build the pulling strength needed to improve your pull-ups. Think around 3 sets of as many strict pull-ups you can do in a row with 2 minutes of rest between sets. If you use bands usually you should use bands plus maybe another red or blue so you can do at least 5+ each set. Doing this extra work 2-3 times per week (aside from usual pull-up workouts using the kip) will get you stripping away bands and moving towards unassisted pull-ups. The goal should be to get 8-10 each of the 3 sets then work with less bands. Keep doing so until you are doing pull-ups without a band. It will happen faster than you think. If you are close to doing a lesser scale or even unassisted pull-ups, pick and chose workouts to go for the harder scale of pull-ups. If it is something with a small number of reps and/or is an AMRAP, then it is a good idea to try the harder scale and give yourself the extra work. Small amounts of reps, around 5 or so, per round are manageable to do in small chunks without worrying about losing the intensity of the workout. AMRAPs are always good times to try harder movements you have been working on because regardless how much you struggle it has a specific end time. You can also ask a coach how to scale the number of reps in a certain workout if you are trying to make that breakthrough to less bands or no bands but know you are still not quite there to get all the reps required in a high rep workout.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 04:53:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015