Are pullups really that good of a muscle builder?

I was in the gym today and I saw one of the regulars who is much bigger than me, far more muscle mass. He was showing one of his friends how to do pullups and he could only do 4 His face was red and he was practically shaking doing them.

His friend tried, who is smaller than him but a little more built than me and he could only do 2..........

These were body weight only, with just body weight I can do 15-17 on my first set alone, hit 10 on my second set and still be getting 8/9 on my 3rd and 4th sets.

A lot of articles say that pullups are a good mass builder but that got me doubting a little bit.

How many you can do depend on how much you weigh. For example if he and/or his buddy are on steroids and bulking out as much as they can, their pullup reps are going to be nothing compared to a ripped 70-80 kilo guy. It also depends on how good you are at doing pullups - if you've practised them they're going to be much easier for you than someone else at the same weight.

That said pullups are a compound movement which pretty much means yes they're a good mass builder when executed properly.

Pull ups are a good benchmark of your strenght to weight ratio, they are very good to build a strong big back but at the same time are very taxing on your neverous system.

Personally I suck at doing pull-ups now yet my back is bigger than when I was able to do 12-10-8 with my bodyweight (3kg less than now so no big diff).
If its just mass you're looking for then machines will help more especially since you can focus all your energy in the target muscle and not on the whole body.

When I work in machine rowers I feel my back working much better than when Im doing barbell or dumbbel rows since the rest of the body sucks lot of the total energy.

Its up to you, if you want a 360 degree stimulus go for bodyweight exercises and dumbbels,barbels while if you want less functional strenght and more mass and aestetics consider machines too.

Thats a good point by AttackFormation I guess. I'm 11.1 stone and low body fat (visible abs) and I do many sets of pull ups to failure every week so I should be getting high reps.

Thanks Espi I'll keep doing them weighted and see If I can make more progress.

Pullups are the upper body version of a squat

I built a pullup bar last summer. Pull ups are with your palms facing you. Chin ups are with your palms away. Pull ups have a bad reputation for being hard on the elbows. If you ever have elbow pain, pullups will make it worse. Chin ups are not nearly as hard on elbows.

Using rings or a rope is supposed to be better than using a bar, both for wear and tear on your body and for making it more challenging. Whatever your typical max reps are with a bar, it will be significantly less on rings. I don't have rings at home, but will sometimes throw one of my dog's rope toys over the bar and use that.

It is better on the joints, and more importanly, promotes muscle building, to do pull-ups fast. One must set a pace to a good pull-up. Hanging on the bar while convincing yourself to do another rep is bad form, it stresses the elbow and shoulder joints while the muscles fatigue.

I approach pull-ups as a timed exercise. I don't attempt to squeeze in more reps, while I do the movement with the desired form and intensity. By timed, I mean keeping a beat. On pull-up days, I will usually share a high intensity set with squatting. It's a full body routine and usually I will do this once a week, between push and pull training.

Approach wide grip pull-ups with caution. A lot of bars are not very ergonomic. You could do more damage to your shoulders, back, or neck, than the actual muscle you build. I will usually use a wide grip bar to do a left/right kind of pull-up, exchanging reps on arms, using the less stressed arm to keep balance. This is also a higher intensity pull-up as more weight is put on a muscle. This movement can also be trained into by keeping a narrower grip, but not too narrow.

About pull-ups being somehow worse than chin-ups, that may be true, but adjusting ones grip to suit the task at hand is not always possible. Better to train the weakest link IMO.

If you're concerned about tissue damage then use a neutral grip, that's what I do nowadays.

Considering the number of reps you can do I would start adding weights if I were you.

Espi said:

Do pullups make your back look strong and muscular?

Hmmmm...

http://s1313.photobucket.com/user/espi1971/media/PU_zpsfa23b3b2.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

Click to expand...

Mirin, I need to start doing pullups

Bible_Belt said:

Pull ups are with your palms facing you. Chin ups are with your palms away.

Click to expand...

I've always known the opposite to be true

TheStig said:

I've always known the opposite to be true

Click to expand...

So have I. I certainly am talking about palms facing away.

Of course it is. It's a compound exercise. Make sure you're not kipping and make sure your scapula is retracted when you pull up.

This is a nice article, muscle and performance mag's top 10 back exercises http://www.muscleandperformancemag.com/training/2013/10/the-top-10-best-back-exercises

Last summer I bought an Iron Gym Express to do light workouts at home. EVERY morning I make a point of doing 10 pull ups before breakfast.

I set aside one day per week to do chin ups and neutral grip pull ups for a light workout that looks like this:

chin ups: 10 sets of 10 repetitions for a total of 100 reps
neutral grip pull ups: 10 sets of 10 repetitions for a total of 100 repetitions
all totaled that's 200 chin ups/neutral grip pull ups

I don't exercise to fatigue, just enough to complete 10 sets of 10. I do these exercises for functional strength and because they're fun.

I also do 300 push ups (inclined, declined, basic, and knuckle) for the same reason.