Pull Up Station – Your Alternatives

Ok, by now, you know just how beneficial a Pull Up Station is and can be.  (And if you’re still not convinced, be sure to scroll down and check out the below pull up station article.)

But, did you know that you could actually choose from quite a large variety of different Pull Up Station apparatus?  You’d think that a Pull Up Station would be pretty simple – just a bar to do pull ups, chins, and the like on.  And while at it’s most basic level, that is true, there is equipment with added benefits and features that make them very useful and some are even portable.

Let’s take a look at a few of the Pull Up Station alternatives you have at your disposal…

Pull Up Station Alternative #1 – Doorway Pull Up Bar

When many people think of a home Pull Up Station, they think of  a Doorway Pull Up Bar.

This little piece of equipment is pretty versatile and can be used in almost any doorway in your home.  They are designed in such a way that they use physics and bracing to keep in place.  Basically, part of it will be on one side of the doorway, sort of ‘looping’ over the door jamb.  The other part of it will be on the opposite side of the doorway, bracing from the opposite direction.

Most of the time when you get a Doorway Pull Up Bar, it will be in a box and you’ll have to assemble it yourself.  This is no problem – the whole process only takes about 5 minutes or so…10 max.  (TIP – Get yourself a little tube of “Loctite” and put some on the threads of the bolts when you put it together.  This will keep all the nuts tight and ensure it stays a solid and safe unit.)

Doorway Pull Up Stations are great because they’re generally pretty cheap, they’re not permanent (no drilling or screwing into the doorway) and can be put up or taken down in literally seconds.  Just be sure that when you use one, you move slow and controlled – excess momentum could cause the bar to move and fall while you’re in the middle of a set.

Pull Up Station Alternative #2 – Tower

You’ve probably seen a Pull Up Station like this at your local sporting goods store.  This is a free-standing unit that sits on the floor.  It will have a wide base that extends in several directions for maximum stability.  There will be a center section that comes up and has a pull up bar hanging from it.  On the opposite side of the Pull Up Station, it will usually be configured to be used as a station for doing Dips as well as Leg Raises.

This unit is a little more expensive than the Doorway Pull Up bar, and it takes up a little more space.  You might have to put it together yourself, or some of the sturdier options will be all one unit.  This Pull Up Station is going to be much stronger than a doorway option, however.  This is the sort of equipment that you could use a little more momentum on and be totally safe.  You can also load it much heavier (meaning that when you’re strong enough, you can do weighted Pull Ups and Chins) with no problem.  And you’ll never have to worry about a Pull Up Tower beating up your home or coming down while you’re in the middle of a set.

An added benefit is that you can also use it for additional exercises besides just Pull Ups, Chins, and their variations.  It’s ready-made to do Dips and Leg Raises.

Pull Up Station Alternative #3 – Rings

The next type of Pull Up Station you can use is one that, unless you travel in certain fitness circles, have no idea about – and that’s Rings.

If you’re thinking that these look like what you see men competing on in gymnastics events, then you’re completely correct – that’s exactly what they are.  In recent years, they’ve become quite popular with some fitness trainers because of their versatility and how they can improve the effectiveness of Pull Ups.

One of the things that makes Rings a great Pull Up Station is also one of the things that makes them the hardest to use – and that’s the fact that they’re totally totally independent of one another.  Unlike a Pull Up Bar, you’re free to move your hands where you want and hold them how you want.  This ends up easing a lot of stress on the shoulders, wrists, and elbows – this is a good thing.

However, this makes using them for Pull Ups and Chins much tougher, as it makes the exercise harder to do.  But again – this is a good thing.  It will take you a little longer to progress than normal, but that’s fine – the added strength and stability you’ll build will be well worth it.

Rings are also highly versatile in that they can be used for a whole myriad of different exercises, depending on how long you make the straps (and how high you have the Rings hanging off the floor).  You can use them for Pull Ups and Chins.  Lower them a little, prop your feet on a bench, and you can use them to do Inverted Rows.  Leave them where they are, flip over (so you’re facing the ground with your feet propped up) and now you’re doing Pushups on the Rings.  Raise them back up a little and you can do Dips on them.  Chain a Pull Up and a Dip together and you can do what’s called a “Muscle Up”.  Or, do various specific upper back and shoulder rehab exercises like Face Pulls.

Rings really are great for working the entire upper body.  And they’re usually very competitively priced.  (More than a Doorway Pull Up Bar, but less than a Tower.)  They’re also completely portable which means you can easily take them with you anywhere you go.

