According to legend, the name “Australian pull-ups” was invented by trainer and methodologist Dmitry Smirnov. He called the pull-ups with straight legs on a low bar just so that the term would look interesting in Men's Health magazine. And the background was in a play on words - “Down there” is what English-speaking people call Australia. In kangaroo country, by the way, the movement is called “low bar pull-up.” The movement is called something like this in textbooks on physical training from the times of the USSR. By the way, the exercise was known in those ancient times. It is not something new.
The benefits of Australian pull-ups
Children were taught gymnastics by doing pull-ups on a low bar. This made it possible to strengthen the back, improve mobility and accustom the ligaments to the load. Over time, athletes switched to the usual version of pull-ups.
The exercise has its advantages:
- allows you to improve mobility in the shoulder joint;
- compensates for the changes that inevitably await lovers of a large amount of bench work;
- strengthens back muscles;
- removes “office posture”;
- eliminates imbalances;
- improves strength indicators, prepares for regular pull-ups
Australian pull-ups are recommended for anyone who, for some reason, cannot master regular pull-ups. But as an exercise it also has independence. Australian pull-ups may be a priority if the latissimus dorsi muscles need to be strengthened and additional heavy work is not required.
The negative side of the exercise is that if performed incorrectly, there is a risk of overloading the cervical spine and causing problems with the cervical-collar area. Many athletes “moonlight” their trapezius muscles, and therefore the exercise causes severe pain for them. But it’s quite easy to get rid of this if you perform the movement technically correctly.
Australian pull-ups
USEFUL TIPS
Squeeze the bar
Benefit:
The correct grip will allow you to get the proper contraction of the muscles in your upper back and shoulders. This will make you stronger and allow you to easily lift your weight to the bar.
How to do it:
Stand on a box or bench so that your hands can reach the bar. Grab it lightly, with your hands slightly wider than your shoulders. Squeeze your hands three times. The third time, imagine that you are trying to squeeze the bar in your hands. Hold yourself like this while doing pull-ups.
Reverse Shrug
Benefit:
Takes some of the work off the trapezius muscles. Shifts the load to the latissimus dorsi and teres major muscles.
How to do it:
Hang from the bar, overhand grip. Move your shoulder blades down and back. You will feel your lats tighten in your armpits and your shoulders move away from your ears. If you're not ready to hang from a bar yet, start by doing a reverse shrug on a pull-up machine.
Prepare to strike
Benefit:
Most men perform pull-ups with an arched back. However, this undermines your efforts and risks back injury. Tighten your stomach as if you were about to be hit in the solar plexus to keep your back straight and firm.
How to do it:
Hang from the bar and imagine that you are pulling your belly button towards your ribs. Maintain this tension throughout the exercise.
Squeeze your buttocks
Benefit:
Squeezing your glutes and squeezing your hips together will increase the stability of your lower body so your legs don't flop around, taking power away from your upper body.
How to do it:
Squeeze your buttocks as hard as you can. The pelvis should move up a little, and the back should curve down a little.
Bend your body
Benefit:
This position will force your lats to work together with your abs. This will increase your stability, allowing you to focus on lifting your body towards the bar.
How to do it:
Tighten your abs, squeeze your hips together, and point your legs slightly forward so your body forms a wide “C.” Maintain this position throughout the entire exercise.
Move as one
Benefit:
A stiff body from crown to toe not only recruits more muscles, including the glutes, hamstrings, and core, but also increases pulling power in the lats and arms.
How to do it:
Tighten all your muscles, from your fingers to your toes. Don’t relax your body at all, keep the tension from hang to hang.
Reach the bar with your shoulders
Benefit:
Reaching the bar with your upper chest and shoulders, rather than just your chin, helps maintain proper shoulder position.
How to do it:
Look straight ahead and arch your torso slightly back so that your chin passes the bar. If you can, try to touch the bar with your collarbone.
Hang below
Benefit:
Fully straightening your arms after each pull-up ensures that you don't use momentum to do rep after rep. This is more difficult, but will give greater muscle mass gains in the long term.
How to do it:
Straighten your elbows fully between repetitions.
Exhale on the way up, inhale on the way down
Benefit:
Exhaling as you rise increases core tension, making it easier to move as one unit.
How to do it:
Don't exhale all the air at once. Instead, use your abs to forcefully squeeze the air out of your lungs throughout the entire lift. On the descent, inhale as you straighten your arms.
Do not fall
Benefit:
Going down can help you gain strength even more than going up. This means you can’t let your body just fall down. Keep your descent under control.
