Pull-ups are a bodyweight exercise where you hang from an overhead bar, usually with an overhand grip, and pull yourself up until your chin clears the bar. “They’re a great upper-body exercise,” says Prof Leigh Breen, a specialist in muscle physiology at the University of Leicester. “They primarily work the muscles in the back, but also recruit the arms and the core.” They’re known for being tough – particularly for women. But is that true?
“If we take the population as a whole, doing a pull-up is typically more challenging for the average woman,” says Breen. There are a few reasons for this. First, women naturally tend to carry a smaller proportion of their muscle mass in their upper body than men – and these are the muscles relied upon for the exercise. Second, women generally have a slightly higher body fat percentage than men. Because a pull-up requires you to lift your entire bodyweight, having less upper-body muscle relative to the weight you’re moving can reduce what’s known as your strength-to-weight ratio.
