4 Pull-Up Exercises to Work Your Whole Body

When we think about home exercises, the first images that come to mind probably revolve around yoga mats, dumbbells, and other small exercise equipment in Singapore. Yet, the much-overlooked fitness bar is just as essential to a full home workout. Compact yet multifunctional, the fitness bar is ideal for homes with limited space, and with the introduction of pull-up bar-related exercises like callisthenics, we are now more exposed to the various full-body routines that we can execute on these bars. With that in mind, here are a few pull-up bar exercises to try out.

Learn more: Easy Home Workout Routine For Beginners

Burpee Pull-ups

Combining the standard pull-up with the oft-rigorous burpee exercises, this workout strengthens your side shoulders, front shoulders, biceps, middle chest, lats, glute max, quads, and hamstrings. If you have a pull-up bar for your home, ensure that there is enough room for you to perform a burpee.

Here’s how to pull it off:

1. Stand in front of your fitness bar.
2. Drop into a squat position with your hands firmly on the floor, then kick your feet back into a push-up position, and lower your body to the floor. This is essentially the burpee portion of the exercise.
3. Do a full push-up, then jump to your feet back into a squat position.
4. Jump and grab on to your fitness bar and do a pull-up.

Toes above Bar

This workout is similar to doing leg raises on a leg raise machine at the gym, except that it also works your grip and biceps as you’re suspended from your fitness bar. Other muscle groups that benefit from this include your abdominals, obliques, hip flexors, serratus, and lats.

Here’s how to pull it off:

1. Hang from your fitness bar, ensuring that you’re not swaying.
2. Whilst keeping your legs straight, bring them up and touch the fitness bar with your feet.
3. Slowly lower your legs and then repeat the cycle as many times as you can. It’s important to prevent yourself from swaying to minimise injury and retain the efficacy of the workout

L-sit Pull-up

This is another routine that is highly effective in working your abdominals, and while it may seem like just a simple variation of the standard pull-up, don’t underestimate how gruelling it can be as you will have to maintain that L-sit throughout the workout. It is also a great all-round workout if you want to maximise the functionality of your pull-up bar for your home. Other targeted muscle groups include your lats, biceps, chest, forearms, glutes, groin, hamstrings, hip flexors, lower back, middle back, obliques, quads, and shoulders.

Here’s how to pull it off:

1. Grip onto the fitness bar by placing your hands palms down around it.
2. Raise your legs up and ensure that they are parallel to the ground, and your body forms an L-shape.
3. Perform a pull-up whilst maintaining the L-shape and keeping your legs parallel to the ground. Lower your arms slowly and repeat.

90 Degree Hang

Want to know what the fitness bar equivalent of planking looks like? This is it. The difference is that the 90 degree hang is more focused on your rear shoulders, biceps, lats, and rhomboids instead of your core. 

Here’s how to pull it off:

1. Do a pull-up and hold at 90 degrees using a narrow grip on your fitness bar with your palms facing each other.
2. Adjust your grip to increase or decrease the intensity. For instance, a wider grip does the former.
3. Hold for 10 seconds.

Effective exercise routines are always supported by high-quality gear. Get in shape today with Homefitness’ range of reliable gym equipment in Singapore. For more information about our products, please check out our website.