Autonomy πŸ€ΈπŸ”βœŠ GMB Fitness

Rings vs. Bar for Pull-Ups

August 20, 2020 GMB Fitness Season 3 Episode 46
Autonomy πŸ€ΈπŸ”βœŠ GMB Fitness
Rings vs. Bar for Pull-Ups
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Which is better for pull-ups - rings or bar?

As in most things, there's only one right answer, and it's completely obvious. Just kidding... we're actually gonna give everybody's least favorite answer on this one: it depends. 

But why? What does it depend on? 

If you're just learning pull-ups (going from zero to your very first pull-up), what's the best way to learn?

And if you can already do some pull-ups and want to figure out the best way to continue using them to get even stronger, how do you know the best methods to do so?

We'll talk about pros and cons of both rings and bar for pull-ups and different variations and assistance techniques we prefer for training at various stages. We also cover details a lot of people tend to gloss over, like wrist health, building comfort on your chosen apparatus, and how to gage progress when just counting reps doesn't feel like it's moving very fast. 

We've talked before about ways to build back strength _without_ pull-ups, and this episode is all about making pull-ups actually work for you with whatever equipment you happen to have. 

Enjoy.

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Andy:
Breaker One-niner, welcome to that's the Vintage GMB podcast.
 
Ryan:
It is. It is.
 
Andy:
It is. So welcome to the Groping Metal Bars podcast. Some people are into groping metal bars. We're into stroking wood more generally, but...
 
Ryan:
Yes, yes.
 
Andy:
Today we're going to talk about getting your hands around something of an appropriate thickness and pulling.
 
Ryan:
I was going to say, I like where this is going, but I'm not sure that that's the appropriate phrase we should be using for that. Today we're going to be talking about the rings versus the bar.
 
Andy:
Which one is better? Ultimate SmackDown edition.
 
Ryan:
Wood versus metal or plastic if you're into the plastic rings, which, I'll just say that anyway. So basically we're going to be talking about preference in terms of rings and bars, specifically looking at pull-ups and thought we'd look at it that way, because there's just so much we could talk about if it were just rings versus bars, but I'm going to specifically look at the pull-up, and why, you might be better off with rings and also look at a couple other things. We are going to look at a one particular movement, I absolutely love, that I think once you're able to get a certain level that everyone should have that in their workout, you can do it on a bar and you can also do it on the rings, a lot of fun.
 
Andy:
And before that, so recently we had an episode about back exercises that you can do if you can't do pull-ups, right? Because a lot of people assume that pull-ups are absolutely vital and necessary and that's simply not true.
 
Why Pull-Ups
 
Andy:
However, pull-ups are a very good exercise and a very important exercise. And they're also a difficult exercise for most people who are new to working out, or even who have done a lot of sports, but have not done a lot of specific strength training. So it's a good thing to learn a good exercise to train up, to being able to do. But there's a lot of things that can be challenging that can give people trouble. So we're going to be talking about it, depending on what you have access to, rings or bar, it's good to know the pros and cons and also how you can make the most of those things.
 
Andy:
We've had a lot of people use our programs and our pull-up tutorial and go from zero to one, one to three or four, three or four to five to seven and 10 plus pull-ups. We post some of these videos on our Facebook sometimes when somebody sends them or Instagram. People email us, who have gone through our integral strength program who couldn't do any and start with just what you call the pull-up prep, which I'm sure we'll get to in a minute. Building that lat activation, doing chin-ups and working out to pull-up. So it can be done, is the key, right? It's a good exercise. Pulling is an important movement to be able to be good at. And if you can't do one, then don't assume that that's a permanent case. And if you can do some, then I think some of the things we'll be talking about in terms of tips and technique, will definitely help you be able to make this movement more efficient and more effective for you.
 
Ryan:
Absolutely. And I just want to say too, that a lot of the lovely females out there, have trouble with pull-ups and chin-ups, and don't fret, we can all do these. Okay. Just depending on your background and where you're coming from, it might take a little extra work. You will get these, you can get these. 'You can't do this, if you're a woman, 'I fucking hate it when people say that, it's a bunch of bullshit.
 
Andy:
Complete bullshit.
 
Ryan:
Okay. You can totally get it. And so the thing about it is, again, as I mentioned, your background, thing is, it doesn't matter if you're male or female, if you haven't done pull-ups when you were growing up, and you just start doing, they're going to be tough, they're going to be really tough. But again, like anything with practice and done correctly, you can get them.
 
