They’re coming for you! Week three of the Open has come and gone and we have yet to see either pull ups or chest to bar pull ups. Rest assured, one or both of these movements are going to be seen in the next two weeks of the Open. Both of these movements, the “pull up” and the “chest to bar pull up” are built on the same principle and movement pattern. For the sake of this blog, I’m just going to address them as “pull ups”. Essentially what changes is just the amount of power we put into the “pull” to change how high we rise to the bar.
First let me address the obvious. This is Crossfit. In CrossFit we are accomplishing “work”. That is, moving a mass over a distance. I’m by no means a physicists (spell check had to even fix that word for me) but here’s a very simple explanation of my understanding. In the case of a pull up, we are moving our body weight from arms extended below the bar to having our chin rise up to pass the plain of the bar. Moving a given load over a given load. Now, we could strict pull ups and achieve the same “work”. Body still goes from below the bar to chin above the bar. Ultimately, we are after “power”. Power is work over time. Let’s look at an example. If athlete A were to do ten strict pull ups and it took them 30 seconds and athlete B were to do ten butterfly pull ups in 12 seconds; they both did the same amount of “work”. However, athlete B had a higher power output. Basically, doing the same thing in less time yields a higher power output.
So in order to get this above talked about power output, we create speed and momentum via a “kip” when doing pull ups. A kip moves us through the hollow and arch position. These positions are common to both the “kipping pull up” and “butterfly pull up”. We need to move through both positions regardless if we are kipping or butterfly. The difference is in the execution of moving between those two positions.
In a kipping pull up, we move under the bar into our arch position and then press down on the bar moving into our hollow position. We then stay in our hollow position as we pull in to the bar. Once our chin has cleared the bar, we press away from the bar still in our hollow position. Our feet are in front of the bar throughout. The only time our feet go behind the bar in a kipping pull up is at the bottom of the movement when we go back to our arch position to generate power for the next rep.
The two pictures above are the top position and bottom position of a kipping pull up. Two things to note are the feet in front of the bar at the top, as well as the chin at it’s highest point (breaking the plain) while at the bar. In the bottom (arch) position, feet are behind the bar while chest and hips are in front. This arch position was created after we have pushed away from the bar and travel through the bottom extended position.
Looking at a butterfly pull up, we move through the same two positions - arch and hollow. The difference comes in moving from one to the other and where this takes place. With butterfly pull ups, we generate speed the same way, in our arch to hollow transition. Instead of pulling “to” the bar as we did in our kipping pull up, we are going to pull “through” the bar. As we pull through the bar, our hips are transitioning from the hollow position back to the arch position. This puts our chin at the top of it’s movement well behind the bar. When our chin is at it’s highest point, our feet are already back behind the plain of the bar, getting ready for the arch position.
In these two pictures, we see the “top position” and “bottom position” of a butterfly pull up. The top position picture looks considerably different than the kipping one. The feet are well behind the plain of the bar. That is to say, they are already into the arch position anticipating the “fall through” the bar on the way down. Also of note, the movement’s highest point is achieved well behind the bar to allow the chin, and ultimately the body, to fall through to in front of the bar. Now take a look at the bottom position. It looks very similar to the bottom position of the kipping pull up. How we got there though was very different. It was achieved by that fall through, creating the arch position while on the way down from above and behind the bar. In this way, when we arrive at the bottom we are already “in front” and arched for the next rep. Side note: shame on me for the knee bend in the arch position; “stay long TJ. Stay long.”
The kipping and butterfly pull ups are difficult to describe in text. I did my best! Hopefully this makes some sense to you. If this is something you would like to spend some time working on beyond the constraints of a one hour class, get a hold of the coach of your choice and schedule a personal training session. We would be happy to spend some time working with you and getting the movements pattern down. Happy Pull-ups everyone!