Now in most cases, a pull-up bar is all people have to train with, and usually, when we’re traveling, a pull-up bar is all we can find as well. But you can still get a great work out in and build solid muscle with just a pull-up bar.
1. ONE ARM PULL UPS
This is a great move for isolating your arms and maximizing your pulling strength.
Of course, if you’ve mastered pull-ups, it’s time to take it to the next level and eliminate one arm.
Doing this, you’re now pulling your entire body weight with one arm.
The amount of control, strength, and power that you gain from this, you really can’t gain from any other exercise.
Specifically for this exercise, you’re gonna gain massive rear delt strength and bicep strength as well as oblique core and total body engagement.
2. PULL UP + ONE ARM NEGATIVE
The negative of a movement is gonna get you eventually the concentric.
In fact, even if you can do the concentric, the actual movement, working the negative in most cases will get you way stronger, because there’s way more time under tension.
One of the best parts is that if you can’t yet do it all the way to the top, you can still train and feel what it feels like to be in every single range of motion by doing the negative of that exercise.
By doing so, you’re gonna get your body and muscles more comfortable being in that position. This is how you’re gonna reach your goal faster.
3. MUSCLE UPS
This exercise is calisthenics fundamental, and you need to unlock this movement if you’re really trying to progress in calisthenics and take your body, skills, and strength to the next level.
This is a total upper body exercise that engages your traps, shoulders, chest, core, back, biceps, and lats to complete this exercise.
This exercise opens the doors to many more advanced skills. And is a compound movement that simultaneously engages and builds your whole upper body but also the strength and skills that you learn from this exercise are gonna be easily applied to other exercises.
4. HIGH L-SIT PULL UPS
This is a great movement. It really emphasizes on keeping control in your core and in your whole entire body. When you’re pulling, you’re really feeling the dead weight of every single rep.
When your legs are up in an L-sit, that angle increases the resistance and force on your back and shoulders, core, hip flexors, and your quads.
In my opinion, this move is a game-changer. It’s really a fundamental, and it was personally an exercise that I used a lot when I was just getting started to increase my strength and power in my pull-ups.
It’s really gonna apply the strict form in your pull-ups as well by decreasing the amount of momentum that you’re gonna have.
5. ONE ARM CHIN-UP HOLD (Switching Arms)
One of my personal favorites for bicep overload. This isometric exercise really goes into those deep muscle fibers.
If you want to feel really comfortable and light on the bar, then this is definitely the exercise for you.
Not only are you developing the strength to move your body effortlessly on the bar, but it’s a sick exercise for your bicep, your back, shoulders, as well as your core engagement and building the chain that engages all of them to work together.
6. TOES TO BAR
Another fundamental calisthenics exercise, and one of the best ones for core in my opinion.
The core is really the most important muscle when you’re trying to get superhuman strength and build a solid foundation.