Andy:
And on that note, I'll just say that, I grew up training martial arts, and I never did a pull-up and could never do a pull-up until I was in my early 30s and started training with Ryan. And he was like, dude, you got to be able to do pull-ups and helped me get to where I could do pull-ups. So, you can. Okay. It just depends on what you've done. And if the things you've done have not prepared you to do pull-ups, you're not going to be able to do them, but you can change it.
 
Ryan:
Exactly. You can change it, and that's the big thing. This particular chat / podcast today, we're specifically looking at pull-ups, as I mentioned earlier. Pull-ups using the pronated grip compared to chin-ups which is supinated. What is the difference? So basically just think of it this way, chin up is where your palms are facing your face, facing you. And if you were to turn your palms the opposite direction so that the palms are facing outward, that's pronated. So we're looking at the pronated grip, which is the pull-up. Now this is typically the movement, the pull-up is used. If you look at the military, this is really the big place where you'll see a lot of pull-ups.
 
Ryan:
Why are we looking at pull-ups? Well, because that's usually the big one that people talk about. Personally, when you start off with doing pulling type movements, I like to work towards the chin-up first, but that's another topic can talk about that later. We're going to talk about pull-ups.
 
Bar vs. The Rings
 
Ryan:
So what is really better for pull-ups, the bar or the rings? Now I'm going to go on a rant here. And first off I do want to say that they both work well if used properly. And that's the big thing here, is that you're going to get results, no matter what you're using, you're using a bar, you're using rings, you're using a doorframe. It doesn't matter.
 
Ryan:
The thing is how you go about working towards that particular skill. That's what really matters. And we're going to go a little bit deeper into this, as I go through and look at the rings compared to the bar and cover some of that. So first off, I do want to say too, that in our integral strength program, right now, if you go in and work through the program, it's going to be using a bar. The reason for that is that the majority of people out there have access to a bar compared to the rings. And so we just wanted to hit basically the majority of people and allow them to be able to work on the bar and give examples for that. Now-
 
Andy:
And if you are at home, then this is one of the things with access to a bar, you can put a bar in a doorway and you can also put a bar in a doorway and hang rings from it. But then the thing is, is every thing you add to that, you're reducing your headroom, right? So if you put a bar in your doorway, then that's probably at about maybe six feet, six and a half feet. You hang rings from that, your rings are coming down to five feet. You don't have a lot of room for this. And so if you're training at home, then generally being able to do it from a bar is something that's more accessible to most people.
 
Ryan:
Exactly. And that was the reasoning behind us doing that. And so with that being said, though, I actually prefer rings. I'm just going to jump out there in the front.
 
Andy:
No.
 
Ryan:
I know that's really hard to believe, but I love rings, and this is the thing. And I'm going to go over some of the reasons why I think that, but if you had just one piece of equipment and we're looking at upper body strength, okay. If you little just one piece of equipment, if you had the rings, personally, I think you'd just be good to go, okay. Now, is it fun to use other implements and stuff? Of course, sandbags, weights, if you've got a bar, great. If you've got all that stuff cool. But if you only had one piece of equipment for the upper body, rings, that's the way to go.
 
Ryan:
Now, thing is, as I mentioned before, you can get results using the bar and the rings, but what happens is when people rush the movement, or for example, they don't have the necessary mobility, flexibility to be able to properly perform movements using the bar. The reason this is, is that, a bar is a closed chain movement. In other words, it doesn't move, it's as is, compared to the rings where the rings will move and spin and work around what you need. And so you actually have to form your body to the bar and that's where things can go wrong. Okay. So let's say for example, that you actually have a wrist issue. If you have a wrist issue, you might not think this is going to be a problem, but simply holding onto a bar with a wrist problem is going to affect the other joints in your body. And-
 
Andy:
Let's be honest. Most people in this world today have a wrist problem.
 
Ryan:
Yes.
 
Andy:
We hold phones constantly. We type on computers. We do not really grip things with our small fingers very much. And we don't lift things with our hands as much as we used to. Most people today have very limited wrist mobility and strength. So if you don't think you have a wrist problem, you're lucky that you have not yet experienced pain, but you should still be conscious and cognizant of what's going on with the grips.
 
