Why Don't Bodybuilders Do Pullups?

Pullups provide an effective exercise for targeting your upper and mid-back muscles, your traps, forearms and biceps, but you don't always see them in bodybuilding routines. Many bodybuilders prefer lat pulldowns or other back exercises such as rows over pullups. While there's nothing wrong with including pullups in your routine, they're not always optimal for your bodybuilding goals.

  1. Body-Weight Issues

    • As pullups are a body-weight exercise, how difficult you find them depends largely on how much you weigh. As a heavyweight bodybuilder, you carry much more muscle mass than the average person, and while this makes you stronger, it also makes body-weight exercises much harder -- meaning it can be difficult to perform more than just a few reps of pullups. Likewise if you're a lighter bodybuilder, chances are you'll have a very good strength to body-weight ratio and can probably perform 15 to 20 body-weight pullups with ease, which doesn't particularly tax your muscles.

    Ease of Performance

    • To make pullups more challenging you can add weight, either by holding a dumbbell between your feet or wearing a dipping belt with weight plates attached. It can take several minutes to change the weight on a belt, whereas switching the weight for an exercise such as a lat pulldown or machine row takes mere seconds. When you're trying to keep your rest periods down or performing drop sets, where you need to switch quickly from one weight to the next, pullups can take too long to be included effectively.

    Movements Versus Muscles

    • Powerlifters, strongmen and athletes train to get stronger on particular movements, while bodybuilders aim to target specific muscles and induce fatigue. Building muscle requires a longer time under tension per set, writes coach Charles Poliquin in "Modern Trends in Strength Training," and you need to place as much focus as possible on your target muscle. When performing pullups, your forearms and biceps can often fatigue before you've sufficiently worked you back muscles, making other exercises better back-builders.

    Alternatives

    • The staple alternative to pullups is the lat pulldown. Most pulldown machines come with a wide range of gripping attachments, such as close or wide grip handles, single-arm, parallel grip and V-shaped attachments, making the pulldown machine more versatile than pullups. Barbell, dumbbell, cable and machine rows also work your mid and upper-back muscles. You can still perform pullups in your routine, but try a variety of back exercises to find which ones work best for you.