Dumbbell Rows are the most basic of back exercises, and this exercise is fantastic in developing a similar “‘pull’ motion akin to a pull-up.

We recommend doing this exercise 6 days out of 7 for one week, adding it into your daily workout. A good benchmark is if you can do 8 reps of 10kg by 3 sets. This will vary depending on your body weight and your natural level of strength, so use this only as a recommendation.

Once you can do 3 sets of 8 reps with a dumbbell about 10kg or more, we recommend moving onto the next level. To perform this exercise, try the following:

• Standing upwards, hold a dumbbell in each of your hands, with your palms facing your body.
• Get into a position where your legs and arms are approximately shoulder-width apart and your knees bent
• Bend forwards no further than a 45-degree angle, tensing your core and keeping your back held up straight.
• Bring the weights upwards towards your core area, while doing so making sure that your wrists are tensed and your legs solitary.
• As you raise the dumbbells, it should feel you’re bringing your shoulder blades together at the top of the movement
• Lower the weights, you have now completed one rep.

(For more information on our dumbbells, click the button here.)

Australian pull-ups, also known as body rows or incline rows, are a brilliant compound exercise to progress your pull-up ability. Australian pull-ups will work your forearms, core, biceps, traps & lats ensuring you are strengthening all the fundamental muscles required o do a pull-up, without the same total body weight strain.

We recommend doing 5-10 reps of this exercise x 3 sets. If you feel this is too easy, increase the number of reps. Alternatively, decrease the number of reps if it is too difficult, but make sure to get at least 5 in per set even if you have to take breaks between them.

Australian pull-ups can be done with Adjustable Pull-up bars, barbells or suspension trainers. It is important to have the correct form, so try the following:

• Have the bar at about waist height, sit beneath the bar and tense your core with your shoulders down and back.
• Lean back and keep your arms straight. Lift your hips so that your weight is supported by your heels and hands only.
• With your body properly aligned, bend your arms and pull your chest up to the bar.
• Slowly extend your elbow and return to the starting position.

(Australian Pull-Ups can be done with squat racks or specific pull-up bars. Luckily, we have the exact bar you need to do this exercise here.)

An assisted chin up is an exercise that helps you train chin ups without the full body weight pressure of a standard pull-up. Assisted chin ups can be done with resistance bands, specific machines, a chair, or someone else to help you. Here at RPM Power, we created Pull-Up Bands specifically to deal with this issue. Our Pull-Up Bands are ideal for slowly working your way up to standard pull-ups.

Ideally, you should be able to perform 5-10 reps x 3 sets for this exercise. Perform this exercise daily for 6 days in a row to build up the resistance before getting to the next stage of the progression.

To do this exercise, firstly:

• Loop the appropriately sized resistance band around the pull-up bar to create a loop large enough for you to fit your knees into.
• Step into the band, with one of your feet in the middle of the band, with your other foot anchoring the band.
• Grab the pull-up bar with an overhand grip. Begin the exercise by starting the upwards movement by pulling your shoulder blades down and pulling your elbows towards your body, letting the band to assist your pull.
• Pull your shoulder blades toward your spine and squeeze your upper back and lat muscles until your collar bone is in alignment with the top of the bar.
• Begin the downward movement by simultaneously straightening your arms to complete one rep.

(The bands needed to perform assisted pull-ups are a specific type of resistance band which can be found here.)

Now that you’ve been working away on your pulling muscles and assisted variations, it’s time to move onto top hangs and bar hangs. Firstly, a top hang is exactly what is sounds like. We hold the top position of the chin up for 5 – 10 seconds. The benefit of a top-hang is that you’ll train your upper body muscles to become used to holding your entire body weight with ease.

You should aim to perform this exercise daily for 3 sets of  5-10 second holds x 3/4 sets to see improvements in the muscles required to do this exercise.

To perform a bar hang:

• Grab the bar with your palms facing away or towards you.
• Shift your weight from your feet onto your arms until you are hanging unassisted.
• To increase difficulty, work on retracting your shoulders downwards away from your ears.
• You can work on building the time of these hangs from a couple of seconds to 30.

If you’ve made it this far, congrats, you are now ready to perform your first pull-up!

Take your time performing this exercise. If you feel you haven’t the level of strength required yet, take another 6-7 days of the previous exercises combined together to get to this level.

You goal here should be to get 1-3 reps of a pull up with your head going above the bar. Form is the most important attribute here, so assuring you can complete a full pull-up is what we are looking for.

To begin:

• Start by positioning yourself below your pull-up bar. Place your hands in an overhand grip, with your hands a little more than shoulder-width apart.
• Take a deep breath, lift your feet from the floor or box you hang from. Tense your core and pull your shoulders backwards and downwards.
• Engage the muscles in your arms and back, all the while bending your elbows and raise your upper body upwards towards the bar until your chin it over the bar.
•  In this position, you should be able to imagine bringing your elbows towards your hips, avoiding swinging your legs around or shrugging your shoulders upwards.
• At the top of this movement, take a deep inhale. Then extend your elbows and lower your body back to a starting position.