As a trainer who has been a little lazy with pull-ups over the years, I can still be found managing a few reps before adding one of the best resistance bands or scaling using pull-up variations.
Whether you haven’t quite managed your first pull-up yet, or you’re just looking for another way to build your back and biceps, I can help you build foundational strength to get you started on the bar. Here’s one bodyweight exercise that strengthens these upper body muscles without weights or pull-ups — double win.
Here’s how to do the bodyweight row and why you might choose it as a pull-up alternative. Plus, the two best bits of equipment you can use and the benefits for building strength in your back and biceps muscles.
What is the benefit of pull-ups?
The pull-up is a staple strength exercise that has spent years as the gold standard bodyweight exercise for displaying upper body strength. And there are functional benefits to being able to pull your own body weight upward, too.
Pull-ups primarily strengthen your upper body muscles, including the biceps and back. Specifically, you’ll improve forearm and grip strength and core stabilization and emphasize the muscles in your posterior chain, including the lats, teres major, posterior deltoids and lower traps, plus the biceps and pectoralis major — the largest muscle in the chest.
Emphasis changes depending on your grip, so it’s worth learning the difference between pull-ups versus chin-ups if you’re unsure which is best for you (spoiler alert, chin-ups focus more on the pecs and biceps).
Can beginners do pull-ups?
People with high levels of relative strength who might also have developed these muscle groups through other sports or means of exercise might find pull-ups accessible straight away, but for most of us, it takes time to build the strength and skill to perform them.
Exercises like inverted rows or Australian pull-ups, or as mentioned above, adding resistance bands and other pull-up variations, can help people build up to a full pull-up, which can take some years to achieve.
One bodyweight exercise I love is the humble bodyweight ring row, which can also be performed using the TRX or suspension trainer. It’s super scalable and great at building the foundational strength you need if you’re not ready to hang from a bar just yet.
How to do bodyweight ring rows
The bodyweight ring row meets between a horizontal and vertical pulling exercise and can set you up for improving gymnastic skills. Rather than using the bar, substitute for gymnastics rings or a suspension trainer like the TRX and grip the handles.
How:
- Set up gymnastics Olympic rings or TRX handles to hang in front of you
- Aim for the handles to be between hip and chest height depending on how vertical or horizontal you aim to be
- Grip the rings, engage your core and place your feet on the ground hip-width apart
- Lean back and extend both arms shoulder-width apart
- Choose to keep your hands neutral (facing each other) for a narrow row or palms down (overhand)
- Pull your body upward as far as you can and draw your elbows back, keeping a straight line from head to toe
- Pause, squeeze your shoulder blades together, then lower to the starting position. Repeat for reps.
Verdict
There are plenty of variables to play around with to make this exercise harder or easier. Stepping your feet further away will make the exercise more challenging, whereas walking your feet closer to a standing position will make it easier. A neutral grip creates a narrower position whereas an overhand grip creates a wider movement pattern and closely mimics a standard pull-up.
Gymnastics rings are fantastic at freeing up your range of motion, challenging balance, stability and coordination without the rigidity of bars. Suspension trainers are similar in this way, and you can adjust the height of rings and suspension handles to suit your exercise.
The most well-known suspension training brand is TRX and you can pick up options for home gyms with adjustable straps, a door anchor and combined foot cradles and handles.
Take your time practicing the full range of motion and moving with control as you lower your body weight every rep, utilizing time under tension — keeping muscles contracted for longer. I recommend aiming for 8-12 reps and 3-4 sets, gradually increasing the difficulty of the exercise by adjusting the height of the handles or your body.
As master Hyrox trainer, Jake Dearden, explained to my fellow writer when she was learning to do a first pull-up: “There’s merit in building strength in the muscles individually, but it is better to train them simultaneously.” The main reason is that you’re training muscles to recruit together the way they would during the pull-up itself.
Barbell bent-over rows, seated rows, assisted pull-ups and other multi-muscle pulling exercises will help you develop the pre-requisite strength to pulling your own body weight over the bar. But that doesn’t mean that isolation exercises like biceps curls don’t have a place in your workouts, we just recommend prioritizing compound exercises.