Ryan:
And this small, even if you're not completely aware of it, sometimes these little things within the wrist and the fingers, holding onto that bar is going to put you into a position rather than allowing you to get into a position, if that makes sense. And so, that way, your body is having to make these adjustments that it's not ready for. And then you're just trying to crank out pull-ups because you want to get your pull-up, because you want to pack on muscle, because you want to be able to do a particular skill, rather than using a piece of equipment that's going to allow you to do it in a way that's more natural for your body. Now, at the same time, you do want to make sure that you're focusing on improving your flexibility, your mobility, while you're working on that thing.
 
Ryan:
So I'm not saying by just using the rings, it's going to fix all of this. Of course, you're going to have to step aside, spend time on your wrist, your elbows, your shoulders, wherever it is that you need to work on your flexibility. But with the rings though, the cool thing about this, is that you can focus on what I to call the natural grip, how your wrists and your hands and your shoulders and your starting position, the natural starting position wants to be. And so it might not be the most perfect or the most correct in terms of the end goal for a particular position, but the rings allow you to accommodate that particular position, to allow you to be able to work in a range of motion that's good for you at that particular time in your life. And that's why I like these.
 
Ryan:
So for example, simply hanging from the rings is the first place to start. And we're not even talking false grip, we're not talking nothing. We're just talking a basic, just grab a hold of the rings, whoever you grab a hold of them, it doesn't matter.
 
Andy:
And where should your palms be pointed? Wherever it feels most comfortable.
 
Ryan:
Exactly. And that's what we're getting at here. So even though we're talking about, pull-ups where I mentioned earlier, which is a pronated grip where your pumps are facing away from you. The thing is, if you don't quite have that shoulder mobility, if the lats are tight, if you have issues in your shoulders, the rings aren't going to force you into a position. You're going to be able to grab this and your palms might actually be facing each other in what I call a neutral grip facing inward. Great. This is where you can start. And then you can continue to work on your strength. You can also, as you're working on your mobility, working on your control to be able to do this movement. And the thing is, you're not locked into a particular position. The rings are forgiving. They're going to give you a better sense of what's going on with your body.
 
Ryan:
And again, if you do have these particular limitations in your body, due to a mobility restrictions, you can still work on these movements in a way that's safe and still allow you to have fun while you're doing it. So that's really in looking at, in terms of safety, because as I mentioned in many, many podcasts before, first and foremost, we're looking at setting a person up to safely work on something. And that's why I love the rings. Again, they're accommodating to where you are and what you need at that particular time in your life.
 
Ryan:
All right. So moving forward, here's some other benefits of the rings that I like, that actually you might not think about, unless you actually do rings and you've used rings, and you can feel it when you're doing them. Because rings are unstable, your body is constantly having to make these little micro adjustments while you're using it. So yes, you're working on your pulling strength, but your core is going to be on fire when you're performing these particular movements as well, the inner muscles are having to work harder, because the rings are swinging. You're having to stabilize the rings as you're doing this. And it's just simply making it harder. The time and attention with the rings is greater. It's going to recruit more muscle fibers throughout the body, specifically looking at bit more recruitment within the shoulders and the core as compared to the bar.
 
Ryan:
Now I'm not saying that you're not working your core and your shoulders when you're on the bar. Yes, of course you are. But again, because the rings are considered an open chain apparatus, because they swing around, they move, your body is having to force itself to be able to stabilize the rings. Therefore, the body has to work as a whole, rather than looking at a single part in order to complete a particular movement. And to me, that is fabulous. We're talking about the pull-ups right now, where we're at underneath the rings. Once you get on top of the rings, this becomes very, very, very clear. It looks like a person that's has having a seizure up on top of the rings and trying to keep the rings close to their body. So this is where we're talking about really having the body work as a whole.
 
Ryan:
You're looking at the inner muscles having to work along with the larger muscles in order to accomplish a particular task, that is going to give more time and attention, when we're looking at using the rings and just simply equate to better control within the body leading to better strength. And as we mentioned earlier, if you do have a particular issue with range of motion is going to be more forgiving. So other thing that I really love about the rings, is the fact that you can make adjustments to the height of the rings. This allows for more variations, more progressions, more ways of basically having fun, but also allowing you to safely transition towards particular skills. Now, in the case of the pull-up, if you have a bar, you're basically set and you're limited to the thing that you can do in order to work up towards pull-up, compared to the rings where you can lower the rings and work on reverse rows, reverse row sit backs, certain things that are going to allow you to slowly and progress at a pace that's going to be possibly better for you.
 
