My Favorite Exercises: Pull-ups

While our society tends to focus on other areas of the female form, the back is one of the most beautiful parts of a woman's body. Ballet dancers know this.

Work to build a lean, strong, sensuous back. I love shoulder and back exercises. And, after push-ups, my favorite exercise is pull-ups (or chin-ups).

Since I am a normal woman with normal strength, I have never been able to do a pull-up unassisted. Therefore, I have to rely on having a pull-up machine at my gym. If you have one of these at your gym that has a pad you stand or kneel on and weights to assist you, take advantage of it.

Pull-ups work a lot of muscles in back and arms. However, I feel them most in my latissimus dorsi, the broad muscles across the back and above the waist. See the picture here from Wikipedia. They work most of the same muscles as the lat pull-down machine, but they work more muscles and work them better, in my opinion.

With the assisted pull-up machines, you have to think of the weights in the opposite way you normally do. The more weight you use, the easier the exercise gets. That's because the weights are the amount of assist. Think of it this way. If you weigh 130 pounds and you set the weights at 30 pounds, it means you are pulling up 100 pounds. With a 100-pound assist, you are pulling up only 30 pounds of your own weight. Over time, you want to decrease the amount of weight you use on this machine. Keep in mind that these machines vary. On some I have had to use 70 pounds of assist, on others 40 or 50. They don't all work the same way.

One of the nice things about these machines is that they usually allow multiple grips. This allows you to vary your pull-ups and work your muscles differently, for a better workout. I sometimes do four sets with four different grips. Or I might do four sets alternating just two grips.

If you are not a well endowed woman (if you know what I mean), then work the back and accentuate this beautiful and feminine part of your body. A good place to start is with pull-ups.