What muscles work
The Australian pull-up is one of the universal compound movements that is recommended for anyone who needs to use the maximum number of muscles in their work. This exercise is a complex multi-joint exercise.
Main engines:
- latissimus dorsi muscles;
- diamond-shaped;
- trapezoidal.
The biceps and forearms help with movement. The muscles of the legs, buttocks, and abs are involved as stabilizers.
Alternating grips changes the load on the muscles:
Wide straight grip:
- lats;
- diamond-shaped
Medium reverse grip:
- arm biceps;
- forearms;
- lats.
Narrow grip:
- more significantly includes the forearms and biceps.
Example of a weekly program
It is recommended to take a break of 2-3 days between the following workouts.
Workout 1.
2-3 sets of Australian pull-ups with a straight grip (at 70-90% of maximum load).
Workout 2.
2-3 approaches with a reverse grip (at 70-90% of the maximum load, i.e. opposite grip).
Once you can do at least 5 reps with proper form (at level 3 and above), you will have enough strength to begin working on other pull-up exercises (such as straight arm hangs, bent arm hangs, etc.) negative repetitions (descent phase)).
Parting words
If you're serious about achieving your first solo pull-up, the Australian pull-up is a great springboard to success much faster. Adding some isometric exercises, such as hanging from bent and straight arms, will likely lead to even faster results. Just a few weeks! You just need to train methodically and diligently.
Here's a workaround!
Good luck!
Smith machine technique
The Smith machine is convenient for performing this exercise. You just need to set the bar to the desired height, and you can train effectively.
The exercise is performed like this:
- Beginners start from the height of the crossbar at waist level;
- you need to make sure that the crossbar is securely fastened;
- palms shoulder-width apart;
- the grip is performed at this level;
- legs straightened, heels fully on the floor;
- you should start by bringing your shoulder blades together;
- then, by tensing the back muscles, perform a pull-up;
- at the final point, touch the crossbar with your chest and smoothly lower back to the starting position.
Smith machine pull-ups: 3 difficulty options
Contraindications and restrictions on implementation
There are only two main contraindications to performing the exercise, which must be observed:
- You cannot perform exercises with existing injuries to the shoulder and elbow joints.
- If there are problems or injuries associated with the lumbar region, then it is imperative to follow the pulling technique while keeping the back in a linear position.
For trained athletes, horizontal pull-ups, even with weights and high leg support, will be too easy for pumping up the back muscles, but are ideal for finishing a workout as a “pump”. However, for beginners, this will be the best option for moving on to classic pull-ups on the horizontal bar, allowing you to prepare your muscles.
Pull-ups
This option is more complicated because it allows you to raise your legs and keep them in a position above the ground. This puts more load on the back muscles, and they are more actively involved in the work.
Technique:
- Take the starting position - fix your legs, clinging to the crossbar with your ankle;
- Grab the bars with your hands;
- Perform a hang and begin to rise from the bottom point - tense your back muscles, squeeze your shoulder blades, activate your forearms and pull yourself up until your shoulders touch the bars;
- The legs move in the same direction as the body, but do not participate in the work.
Determine your category and move forward to success
Before you start training, set yourself the exercises that you can do. Then you need to determine the group and, accordingly, the exercise program, which is designed for two weeks. A month after the start of serious professional training, it is necessary to undergo testing again.
Your result: from 0 to 1
Your difficulties: you are not ready yet (can’t support your weight)
What will help: the best option for you is to do only the reverse part of the pull-ups: use a bench to help, place it just below the crossbar, help with your legs to do the pull-up. Give yourself a minute of rest after each set.
Train according to the schedule:
First training week: 3 sets of 5-6 repetitions of the exercise, lowering time 5-6 seconds
Second training week: 3 sets of 5-6 repetitions of the exercise, lowering time 5-6 seconds
Third training week: 2 sets of 5-6 repetitions of the exercise, lowering time 8-10 seconds
Fourth training week: 2 sets of 5-6 repetitions of the exercise, lowering time 8-10 seconds.
Your result: from 2 to 4
Your difficulties: less than necessary number of repetitions during training
What will help: first, reduce the number of repetitions of the exercise while increasing the number of approaches. Focus on the first repetitions of exercises, as they allow you to establish the “brain-muscle” connection.
Train according to the schedule:
First training week: 8 sets, 50 percent of the maximum number of reps performed for the best set, 1.5 minutes rest.
Second training week: 8 sets, 50 percent of the maximum number of reps performed for the best set, 1 minute rest.
Third training week: 8 approaches, maximum number of repetitions performed for the best approach, 1.5 minutes rest.
Fourth training week: 8 sets, maximum number of reps performed for the best set, 1 minute rest.
