Let Personal Trainer Coach Kevin Trumpfeller guide you to a pull up bar workout for your entire body.
Ready to invest in ONE affordable piece of home exercise equipment that produces fantastic results in as few as 15 minutes a day?
That piece of equipment should be a door-mounted or wall-mounted pull up (or chin up) bar for your home gym!
Once you have one mounted on the wall or temporarily mounted in your door frame, you have a single piece of equipment that can provide a muscle building, fat burning superhero workout. Just the bar and your bodyweight and you can hit almost every muscle group in your body.
Your wall mounted pull up bar can be installed in minutes, or if you live in an apartment setting, choose the removable doorway style and mount it in a central location.
Develop the habit of performing 2 or 3 or 10 pull up or chin up repetitions every time you pass by and you’ll develop upper body strength and size quickly. A more advanced workout can be completed in less time than your travel to and from the nearest gym.
A chin up is performed with underhand grip. With a chin up the biceps do most of the work.
The Basics: Chin-ups and Pull-ups. Although similar, chin ups and pull ups work slightly different muscles groups resulting from hand placement and angle. A pull up is performed with an OVERhand grip in the bar with hands about shoulder width or wider. Since you want to get the most from your training, always start from a “dead hang” as momentum is considered “cheating”.
Pull your body up until your chin is above the bar OR the bar touches the area where the back of your neck meets your back, then slowly lower yourself back to the start. Resist simply dropping your weight, you’ll make greater gains. You’ve completed one repetition.
If you change your grip to UNDERhand, with your palms facing you, then the exercise becomes a chin up.
For the beginner, chin ups are often easier to perform than pull ups as your biceps do most of the work. Both chin ups and pull ups are excellent exercises for upper body definition and development they differ by hand placement and muscles involved. Both work back muscles and arms, but the chins work more biceps and forearms.
For both chin ups and pull ups, you can vary the width of your hands to target different sets of muscles with this same exercises. When you use a wide grip, where the hands are spread further than shoulder width, emphasis is placed on the back muscles. When you use a narrow grip more emphasis is placed on the arm muscles and the muscles near the spine and core.
As a bonus, both chin ups and pull ups offer a great core workout, each rep causes a tightening (engagement) of the upper abdominals resulting in training both the upper body and the core.
You can also perform a wide variety of abdominal exercises while hanging from your bar and if you have a removeable setup, you can place it near the bottom of the door frame for performing anchored sit ups.
Here’s a sample workout using your pull up bar. Perform one set of each exercise to failure, even if that’s only one rep. Always strive to perform additional reps each workout.
Pull Ups. Always start with pull ups. After a brief warmup, hang from the bar and stretch out, now grab the bar with hands shoulder width apart and your palms facing away from your body. Pull up until your upper back touches the bar, then slowly lower your body.
Chin Ups. The chin up continues your upper body exercise but shifts additional focus on your biceps and forearms. Grab the bar with your palms facing you, and pull upward. The chin ups will also work your anterior deltoids.
Knee Raises. While hanging from the bar, relax your abs and legs and allow them to hang down. Now tighten and engage your abdominals and slowly and smoothly bring your knees to your chest and then slowly lower them to the start position.
Toes To Bar. Another core workout similar to the knee raise, again while hanging from the bar, this time keep your legs straight and slowly bending only at the waist bring your feet up to the bar. Lower and repeat.
Rock Climbers. Perform a regular pull-up, but at the top shift your bodyweight all the way to the left and then all the way to the right before lowering yourself to the start. You will be shifting virtually your entire weight left and right and strengthening your arm, shoulder, and back muscles.
Negative Chins. Negative chins focus on the lowering or “negative” portion of a chin up. Standing on a sturdy box or chair, grab the bar as though you are about to perform a pull up or a chin up then step off your support and SLOWLY lower yourself until your arms are straight. Step back up and repeat until you can no longer support your weight.
Looking for a new pull up bar? Check out our list and guide to the best pull up bars. By checking out our pull up bar reviews you can find the unit best suited for your home and your body.
Your new pull-up bar is like having a home gym in your doorway. You’ll build both size and strength and the pull up bar will always challenge you, especially if you commit to knocking out reps every time you pass by it. Then, as you continue to train, you will build lean muscle and mass resulting in greater weight and resistance. If you ever find that you are not challenged, strap a 10 pound (or more) weight around your waist and take your training to new levels!
Coach Kevin is a Certified Holistic Health Coach, Personal Trainer, Nurse and former Medical Instructor & Master Fitness Trainer for the US Army. He just launched his first book "Coach Kevin's Weight Loss Workbook". You can find out more about him and his work here: coachkevintrumpfeller.com
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