I love the pull up. It's probably the only exercise I would do if I was on a desert island and could only perform one movement. It's one of the most fundamental exercises I incorporate into my routine almost on a daily basis. Pull ups are a fantastic way to build your upper body strength, enhance your physique, and just boost your overall health. The pull up engages all the muscles in your back -- the lats, the rhombs, the upper traps, the rear delts, plus your forearms and biceps get a serious workout as well. You can do pull ups quickly or slowly.
Lately I've been working on slowing the exercise down. It's the same weight, but you're giving the exercise twice as much time and attention. As you can see here, there's more stimulus even on the way up.
And on the way down, you can also retard the movement. Stretch. Retract. Pull. Nice and slow going up, nice and slow going down. By using a neutral grip as I am doing here, it takes a little more stress off the shoulders and puts less emphasis on the biceps. Through the years I've done tons of chest and shoulder presses without enough pull ups, and that can round your shoulders. Doing more pull ups is helping me correct that.
Performing pull ups is definitely the way to go for pretty much everyone out there. Unless you're a rock climber and just constantly pulling, I think doing more pull ups is great. For both conditioning and fat loss, it can change your physique in many positive ways. You're also burning more calories so you just look leaner and stronger and more athletic. And remember: There's nothing at all wrong with doing band-assisted pull ups.
Okay, going to leave it there. Thanks for reading!