Ryan:
Now, I'm not saying that you can't get the pull-up with, just to pull-up course, around the world. You can do that. We show how you can do that in a real strength, but in a perfect world, if you did have the rings, being able to make adjustments to the rings, leading up to being able to do that as well. Once you get to the point where you can do pull-ups, there's also some other options you can do because the rings move. There's a lot of fun stuff you can do, Archer chin-ups. Yes. I know that people do that on the bar, but with the rings, they're a lot easier to do in terms of being able to simply push the ring out to the side, you can start staggering the height of the rings, working on the Mantle pull-ups the Mantle muscle ups, one-arm chin ups, a lot of different things that you could do with that.
 
Ryan:
Now I do know though that a lot of you might be thinking, okay, well, there are a lot of things you can do with the bar, yes, you can. You can adjust the width of your hands on the bar. It's going to hit different points in your body, the wider you go out, the more focus it's going to bring to different parts of your body. Therefore, if you're looking at building up a specific muscle in your back and your shoulders, yeah, you can do that. But other than that, I don't know. I just feel that you are-
 
Andy:
I'm personally, I'm only concerned with hypertrophy of my serratus. That's it?
 
Ryan:
There you go.
 
Andy:
I want a giant bulging left serratus muscle.
 
Ryan:
Just the left one. Just the left one? Good luck with that. That'd be good, man. No, but again, I'm not trying to necessarily poopoo the bar and say it's bad and you shouldn't be using it, again, I'm just saying, if you do have option to rings, then I just feel that we would benefit more by using these, because it allows us to bring better awareness into our body and see exactly what we need at this particular time. Yes. Other good things about the bar though, having and using a bar, as Andy brought up earlier, you can put them in a doorframe. They're great. You can usually find a bar in a park. So there's the option to go to the park and do that, and I think it's great.
 
Andy:
You can spend a hundred bucks on Amazon and get a free standing one that you put on your patio or something.
 
Ryan:
There you go, that's great.
 
Andy:
There's a lot of options for getting bars. They generally are easier to have access to than rings. And that's why they're very popular compared to rings. So there's nothing wrong with them at all. And we'll talk about using them more in a few minutes as well, but when it comes down to preference though, I have a bar in my house, I do not have rings in my house, but given the choice, I think rings are a hell of a lot more fun.
 
Ryan:
Heck yeah. And that's the other thing too, is the fun factor. There's some really cool things, back in my gymnastic days, of course, I was on a horizontal bar and we used that, but I've always had this fondness for the rings, because they were so damn difficult, they were just so tough. And I was just like, something about that. I was like, I want to get better with them. And the better I got, the more fun I had. And then later in life, learning more about the fact of why, and what's going on within the rings.
 
Andy:
That's the virtuous cycle that happens, rings or bar or any skill or exercise, when you start practicing and you start making progress and you get interested and it starts becoming more fun, then that cycles up and feeds into your motivation to practice harder and to learn more and to get better and better. That's really what we want, anyone listening to this or anyone not listening to this, anyone in the world, that's what we want people to experience and to understand, is that your body can be a thing that can be a source of entertainment and pleasure and fun and interest and learning and growth, not something that you're trapped inside of that you have to deal with.
 
Andy:
So, that process of getting to the point where an exercise can be fun and it becomes a doorway instead of a wall. That's the thing that we want you, dear listener, to be able to experience, that's the entire point of GMB existing.
 
Ryan:
Absolutely. Right there. Just what you said and that's it, that enjoyment and finding enjoyment in that fact that, you have this body and there's so many things that you can do with it. And so let's not-
 
Andy:
You can lie down on a soft bed and have somebody feed you giant scoops of ice cream.
 
Ryan:
Only after you do your pull-ups though, because you have to earn that. Right?
 
Andy:
Right, right. We have a different rule at my house, sorry.
 
Ryan:
A little bit different here.
 
Techniques
 
Ryan:
Let's talk a little bit about though, actually techniques side of stuff. Okay. And so I mentioned earlier in regards to females having some difficulty, in particular, we got this question in our Facebook group, where, I've just always had so much difficulty with pull-ups, I was never able to do them, and it took me what, 10 years, I believe is what she said.
 
Andy:
She said, 10 years.
 
