Want Kelly Ripa arms and shoulders?! Who doesn’t!! Does pull ups ring a bell?! Pulling your own body weight is tough but the benefits are worth it!! Pull ups will strengthen and sculpt your entire upper body! This is what you want! You can do pull ups in the comfort of your own home or at they gym. So pick a place and get ready to tone your arms, chest, back, and shoulders! Grab the parallel/pull up bar with your palms facing out or in depending on your comfort level. Now, use your upper body muscles to pull yourself above the bar. Release back down and repeat. Even if you do just one rep, you tore that muscle to give it tone and shape. Tone up fast with the pull up exercise!
Now try it! Get into position. Complete 1 full pull up rep. Don’t just stop at one. Keep trying to add on more after each rest period. Challenge yourself by completing more reps at one time! Make a goal of 10 complete pull ups in a row. You can do it!
Add this to your upper body workout. Find your inner strength with pull ups!
Did you complete 1 rep?! Feel awesome?!!
Take care and get fit…Jen 
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1:50 pm on March 26th, 2010
Great exercise for great results Jen. No other exercise comes close for upper body work. I think if your body fat is low enough, every person should train to attain atleast 10 pull-ups. I mean 10 full range, starting from a dead-hang position pull-up.
None of that ‘accordion having an epileptic seizure’ pull-up:)
Now, doing pull-downs on a machine has ZERO transfer to pull-ups and obviously smaller results. In the first case, you are moving the weight around your body and in the 2nd case, you are moving your body around the bar. Different motor unit recruitment plus stabilizers and abs work harder.
Someone who cannot do a pull-up should start by doing just the lowering part for a count of 3 until strength levels improve. Good luck!
2:11 pm on March 26th, 2010
Thanks for the comment Kishore!! Pull ups are awesome!! Pulling your own weight vs. the machine pull up exercise is two completely different things. My goal is 10!! Thanks for stopping by
Kishore wrote:
Jen-JensFitnessTips.com´s last blog ..Tip #68: Pull Up Exercise
3:02 pm on March 26th, 2010
Just wanted to add a couple of ideas to increase pull-up numbers.
1) Greasing the groove: Do pull-ups 3-4 times a week without EVER burning out or going to failure. Pick a number of pull-ups you want to do in a day, say 25. Try to complete the pull-ups in as many sets it takes without going to failure. The idea is to train your nervous system at doing pull-ups.
2.) Ladder technique: One ladder is a giant set of 15 reps broken apart. Exmaple, do 1 pull-up, rest 15 seconds, do 2 pullups, rest 30 sec. Do 3, rest, do 4, rest, do 5 rest for 2 minutes. Repeat if you want. This will ensure you are staying as fresh as possible while increasing pull-ups numbers. Hope this helps.
8:50 am on March 29th, 2010
Thanks for the ideas!!
@ Kishore:
Jen-JensFitnessTips.com´s last blog ..Tip #69: Reach For The Sun Yoga