The main gripe Rings face is that you will need somewhere very strong and secure to hang them from.  This can be almost anywhere – a rafter in your basement, cross-bracing on your porch, or even a thick, sturdy tree-branch.  But you will need someplace to hang them, or else you won’t be able to use them.

Pull Up Station Alternative #4 – The TRX

You have almost assuredly heard of the TRX and suspension training by now…it’s in all the magazines, and all the ‘big-name’ mainstream Hollywood trainers use them, as well as even a few pro-athletes.

Basically, a TRX tries to take the idea of Rings and “one-up” it.

First, the handles are straight and foam-covered.  This makes them easier to grip and a little more stable in certain positions.  It also gives you a little more versatility with some exercises (especially those that target the biceps and triceps).

But where the TRX really steps it up a notch is with the addition of foot straps to each handle.  Now, this isn’t just a Pull Up Station – now you have ways to work your core, your Lower Body, and much more.  The TRX actually goes from being just a Pull Up Station to being a piece of equipment that you can train the entire body with.

Like Rings, you will have to have a place to securely hang the TRX, so be sure to think about that before you invest in one.  And the other main drawback is the price – it is a bit more spendy than other Pull Up Station alternatives (especially when compared to Rings).  However, with that added price, you are getting much more added versatility, and added ways you can use it.

It would be highly possible to think that you would need no other piece of equipment for your workouts than just a TRX.

CATEGORY – PULL UP STATION

A Pull Up Station – NEVER Need the Gym Again!

If you’re like me, you hate the gym.  It’s always crowded when you want (or have time) to go.  This means not only are you having to elbow your way through people, but wait on that one guy using the only piece of equipment you want to use.  If you’re lucky, he leaves it all sweaty and nasty for you when he’s done.  Yuck.

While you’re waiting on Mr. Sweaty, you have some trainer up your hind end trying to tell you everything you’re doing wrong.  Problem is that this guy probably doesn’t have much experience actually training people beyond some correspondence school home-study course.  (Doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?)  Besides, you know he’s just trying to get you to spend money on personal training sessions anyway.

Then there’s the drive there, dealing with changing clothes, that funky old dude in the locker room who walks around in his underwear…gyms just are no fun.

You can get a great workout at home, and accomplish all the same things you can in a gym with just a cheap set of adjustable dumbbells or even just regular bodyweight calisthenics like you used to do in high school P.E. class.  But none of these exercises target upper body pulling – the muscles of the back part of your upper body.

That’s where a Pull Up Station comes in.

Why Do You Need a Pull Up Station?

Now, you might be wondering why you would need a Pull Up Station in the first place?  Is a Pull Up Station really necessary to get a complete workout at home?

The answer really is ‘yes’.

See, for the most part, there are three main types of exercises:

• Upper Body Pushing
• Upper Body Pulling
• Lower Body

What sort of exercises you can do from these categories will depend on what sort of equipment you have at home.  Let’s say you just have a set of adjustable dumbbell handles with weight plates to put on them.  These are highly versatile, very inexpensive, and totally portable.  (Really, there is no reason why somebody who doesn’t want to train at a gym shouldn’t own a pair…my own personal workouts use adjustable dumbbell handles a large portion of the time.)

Between adjustable dumbbells and bodyweight exercises, you can target two of those three categories pretty well.  You can hit Upper Body Pushing by doing overhead shoulder presses and various styles of pushups.  This will target the shoulders, chest, and triceps very effectively.  You can target your entire Lower Body with various squats, lunges, step-ups, and more.  All of these can be done either un-weighted or holding dumbbells in each hand.

But, if you want to effectively do Upper Body Pulling exercises (and work the muscles of the back and biceps to their full potential), then a Pull Up Station is essential.  You will need a place to do pull ups, chins, and all their variations.

How a Pull Up Station Fixes the “Mirror Problem”

Pullups, chins, and other exercises that can be done at a Pull Up Station are often overlooked by trainees for one specific reason – they don’t see those muscles in the mirror.

If you stop to think about it, take a look at the exercises you see many people doing in gyms.  What do they all have in common?  They all work muscles on the front side of the body (chest, biceps, abs, etc).  Why is this?

Because these are the muscles they see when they look in the mirror.  They don’t even stop to think about the muscles they *don’t* see in the mirror – the ones of the back…the exact ones you’ll target when you use a Pull Up Station:

• Lats – the muscles on the ‘outside’ of the back (the ones that give you that “V-taper” look)
• Rhomboids – the muscles of middle and back that protect your spine
• Trapezius – the muscles that connect the shoulder girdle, upper back, and neck

This is literally the entire back half of your upper body…to not mention how a Pull Up Station will work your biceps, grip, forearms, and more.

