About a year ago, I tried to do a pull-up during a workout – and didn’t even get close. I’m talking not even a tiny bend in the elbows. Like anyone who wants to learn how to get your first pull-up, I realized I needed to master how to train for them properly.

What really lit the fire under my butt was that I’d been training other people to do pull-ups. But here I was – a personal trainer who couldn’t do a single pull-up herself. I KNOW.

Pull-ups are exceptionally difficult because they involve lifting your entire body. Unlike a bicep curl where you can simply decrease the dumbbell weight if needed, it takes some creative solutions to find easier variations of pull-ups that allow you to gradually progress.