Weighted Pull-Up
Trains the Lats.
- Equipment
- A pull-up bar and either a dumbbell or a dip belt
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Attach the weight before you get on the bar — a dip belt around your waist, or a dumbbell held between your feet.
- Take an overhand grip a little wider than your shoulders.
- Hang with straight arms and set your shoulders down away from your ears.
- Pull yourself up until your chin clears the bar, keeping the body still rather than kicking.
- Lower under control to straight arms.
- Come off the bar deliberately at the end of the set, remembering the weight is still attached.
Common mistakes
- Adding weight before the bodyweight version is clean. A weighted pull-up with a shortened range is a shorter range under more load, which is the wrong thing made heavier.
- Dropping off the bar at the end of the set. Landing with a plate on a belt or a dumbbell between the feet puts everything through the ankles and knees at once; stepping down onto a box is part of the setup.
- Kipping to get the extra weight up. Once the hips swing, the movement is a different one and the added load is being carried by momentum.
- Jumping the weight up in large steps. Bodyweight plus a few kilograms is a large percentage increase in a way that a few kilograms on a barbell is not.