Something else to think about – if you do too many ‘pushing’ exercises (shoulder presses, pushups, etc), you create muscle imbalances through your shoulder girdle because you’re doing a lot more ‘pushing’ than you are ‘pulling’.  Using a Pull Up Station effectively negates and prevents these imbalances.

You prevent shoulder injury, maintain shoulder girdle integrity, and keep your shoulders healthy overall by regularly using a Pull Up Station.

Is a Pull Up Station Better Than a Machine?

Some people want to know why they need to use a Pull Up Station in the first place.  After all, if they were to keep going to a gym, couldn’t they just use the cable machines that simulate a pull up?  Isn’t this just as effective as using a Pull Up Station?  After all, the movement is the same, right?

Not necessarily.

There has been some research into the concept of “NMA” – neuromuscular activation and which exercises are most beneficial as a result of increased NMA.

Without getting to “science-ey”, it goes like this – all types of exercises were put on a sort of continuum.  On one end, you had machines that locked you into a set range of motion and movement pattern.  You climb into the machine, and just move how it lets you move.

On the other end, you have bodyweight movements where you actually move your body through space (be they just normal calisthenics or if you have external weight added).

In the end, the research found that given the same resistance, bodyweight movements actually taxed the muscles more, and trainees got MUCH better results.  In other words, say you were using a cable machine, simulating what you’d do in a Pull Up Station.  When compared to exerting the same effort in a Pull Up Station, you wouldn’t get nearly the same results – the exercises performed in a Pull Up Station win every single time!

Your best bet really is to get yourself a Pull Up Station, and do your upper body pulling exercises on it.

FILED UNDER – PULL UP STATION

Pull Up Station Tip – Sample Pull Up Workouts

Ok, so you’ve spent some time working on your pull up station and have gotten much better at doing pull ups and chins.  (NOTE – if you’re not good at doing pull ups yet, then check out this –> pull up station tip.)

You’ve built up to do some pretty decent pull up numbers, and can do say maybe 10-12 or more in a row.  You no longer have to treat pull ups separately of how you would any other exercise simply because you’re not good at doing them.  Now you’re ready to really attack your pull ups hard and are looking for good workouts to do on your pull up station.

Well, here are a few examples for you.

Pull Up Station Workout A – “50 Pull Ups”

One of my favorite (and probably most often used) pull up station workouts is to simply just do 50 pull ups.

That’s it?  Just do 50 pull ups?  Well…yeah.  That’s it.

It doesn’t matter how many sets you do or how many reps per set.  You can use any combination you want.  The goal is to just do 50 pull ups.  Your goal is to reduce how many sets it takes you to do your 50 pull ups.  Once you can get them all in 3 sets or less, you can increase to 60 pull ups.  Once you can get 60 in 3 sets, increase to 75.  Once you can get 75 in 4 sets (maybe 5 if you’re only doing a few in that last set), then start adding weight and go back to 50.

My favorite way of doing this is to just hit the pull up station and do as many reps as I can on each set, and continuing on until I hit 50 total pull ups.

Pull Up Station Workout B – “Supersets”

Another pull up station workout I really like is to do a few pull ups in between sets of upper body pushing exercises – especially if I’m doing several sets of them.

(Upper body pushing exercises would include bench presses, overhead presses, push presses, dips, incline bench press, and other similar movements.)

What I’ll do is do a set of my upper body pushing movement, take a quick few breaths, then hit the pull up station to crank out a few pull ups.  You don’t want to do too many here – the idea is to build up a lot of cumulative pull ups by the end of the workout.  You don’t want to drain yourself in just a few sets.

After taking a short break after the pull ups, I’ll go back to my upper body pushing movement and repeat the process again.

This workout is great when you’re building up to heavy weights on your upper body pushing movement over several sets, as you can build up a lot of volume on your pullups.  Say you were building up to a new 3RM (three rep max – the most amount of weight you can lift for three reps) on the bench press.  Between warmups and ramping up to your max weight, you might do 8-12 sets.

Throw in a set of 5-6 easy pull ups after each one, and you’ve just done a ton of pull ups by the end of your workout, all without having to spend a bunch of extra time at the pull up station.

CATEGORY – PULL UP STATION WORKOUTS

Pull Up Station Tip – How to Integrate Pull Ups Into Your Workout

A lot of people aren’t sure how they should integrate pull ups into their current workout.  Should they be done at the start of a workout?  At the end?  Should they have their own specific set and rep scheme?  Should they have their own day?  Should they be done just a few at a time throughout the day?