Ryan:
And I got to be honest, that really made me feel sad. And the reason for that, is that, here's me being cocky. I know that I can help anyone get a chin up or a pull-up relatively quickly now, relative of course, meaning I'm not saying a week or a month, it might take, maybe six months. But the thing is-
 
Andy:
Based on a lot of individual factors, of course.
 
Ryan:
Exactly. But 10 years. And just the way she wrote it, I was just like, Oh my goodness. I wish I could have been there in the beginning just to help, because I truly believe that a pull-up, chin up is a skill that every single person should have down, just be able to do it. If you look at a recent YouTube video, we had on GMB, you'll notice my daughter's doing chin-ups, just cranking them out. And she's 12 right now, but when she was five, she could do it. My son is the same way. It's not that I taught them. It was just, in our house, it was just watching daddy and doing things. These certain things, I think should just be one thing that everyone should have the ability to do. So the thing is though, how do we go about doing this?
 
Ryan:
And there are certain protocols, if you will, that you can use to help you do that. Now, first order of business is something that I've already mentioned, and that is simply being comfortable hanging, it starts there. Can you simply hang off of something? It's looking at grip strength. This is also looking at actually toughening up the hands. That's another important thing to think about when doing this, but grip strength really, there's a lot of stuff involved, but one of the easiest ways to get better at grip strength is simply hanging from something, doesn't matter if it's a bar, or rings, okay. Grip strength is something that we really need. So that's where you can start. From there, it's the pulling prep, the pulling prep. This is all covered, if you check out some of our videos, you'll see it's in there, but pulling prep, what we're doing is taking little baby steps, working towards the ultimate goal of getting this pull-up.
 
Ryan:
Now, with that being said, again it could take a little bit longer for each person, but spending more time, just looking at something as a skill rather than trying to work out is really what's going to help a person to be able to move more efficiently and faster towards getting a particular skill in the end. So what do I mean by this? Just practice. If you've got a little bit of time, just go and just hang on the bar. It doesn't need to be two minutes. It doesn't need to be five minutes.
 
Andy:
I did that last night.
 
Ryan:
And it also acts as a stretch by the way, which is also great. Okay. So there's a lot of different things happening there. Strengthening your grip. You're working on your mobility, as far as control goes too, you're going to have better control, because you're also strengthening your core and you're just getting better at performing that particular skill. Likewise, pulling prep, happen to see a bar or something, go over there, do a couple pulling preps. You're good to go. So the thing is, don't look at it as you're just going to try and do a pull-up. No, no, don't look at it that way. Look at the things at the very beginning that are going to help to set you up, to move towards that skill eventually.
 
Ryan:
And the more time you can spend working on those lower levels of the skill, the basics, that's what's really going to help you, for when you start actually working on the pull-up and the chin up. Again, we've got tutorials and stuff on this, but I just got to say, this goes for any skill out there. If you want to get the planche, if you want to get the handstand, if you want to get any of that different stuff, reverse engineer it, look at the very beginning stages of that. Get really, really good at those first beginning stages.
 
Andy:
Get comfortable.
 
Ryan:
That's going to sit you up, get comfortable, be able to just do those just naturally and naturally-
 
Andy:
If you want to do a handstand, you got to spend time on your hands, right?
 
Ryan:
Yep. Yep.
 
Andy:
Whether that's on a wall or if it's with your knees on the floor, just working out your wrists or whatever, you will never be able to do a planche, if you can not spend a lot of time in something like a crow or something, supporting your weight, it's just not going to work. Same thing with pull-ups, you need to spend some time hanging, get comfortable on the bar or on the rings, just being there, comfort in places. This goes to flexibility too, people talk about they stretch out and then 10 minutes later, they were back to normal.
 
Andy:
Well, you need to spend more time in it and you need to do it more frequently. Your body has to get used to being in these positions and moving in these ways, and that comfort trains your nervous system, to be able to express power and move with speed and move with control. But you can't do any of those things. If you don't have the level of comfort first. Spend some time in the water as it boils around you. Maybe that's not the best analogy. I don't know.
 
Ryan:
Frog legs. But that's great. And that's just what it is, is spending more time in that, whatever it is. And the comfort thing is huge. I mean, get comfortable being a little bit uncomfortable. I think everybody needs to do that.
 
