The pull-up is one of the greatest upper-body strength exercises in existence.  It will work your grip, forearms, biceps and triceps, shoulders, lats, spinal muscles, abs, glutes, and even the muscles of the legs; that's pretty much everything.  So why, when pull-ups involve minimum outlay for the purchase of equipment (and pull-up bars are included in almost all commercial gyms), don't we see more people doing them.  Usually the only thing you'll see hanging from a pull-up bar is a towel.  Well the answer is simple - they're HARD!  This fact can come as quite a shock to even seasoned athletes who, although proficient in their own sport, may flounder under the strain of raising their own bodyweight a couple of feet through the air.  Pull-ups are, for someone new to them, a maximal strength developer.  In this series of blogs, to be published every Friday over the coming few months, we'll take you from a complete novice to getting your chin over the bar for the first time.  Hopefully if you can follow the advice given, you'll develop slowly, but steadily.

First things first however.  I recommend you buy this pull-up bar.  It fits most doors, is cheap, solidly built, involves no screw fixings, and is generally delivered within days.  So get to it.  If you choose not to buy a bar (buy a bar) then you can use your local gym, school playground, or branch of a tree.  Now that you have the equipment, I'm going to give you some simple progressions to build up the necessary muscular and neurological structures involved.

The first thing you want to consider is the correct grip.  For beginners, I recommend a palm-towards-the-body grip (aka an underhand grip) with the arms far enough apart so that the thumbs are in line with the outside of the shoulders.  Technically the movement derived from this grip is a chin-up, and not a pull-up, but for beginners it recruits more of the biceps and is the easiest grip to start with.  The grip width will protect your elbow joints while allowing you to express maximum power.  As we advance I'll be recommending a variety of other more challenging grips.

Now before you begin writhing like a fish on the deck, just hang from the bar with your arms and body fully extended (you may need to bend your knees to avoid touching the ground).  See what's a comfortable time limit for you.  You might be surprised.  Many people initially find 5 - 10 seconds tough.  Whatever your score, record it; this is your baseline, and in the coming weeks when you think you've made no progress, I'm going to get you to look back at it and see what massive gains you've really made.

The next consideration is active and passive shoulders.  I want you to hang from the bar again and let your shoulders literally pull out of their sockets.  This is termed passive shoulder action and it's not what we want.  Instead hang from the bar and strongly suck your shoulders together, both into their sockets while actively drawing the shoulder blades towards the spine.  The first thing you'll notice is that you rise up a few inches - great, less distance to travel!  The second thing you'll notice is that the muscles of the hands, forearms, upper arms, back, stomach, bum and legs are now working much harder and as a unit.  Pull-ups not only make your arms stronger, they facilitate whole body strength, both at the muscular and nervous system level.  When you get the hang of both these positions, alternate smoothly between the two... active, passive, active, passive.  Now try hanging for time.  Begin by using active shoulders.  Focus on strongly contracting your whole body.  And when you tire, eek out a few more seconds by relaxing your whole body, allowing the shoulders to become passive, and using the least amount of strength to keep you off the floor.  Chances are, you will already have beaten your initial hang-time.

For the next week, I want you to hit the bar as often as possible, as fresh and rested as possible, and simply hang.  To borrow a phrase from Russian strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline, Grease the Groove i.e. do a little and often.  Do it when you get up, at lunch time, before and after tea.  Put the bar between you and the fridge and every time you go to open it, hang.  If you're a social animal, put it between you and the phone... everytime someone calls, treat yourself with some hang-time after the conversation.  Watch a programme you intensely dislike and when you hang from the bar imagine your grip around the throat of the producer.  Like a good musician, don't practise, play!

A few final words for this week, and they are strength-to-weight ratio.  These words express a very simple but important concept in bodyweight training and it's this; the heavier you are in relation to your strength, the more work you have to do to accomplish the task at hand.  Simply put, it's going to be tougher to get your first pull-up if you're overweight, under-strength, and especially if you are both.  Don't be disheartened thought, just try and loose a little weight every week if you need to and I'll take care of the strength.  What's ahead of you can often take between one to three months, but if you stick with the programme the sheer joy of getting your chin over the bar for the first time will be yours.  Then we'll be ready for some real training!