No bar

[norther practitioner]

I don't have my pull up bar yet, so what other things can I do to work out those muscle groups?

[IronFist]

"Those muscle groups."

Well, you can do curls to work out your biceps, but I assume you are talking about your back.

It's hard to work back without a pullup bar, weights, or some sort of machine. I think there's been threads about this before. If you don't have any weights at all (dumbbells or barbells) there's really not much you can do for your lats.

If you tell us if you have dumbells or barbells we can give you some more exercises.

[FooFighter]

NP:

There are numerous pulling compound movements you can do
without the bar. Do you have any free weights or machines that you can use? Depending what you have available, you can definitely work the same muscles found in the chins or pull ups but you can not improve your chin ups or pull ups without specifically doing them. For example, doing "lat pull downs" will not help you improve your chin up performance. In this example, you are exercising the same muscle group, just not the same skill.

I would suggest that if care to improve your chin up or pull up skills, then you should find creative means to do them. If you live by a park, you can perform pull ups or chin ups by using a tree branch or the children's monkey bars. For example, in New York City, the urban and athletic minded young African Americans who play street basketball are fond of doing chins or pull ups on the bars of Street signal walk/dont walk light posts on the corner sidewalks or on the basket's rim on the BB court. I believe I heard them phased it as their "ghetto workouts".

I give these urban kids credit for at least not letting money or the lack of equiment hold them back in functional strength condidtioning. Much could be learn when you dont have the means to get the proper gear.

Sincerely,
Bao

[IronFist]

Originally posted by FooFighter
NP:
For example, doing "lat pull downs" will not help you improve your chin up performance. In this example, you are exercising the same muscle group, just not the same skill.


Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one. I know what you're saying, because chin ups and lat pulldowns are different motions, neurologically speaking, but I wouldn't say they totally don't help each other.

Example:

A 150lbs guy can't even do one pullup. He trains lat pulldowns until he can do the stack (300lbs or whatever it is). He can now do a pullup. It won't be the most neurologically efficient pullup in the world, but he'll still be able to do one.

He has just done lat pulldowns and improved his pull up performance as a result.

Thanks for playing.

[FooFighter]

IronFist:

It is not my point to argue with you but to share with you my own personal experience and from my own personal experience, I've noticed many young bodybuilders who are capable of lifting the whole weight rack on the Lat PullDowns or on the Hammer Strength Chest Press and who also have considerable size and mass on their upper bodies are not able to perform a single chin up or pull up; in some cases not even a single push ups? What a shame that men in their 20s can not perform one chin or push up... Many of them I guessed never did BWE before starting their BodyBuilding way of life. It is typical that young men in America care about more about their own vanity than their health or performance. It is not a moral judgement but just an observation from a yellow american.

My experience of young bodybuilders or lovers of exercise machines who are not able to do basic BWE is not unique and there are plenty of internet "experts" on pull ups or chin ups who would argue better than me that doing back machine exercise will not greatly improve your chins or pull ups performance. I do not think I have to explain any further at this point to what is clear and be written about ad infintinum.


Sincerely,
Bao

[IronFist]

Originally posted by FooFighter
there are plenty of internet "experts" on pull ups or chin ups who would argue better than me that doing back machine exercise will not greatly improve your chins or pull ups performance.

Yeah, but the point is you just contradicted yourself:


For example, doing "lat pull downs" will not help you improve your chin up performance

and


doing back machine exercise will not greatly improve your chins or pull ups performance.

The first example says absolutely no improvement will occur. The second example says "will not greatly improve," which implies that some improvement will take place.

Some != none.

Anyway, I've trained people to do pullups who were unable to do pullups at first. Depending on what the gym had, I had them use either a lat pulldown station or one of those pullup machines that supports some of your bodyweight. Either way, they were not doing actual "pullups" on either of these machines, but after a while they were able to transfer their new strength over to actually doing pullups. As I stated before, I will agree with you that lat pulldowns is a different neurological movement from pullups, but the muscles that are being activated don't care if the resistance comes from your bodyweight or a barbell or a machine or what. See Toby's arguments with BL for more on this phenomenon :) By your logic, if the only way to train pullups is to actually do pullups, someone who can't do a pullup will never be able to do a pullup.