Really, pull ups aren’t any different than any other exercise or movement you’d have in your workout.  By that I mean they shouldn’t get any special treatment or be looked at any differently than any other exercise.  The same principles you’d apply to getting better at them (doing more reps, using external resistance and adding more weight, etc) are the same principles you’d apply to any other exercise you might do.

The big difference with pull ups (and why most people have to approach them differently) is that they can’t do them very well.  So, in the event you’re not good at doing pull ups, here are a few methods you can use to get better.

Pull Up Station Method #1 – “Negative Reps”

There are two parts of every rep – the “lifting” (the part of the rep where you’re exerting force) and the “lowering” (the part of the rep where resisting against the weight).  The “lowering” part of the rep is also called a “negative”.

Negatives are great because your body is actually much stronger during the negative portion of a rep, so you can use them to get much stronger very quickly.

First, you’ll position yourself under your pull up station.  You’ll need a block or bench or stool or something placed under the pull up station so that you can step onto it.  Step onto said block, and use your legs to get into the ‘top’ position of a pull up in your pull up station.  Then, as hard as you can, resist slowly on the way down.  Try to make the Negative last 5-10 seconds.

Then step on the block, putting your chin above the pull up station, and repeat.

Do this for 3-6 sets of 4-8 Negatives.  (You’ll want to cut the set off when you can’t lower yourself slow and under control.)

Pull Up Station Method #2 – “Grease The Groove” (GTG)

GTG is a method of doing pull ups (or almost any exercise) popularized a few years ago by Pavel Tsatsouline.  The basic idea is that you train yourself to get better at doing pull ups by consistently doing them throughout the day.

If you want to do GTG, you will need consistent access to a pull up station during the day.  At a minimum, you want to be able to do 5-6 sets throughout the day.  Better yet, you’ll want to have a pull up station nearby that you can just hit, do a few reps, and resume what you were doing – say 8-12x/day.

First thing you’ll do is go to a pull up station and test your max – how many pull ups can you do in a row with good form?  Once you know that number, divide it in half.  That is the number of reps you’ll do each time you hit the pull up station.  Do this every single day for 6-7 days, then retest your max again.

CATEGORY – PULL UP STATION WORKOUT

Pull Up Station Tip – Pull Up Grip Width

There is a common misconception in the fitness world – especially in bodybuilding culture – that if you want to build a wide back, that when you train on a pull up station doing pull ups, chins, or the like, that you should use as wide of a grip as you can.  The thought is that doing this will sort of ‘stretch’ the muscles of the lats (the muscles that run from the armpit to the lower back) and cause them to grow wider.

Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case.  In fact, performing exercises on your pull up station in this manner will actually hinder you – not help you.

Ultra-Wide Grip – A Pull Up Station ‘No-No’

For generations, bodybuilders have talked about the benefits of doing pull ups and chins with a very wide grip.  The common thought (and what they’ve passed down to others and printed in bodybuilding magazines for years) is that the wider you grip the handle or bar on your pull up station, the wider it will build your back.

They think this (and people believe it) because when you take a very wide grip and hang, you can feel a very strong stretch in your back muscles.  It is then thought that this stretch leads to the muscles being stretched ‘longer’ (therefore bigger).

It’s also thought that if you take a real wide grip on your pull up station, that you’ll work a different area of the back, and those muscles that get stretched out wide will also get built up more.  Therefore, a wide grip = a wide back.

However, the truth is really the exact opposite.

See, when you take a really wide grip on your pull up station, you are actually limiting the range of motion (ROM) that you perform with each rep of the exercise.  Or in other words, you are only doing reps that are partially as long as reps would be if didn’t take a wide grip.

Think of it like this – say you were to grab onto your pull up station, and your hands were six inches outside of your shoulders.  Hang all the way down so that your arms are straight, then pull yourself up so that your chin is over the bar.  You’ll find that your body doesn’t actually go that far up and down through space.

However, if you were to grip your pull up station at a shoulder-width grip and repeat, think of how much further your body would be traveling up and down through space.  This is because your ROM has increased that much.  And that will lead to you being able to tax the muscles of the back just that much more.

And when you can tax the muscles of the back that much more, you can not only build them bigger, but build them stronger.

Maximize Your Grip on the Pull Up Station

However, this doesn’t mean that you should go super narrow with your grip.  Doing this can put your elbows and wrists in a disadvantageous position, and actually hurt them.  It will also focus emphasis away from the muscles of the back.

Your best bet is if you’re going to do pull ups, to use a grip that’s at shoulder-width or just outside.  If you’re going to do chins, then a grip just inside shoulder-width is optimal.

FILED UNDER – PULL UP STATION GRIP TIPS