Pullups have long been a staple exercise in the training of a wide variety of strength athletes. Wrestlers, rock climbers, strongman competitors, gymnasts, martial artists, and bodybuilders all use chinning movements, and for good reason: done properly, chins and pullups build tremendous strength, size, and power in virtually every muscle of the upper body. The lats, shoulders, biceps, forearms, and grip are all thoroughly taxed with a good set of pullups, and the serratus, pectorals, and abdominals share plenty of the load as well. On top of this, pullups performed in conjunction with various overhead presses are a great aid in creating muscle balance in the smaller muscles of the shoulder girdle.
Alas, many of you reading this are already well aware of the numerous benefits of pullups, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir! I simply thought it would be appropriate to reiterate the reasons that we as strength athletes practice pullups, so that there would be a good reason to answer the question that many of you have been asking: how can I apply the most power to my chins and pullups so as to reap the biggest benefits and ultimately improve my pullup performance? Like the exercise itself, applying power to your pullups is really quite simple.

STEP NUMBER 1: GET YOUR LATS INTO THE PULL!
Although this may sound like generic advice gleamed straight from the pages of mainstream muscle magazines, it is still extremely important for proper pullup technique. If you can't get your lats to work while doing pullups, forget about achieving anything even remotely close to your ultimate pullup potential.
When I first began doing pullups, I used the following technique to teach my lats how to work: Grip the bar with a thumbless grip, hands just slightly wider than shoulder width. Now, imagine that you have had both arms amputated from the elbows up, and that your hands and forearms are hooks attaching your elbows to the pullup bar. In this manner, you will be forced to initiate the pull with your elbows, the goal being to activate your lats before your biceps kick in. If you do this properly, and are indeed pulling from your elbows only, you will feel a strong contraction in your "armpit" muscles. Congratulations! You have just activated the strongest muscle in the upperbody, the latissimus dorsi. Once you know how to use your lats, it is simply a matter of bringing the biceps back into the movement and using the combined power of both muscles to pull yourself up to the bar.

STEP NUMBER TWO: COORDINATE THE INDIVIDUAL PULLING MUSCLES INTO ONE SMOOTH PULLING MOTION!
This is where things start to differ from the generic bodybuilding advice. The bodybuilding magazines would have you attempt to continue pulling with the lats to the exclusion of the biceps for the remainder of the pullup, in a fradulent attempt to "isolate" this large muscle group. The problem is, the human body simply does not conform to the principles of isolation. You will be much stronger on pullups if you let the muscles work as they are supposed to: in conjunction with one another.
Learning to initiate the pull from the lats does not mean the lats should be the only muscle working. On the contrary, the biceps can, and should, take up their fair share of the load. Simply put, both the biceps and lats should be contracting in a synchronized manner (the serratus, shoulders, and pectorals should be contracting quite hard to, although you won't "feel" them to the same extent as the lats and biceps), so that the body has the maximum number of "engines" (muscles) working to complete the pullup.

STEP NUMBER THREE: APPLY HIGH TENSION TECHNIQUES TO YOUR PULLUPS!
As in any lift, your pullup strength will be enhanced if you can generate a high amount of muscular tension throughout the body and the target muscles. See what happens when you take the following steps:

1. Squeeze the bar as if you are hanging on for dear life (still a thumbless grip).
2. Squeeze your buttocks as if bracing for a Singapore style caning.
3. Squeeze your abs as though Mike Tyson was about to give you his best shot.
4. Squeeze your lats, forearms, and biceps, chest, shoulders, and serratus, and any other muscle of the upper body you have control over.
5. Now pull yourself up with all your might!

If everything goes according to plan, you will have generated so much tension that you practically slingshot yourself up to the pullup bar. On the negative portion of the repetition, you should be generating this tension all over again. Think of your lats and biceps as thick rubber bands that are being stretched to their maximum length. Don't move artificially slow during the negative, but slow enough to build the tension to a high level.
Once you have reached the bottom of the pullup..... KABOOM!! immediately reverse direction and use all that stored tension to slingshot yourself up again.
There you have a few basic techniques that when applied to your pullups will make a world of difference in your strength and power. All of the above can be applied to any type of heavy pullup, chin, parallel grip chin, one arm pullup, towel pullup, you name it! In the next installment I will go into detail on a couple of advanced exercises that capitalize on the above techniques and will develop incredible ballistic pullup power. Until then, practice the above techniques and you should be adding pounds to your best weighted pullup in no time.