Fun Challenge: Tuck Inverted Row
 
Ryan:
But once you actually though, I want to just quantum leap here. You've got your pull-ups. You got them, you nailed them. Okay. And you're looking at really taking that strength to the next level. Let me back up, even if you don't quite have your pull-ups, you can still do this particular movement. It's going to be really tough. But again, that's a good thing, and that is the tucked inverted row. You do this on the bar. You can do this on the rings. Now, what this is, is in order to actually start the movement, you're going to have to be able to pull your legs up off of the ground.
 
Ryan:
Your arms are straight by the way. Okay. You're hanging from the bar or the rings. You pull your legs in so that you're tucked up and your knees are close to your chest. And you're inverted basically. Okay. So your butt is higher than your head. And again, your arms are still straight. Now, whatever position that might be for you, you're probably going to be tucked up pretty tightly. Some people might say, you're just trying to do a front lever. No, not really, we're just trying to get upside down to be honest and stay in a tuck position. And in that position, try and pull yourself up close to the bar or the rings. That's it. That's a tucked inverted row.
 
Andy:
This would be a great thing for you to just show really quickly on your Instagram sometime.
 
Ryan:
Yes.
 
Andy:
If you're listening to this and you are not following Ryhurst on Instagram, you are a bad person and you should feel bad.
 
Ryan:
You got to do it. Ryhurst, not Ryan Hurst from, what is it? The walking dead. Is that what that show is?
 
Andy:
Not that guy. He's not nearly as cool.
 
Ryan:
No man. Opi is that that a guy from, I don't even remember. But we talking the tucked inverted row, in this movement, you might only be able to go up a couple centimeters, maybe an inch in the beginning and you know what? That's going to be plenty. And you're in for a big surprise, because you're going to be like, Holy crap, that's really, really difficult, but you're going to do it and go, I want to learn how to get better at doing that. The cool thing about this too, that I like, is that, if you're on the bar, of course your hands are going to be pronated. You're only going to be able to go up a little bit, but this is going to help with your pull-ups as well.
 
Ryan:
It's really, really going to help, because what you're actually doing is making yourself heavier, now, not literally heavier, but in terms of feeling that it's heavier because you are inverted. So like anything, when you go upside down, it's looking at spatial awareness, the distribution of weight is different. And so it's going to make it more difficult. When you're using the rings, this is where I get a little excited with this. As we mentioned before, the rings can turn. And when you're working on this tucked inverted row, you're going to be able to change the position of your hands, whether it be pronated, neutral grip with the palms facing inward or supinated in the chin up grip, completely changes the dynamic of this particular movement.
 
Ryan:
It's tough. It is so tough. And again, as I mentioned, even if you don't quite have pull-ups down yet, if you could get upside down and add just a little bit of this in there, you're going to find that you're actually going to be getting stronger, it's going to help you with your pull-ups. I'm not saying that this is the way that you should work on your pull-ups or anything like that. Say, this is a variation, in a way that is very fun and something that you can actually play with and explore. It's going to bring a completely new dynamic into your pulling practice. And that's also going to help you for any other pulling movement out there.
 
Andy:
And for those of you who remember your trig, you can resolve the forces at different angles of this and tell that it's a completely different amount of stabilization that you have to do in these different positions. Even if you don't remember your trig, you can just try them and find out.
 
Ryan:
There you go. Right. The key point with this really it's, again, you're inverted, so your, your butt is above your head. Your legs are bent and you're just trying to go as high as you can. You're going to find that you, again, won't be able to go that high. You'll really be surprised. Just try that out. And then you're also going to find that it really works your core, then basically your entire body. So anyway, that's a little fun movement that I wanted to talk about today. Looking in the comparison to the bar and the rings. And again, I just wanted to give this movement and the tucked inverted row to say that you can also do it on the bar as well as the ring. So it's a cool thing, but bringing it back, even though I do prefer the rings, work with what you've got, if you don't have access to the rings perfectly fine.
 
Ryan:
It's cool. You're going to be able to get results with the bar. Be smart about it though. Just figure out exactly what you need. Just don't try and jump up there and try and do pull-ups if you have a shoulder injury, that's silly. Okay. Really focus on what you need at that particular point when you're working on pull-ups no matter what you're working on, remember that it might not be the actual bent arm pull. You might only be working on straight arm hangs. You might be working on the pulling prep, single arm hanging. You're still working on your pulling strength. It's just, you're listening to your body. You're being aware of what you need and also being realistic. Working, once you get the pull-ups and almost there, or if you just want to explore, play around with that inverted tuck row, and just have fun with it.
 
