5 Calisthenics Exercises For A Rock-Solid Turtle Back (Pull-Up Variations)

One of the most easily ignored facets of body training has been training the back muscles. For many years now, people have been limiting the intensity of their training, either by following the wrong methodology or extensively working just one muscle group of the body.

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A big misconception of the recent times has been attributing the perceptibility of big muscles to visiting the gym and lifting weights frequently. However, a form of effective training that doesn't receive the credit it deserves, is Calisthenics.

What is calisthenics?

Calisthenics is a training method that involves using the resistance of your own bodyweight. All exercises ranging from traditional push-ups, pull-ups, dips, and squats are examples of some calisthenics exercises.

Since calisthenics consists of training that involves your own bodyweight, it is equipment free, it helps you build real strength, and it puts every single muscle group in the body to work!

Here is a compilation of some basic level calisthenics exercises that you can do at home:

Now that we have a fair idea of the calisthenics training method, let us look at 5 exercises that will help you build not just an aesthetically pleasing back, but also, a back that has the strength to endure bullets!

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1) The Pull-Up

A Pull-Up is an exercise that builds some serious back strength as it hits 3 muscle groups at one go, namely, the lats, traps, and rhomboids. Although it may seem challenging at first, considering that it needs a fair amount of upper body strength, it is a greatly rewarding exercise.

Here are the steps you can follow in order to enable yourself to do a perfect pull-up!

Step 1: Jump up to grab the bar with your palms, shoulder wide apart. Ensure your palms are facing away from you and hang below the bar with knees bent. Your arms must be in a fully extended position at this point.

Step 2: The next step would be to ensure that both your back, core, and shoulders are engaged. Visualize engaging these muscles and the strength in your upper-back to pull yourself up.

Also, read 6 Explosive Lats Workout For A Bigger And Stronger Back.

Step 3: Lastly, when you pull yourself up, make sure that your chin is above the bar, and release slowly by extending your arms completely on the way down.

2) Wide Grip Pull-Ups

The wide grip pull-up is a variation of the regular pull-up, but with a slight change of palm position. This time around, the palms are slightly wider apart than the distance previously maintained for a regular pull-up. This variation isolates your lats and takes away much tension on the biceps.

Here are the steps you can follow to pull-off a wide grip pull-up:

Step 1: Jump up and grip the bar a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Ensure that your palms are facing away from the body and hang freely below the bar.

Step 2: Visualize engaging your lats while enlisting strength into your secondary muscle groups such as your abs, biceps, and shoulders.

Step 3: Pull yourself up whilst ensuring that your chin is above the bar, and release slowly on the way down by fully extending your arms.

3) Wide Grip Chin-Ups

The wide grip chin-up is a chin-up alternative exercise that mainly targets the upper and outer parts of the back. Although the primary muscle group in work is the back, secondary muscles groups such as the shoulders and the biceps are also put to work.

Below are the steps you can follow to do this chin-up variation:

Step 1: Grab the bar above your head, a little wider than shoulder-width apart, and firmly grip it with your palms facing forward.

Step 2: As you pull yourself up slowly, keep your elbows tucked in, making sure your chin is above the bar.

Step 3: Finally, carefully lower yourself down by extending your arms completely and repeat until you have attained a fair number of repetitions.

4) The Muscle-Up

The muscle-up is a highly advanced strength training exercise. It essentially involves the transition from a pull-up to a dip in just one fluent movement. The muscle-up is a unique exercise as it works the entire body. It consists of both the pull and push movements and hence targets all the big muscle groups like the chest, back, abdominals, shoulders, biceps, and triceps.

Enlisted below are the steps you can follow in order to complete a muscle-up:

Step 1: Jump up to grab the bar and ensure that you have a loose grip on it. This would mean that your fingers must be over the bar, and not around it.

Step 2: Pull yourself up and roll your chest over the bar by transitioning from the pull-up grip to the dip grip.

Step 3: Lastly, press your hands down and against the bar, and push your body upwards by completing the form of a dip.

5) Close Grip Pull-Ups

The close grip pull-up is a variation of a pull-up that targets two specific muscle groups, i.e., the lats and the biceps. The close grip pull-up alleviates excess stress on the shoulder that you experience when you do the wide grip pull-ups.

The following are the steps you can follow to complete a close grip pull-up:

Step 1: Jump up, grab the bar, and latch on by enclosing it with your palms facing forward.

Step 2: Making sure that your palms are closer than shoulder-wide apart, slowly pull yourself above ensuring that your chin is in a position that is above the bar.

Step 3: To finish, gently let your arms extend as you descend and repeat until a sufficient number of repetitions are completed.