Your result: from 5 to 7
Your difficulties: you have strength, but not enough endurance
What will help: increase the number of repetitions of the exercise. For example, if you previously performed 3 sets of 6 repetitions, do 30 repetitions, regardless of the number of repetitions in each approach.
Train according to the schedule: do pull-ups as many times as possible, rest for 1 minute, do more pull-ups as many times as you can.
Your result: from 8 to 12
Your difficulties: you cope with the load perfectly, we can say that your weight is too small for you
What will help: do even more work for yourself.
Train on a schedule: increase the load by using weights (10 percent of your body weight), attached, for example, to a belt. This will allow you to perform pull-ups more effectively. It is optimal for you now to perform 5 approaches with additional load as many times as you can, be sure to rest for 1 minute between approaches.
Ring technique
- The height of the projectile is determined solely by the athlete’s preparedness;
- Those who are prepared should use rings that are longer and closer to the floor;
- A regular straight grip is performed, the exercise is done from a hanging position;
- Feet are on the floor;
- The technique is reminiscent of the Australian pull-up on the horizontal bar, nothing special here.
Horizontal pull-ups. How are they useful? Technique and progressions
Main mistakes
When performing Australian pull-ups, the most common mistake is incorrect body position.
Often the pelvis is lowered down, thereby making the exercise easier.
Remember:
The legs, pelvis and torso should be in one line at all times.
If it is difficult to maintain this position of the body, then this is not your height. It is necessary to make the exercise easier by raising the bar higher.
There is also an option when the legs are bent at the knees at the starting point. In this case, the body, buttocks and knees form one line.
Another common mistake is sudden movements and high speed.
The exercise is performed smoothly and under control so that the muscles receive adequate force load.
In general, horizontal pull-ups are a simple exercise to perform technically. With the exception of the errors listed above, there are no difficulties with it. But provided that the height of the crossbar is selected correctly.
What to do at home
Australian pull-ups are popularly included in various home workout programs. Inexperienced athletes have a reasonable question about what to use to do pull-ups so that the exercise is both effective and intense. And here sports equipment and improvised means come to the rescue:
- parallel bars - special equipment for pulling up;
- TRX loops or any other similar;
- a crossbar made of two chairs and any available item, for example, a mop stick;
- a home horizontal bar is one of those that are fixed into a doorway, installed quite low. Here you need to choose a removable option.
Recommendations
- Rest your toes against a barbell plate or plyometrics box, this will help remove inertia and prevent slipping;
- Pull your chest to the bar; in terms of biomechanics, the movement is most similar to an inverted bench press; the exercise will therefore be useful for beginner benchers, and simply for those who want to learn how to engage their back muscles and press more;
- Stay at the top statically, this will strengthen your core muscles faster. The back is naturally quite strong, it just needs to be included in the work, statics will help the athlete progress and quickly move on to more complex exercises;
- Rise smoothly, and try to lower in 4 counts, that is, twice as slow;
- If you have problems with your grip, try to place your palm completely on the bar, make your grip deeper, and do not work in a manner that involves “extra” muscles in the movement;
- Do not try to tighten your biceps; working them is not the main purpose of parallel or horizontal pull-ups;
- Eliminate kicking off the ground to progress faster
How girls can do pull-ups to become stronger
The problem with girls and pull-ups is not weak arms, but the fact that few people learn how to do upper body exercises technically correctly. Most people have a goal to lose weight, so they try to quickly complete a large number of sets, repetitions, burn calories, and so on. But this is not exactly what you need to become stronger.
It is better for girls to do 4-5 sets, tensing their muscles slowly and in a controlled manner. You should not perform the exercise quickly and abruptly, and place too much hope on its fat-burning potential. Still, we do strength exercises to become stronger and improve joint mobility and posture, and not to “burn calories.”
It is enough to include the exercise in the plan 2 times a week if we are talking about a beginner girl. It’s worth learning how to do it by rising for 3-4 counts and fixing your chest at the bar for a few seconds. Only then will you get everything you need from this exercise. You shouldn't overload yourself. You will not learn to do pull-ups faster, even if you train yourself with this exercise alone.
Who is the exercise intended for?
First of all, Australian pull-ups are suitable for beginners who are not yet familiar with the classic version on the horizontal bar.
Men with an initial level of physical fitness or women can safely add this movement to their training program.
As men progress to traditional pull-ups, their training level progresses, while women may want to gradually lower the height of the bar to further increase their training load.
Oddly enough, even advanced athletes will benefit from this exercise.
True, complex implementation options (for example, on rings) are more suitable for them. This will improve your functionality.
