Time for some perspective realigning. Pull-ups are always held up as something of a standard of bodyweight performance. But what if I told you they’re not really a functional movement?
Pull-Ups Are Only Halfway There
What is the point of a pull-up? You grab a horizontal surface and pull until your chin is over the bar. Then you lower yourself back to the bottom. It’s a good exercise, but what have you accomplished from a movement perspective? The answer is nothing.
What you really want to be able to do is to get your whole body up onto that horizontal surface. A pull-up only gets you about halfway there. It’s a stepping stone to more advanced movements.
Things like swing-ups, pop-ups, and muscle-ups are the eventual goals. That’s not to say that pull-ups aren’t good for building strength, just that they’re not a complete movement.
The point of this is to challenge your perspective and get you thinking not about working out, but about movement. Think about how your time training would factor into your travel across the environment. Do the things you practice have real practical, functional purpose? Are they adaptable?