Andy:
I mean, bare saying, anytime we talk about pull-ups, we'll always get questions and we welcome questions, but people always ask us, well, there's a predictable bunch always come up. Well, how should I train them? Should I use bands? Should I do negatives? Should I do grease the groove? Should I do the fighter pull-up program that I thought on Reddit? Should I do this? Should I do that? And I mean, we do have a very, very in depth pull-up tutorial on our website, gmb.io/pull-ups, I believe.
 
Ryan:
I think that's it.
 
Andy:
And it has three videos in there, starting from hanging and activating your lats, starting from there. Then it has reverse rows and reverse row sit backs, and then it has pull-ups in there and it's got training plans. It's got step-by-step everything. Before you ask us, what do you recommend for someone who can't do any pull-ups? We recommend following exactly what's in that tutorial, that's why we wrote it.
 
Ryan:
That's it right there.
 
Andy:
So check that out because it has many details. And like this podcast, we can't replace the 3000 words and 25 minutes of video that's in there with this. But check that out. This is always just things that assist with programs, our show is not trying to teach you how to exercise in audio format. I don't think that really works. We're also not here to motivate you. If you can't get yourself out of bed, I cannot help you. We're not here to pump you up and get you fired up and make you want to go, crush it. That's not what we do. But I think there's been a lot of things in this episode that I think are really helpful to people who are wanting to play more with pulling movements, whether they're just getting started in which case go to that tutorial, or they've been doing them for a long time, in which case also go to that tutorial and see info there, but these will give you a lot of ideas and sort of supplemental auxiliary, ambient knowledge to play around these things.
 
Andy:
But main points are, one, rings versus bar, use what you have, first and foremost, use what you have, use what you'll use. There's no world in which one of these things is better. That's like when people talk about, well, which is better, barefoot or wearing shoes? The people that sell minimalist shoes will tell you all day long, that barefoot is better. And if you're talking about barefoot versus crap shoes, yes, barefoot is better, unless you're walking on sharp surfaces or it's really hot out or a thousand other things. Right. So, which is better, neither, you have to choose what's available to you and what fits your own specific use case. Okay. You can get really good results from any of these things, just be smart about it. I think Ryan, you gave some really good advice on both things. And even though you're definitely a rings guy.
 
Ryan:
Sure, sure. But I use the bar too. I just want to let everybody know I use it.
 
Andy:
We're not shitting on the bar.
 
Ryan:
Exactly. That's the thing. So I use both, but the interesting thing with me as a matter of fact, is I would rather use the rings more often, but I can't, simply because of my situation of my gym, because the ceilings are so low, I can't hang rings. And so I actually hang my rings from a squat rack. So there are times where the bar is actually better for me to use and easier for me to use.
 
Bonus Tip
 
Ryan: 
So anyway, let's go ahead and I'll leave you with a little secret technique, which I'm going to relate it back to what we talked about today. And hang, if you throughout the day have an opportunity. If you have a bar, a doorframe, whatever, just hang a little bit. 
 
Ryan: 
It doesn't need to be very long time at all, but straight arm hang, and just hang on, and hang on for as long as you can, once you get really comfortable with that, then do it with one arm. And I think this is a really, really good thing that, I know when I was young, we'd play on the monkey bars. And people lose that over time, it's so brachiation, and so the ability to brachiate and simply hold onto something, this is going to help with shoulder strength. It's going to help, of course toughening the hand, grip strength, but also mental fortitude. Hanging on the bar, you're like, I can't hang on any longer, hold on for at least two more seconds. And then let go. 
 
Andy: 
All right. So just, don't be that guy who uses the word brachiate, at every possible chance, to try to- 
 
Ryan: 
You should brachiate. 
 
Andy: 
You can also say hang. 
 
Ryan: 
And that's okay. 
 
Andy: 
You are allowed to use the word hang. 
 
Ryan: 
Make it simple, you're just hanging. Okay. We try not to use these silly words and I say, silly, they're not even silly, but stay away from anatomy. But today we mentioned pronation and supination and things like that. It's just turning your hands one way, facing some way, just do it. Hang from the bar, have fun, explore and that's about it. 
 
Andy: 
All right. 
 
Ryan: 
All right. 
 
Andy: 
That's about it. Thanks for listening. 
 

Why Pull-Ups
Bar vs. The Rings
Techniques
Fun Challenge: Tuck Inverted Row
Bonus Tip