Unconventional Wisdom

When most people think of a pull up, they think of the exciting dread of having to pull their whole body up to a bar. Leaving  their arms, back and chest burning with lactic acid…and loving it. But there’s an element that’s often forgotten, the part on the way down. The negative part of an exercise is the 50% most people don’t focus on. Despite numerous studies it seems we’re still not taking full advantage of most of exercises. So to drive this point home, we’ve devised an exercise solely for the forgotten stepchild.

The premises behind the negative pull up is overload eccentrics. This means lowering heavyweights slowly in order to recruit more muscle fibers and introduce connective tissues. This method is also associated with hypertrophy and increasing strength.

To perform the exercise start with your chin already over the bar and your body loaded with weight ( i.e. chain w/ plates or weighted vest) and then slowly lower yourself to the floor. Reset and repeat.

These can be used pre workout, as a finisher, or just to wake up the nervous system.

This is a high intensity workout, so as a general rule you want to keep reps low, no more than five reps. Anything more than that and you could risk injuring to your elbow, shoulder, and joints.

Try 2-3 sets of 5 reps or less once or twice a week and let us know the results!