Neutral Grip Pull-Ups – Most Asked Questions

In the fitness industry, the neutral grip pull-up is a dark horse. Most athletes jump straight onto a traditional pull-up (pronated grip) or a chin-up (supinated grip) without even considering the neutral grip pull-up. Despite this, they still stand as one of the most effective grips.

Also known as swiss or hammer grip, the neutral grip pull-up involves gripping a set of parallel bars so that your knuckles are facing one another. You then lift yourself in between the two bars as opposed to behind a single bar, in an ordinary pull-up.

Unlike a standard pull-up or chin-up, a neutral grip can’t be done on a single, straight pull-up bar. You either need two parallel bars or a single bar that curves into a ‘c’ shape. Take a look at our visual demonstration:

With all three grips, you can either tuck your thumbs in or wrap them around the bar – it depends on what you find more comfortable and feel more stable with. You might find you prefer a different thumb position for different grips.

Puting thumb grip aside, all you need to focus on is keeping your knuckles facing one another. For such a basic change, there’s such a huge impact on your muscle development and joint health. Let’s take a look at how…

What Muscles Do Neutral Grip Pull-Ups Work

One of the main reasons athletes choose to use the neutral grip is down to the muscle groups they contract, compared to other grips.

A neutral pull-up grip engages both your lats and biceps; whereas ordinary grips have to compromise one or the other, hence its desirability. This is in addition to the usual muscle groups too, such as forearms, deltoids, and core.

The luxury of exercising both the lats and biceps is all due to the biomechanics of the movement:

• The biceps contract from the supinated hand position – the knuckles facing one another.
• At the top of the exercise, the lats contract as there is a massive amount of scapula retraction (squeezing your shoulder blades together).

Because of this, you can make the pull-up more bicep-demanding by taking the upward motion slow and controlled to increase time under tension. Or, if you want to focus on your lat gains, hold the top position and actively squeeze your shoulder blades to feel the tension build more and more.

We mention how they also work your forearms, deltoids, and core. While they’re still significant muscle groups, they aren’t a unique part of the neutral grip as you work them regardless of the grip you hold the bar with.

Is The Neutral Grip Good For Your Joints

Some athletes can’t do lots of chin-ups or pull-ups; not because they don’t have the strength, but instead they have internal joint pain. The solution? Neutral grip pull-ups. Here’s why…

In a neutral grip pull-up, your elbows, wrists, and shoulders are in a far more symmetrical position which makes it the best grip for joint health. This makes it the ideal pull-up for anyone with arthritis or recovering from injury – especially a deltoid/wrist related injury.

With a traditional pull-up or chin-up, you must rotate your wrists and elbows to grip the bar. And once you hang on the bar, this position builds a significant amount of strain on these joints. While it tends to be healthy in moderate amounts, it’s not uncommon to experience pain or injury.

But when you look at a neutral grip form, your arms are in their natural state position, you just lift them above your head. In other words, there is minimal rotation needed in the wrists and elbows. Because of this, there is a reduced amount of pressure – making it a lot kinder on your joints.

What about the shoulders? Well, them too! Unlike traditional grips, the neutral grip puts your shoulders in a far more friendly position. In this sense, the exercise is more reliant on your biceps and lats, rather than the vulnerable parts of your deltoids.

Are Neutral Grip Pull-Ups Easier

Having trained thoroughly with each pull-up grip, there is a clear distinction on which is the easiest versus the most difficult.

In terms of muscle demand, the pull-up (pronated grip) is the hardest, the chin-up (supinated) is the easiest, and the neutral grip is in between them both. Because of this, the neutral grip pull-up is the best hold that balances difficulty and muscle gain.

Neutral Versus Pronated Grip:

Compared to the traditional pull-up, the neutral grip is much easier. This is because there’s greater support from the biceps, which makes the upward motion feel more effortless. So, it tends to be, that you can perform more reps and feel less fatigue.

This makes it ideal for a warm-up, beginners getting used to a movement, or recovering athletes. In all these examples, you want the benefits of a pull-up, but not the intensity of a traditional one. This is where the neutral grip is your best man.

Neutral Versus Supinated Grip:

Check out our illustration above. Yes, the neutral grip is easier than the supinated – not by a lot though.

When looking at muscle activation, they both engage the biceps, so aren’t too dissimilar from one another in this sense. Because of this, if you can comfortably perform a chin up you can most likely do the same amount of neutral grip pull-ups.

But, the main reason individuals find the neutral grip marginally harder is because it engages the lats. This is a muscle group that is commonly underdeveloped, especially in beginners. And so, it adds a degree of challenge. Nonetheless, a small challenge.

Looking At All Three

If we take a look at the bigger picture you may ask yourself, why is the traditional pull-up (pronated grip) so much further along the difficulty scale than the other two? Here’s your answer:

In general, beginners already have developed biceps, but not as well-developed upper back muscles. This is to be expected since a lot of our day-to-day lives rely on bicep engagement – for example, tasks such as lifting items, pulling boxes, or carrying children.

And because the neutral grip and chin-up have more support from the bicep, it’s a fairly straightforward movement. But, when it comes to a traditional pull-up, where it’s dominantly upper-body focused, beginners find it a lot more difficult as their muscles aren’t as well-conditioned.

How Many Neutral Grip Pull-Ups Are Considered Good

We all like to compare, contrast, and exchange notes – even in the fitness industry. Let’s take a look at what this means for pull-up count and your ability…

While there are different factors to consider, if we looked at an average then 15 neutral grip pull-ups are considered good for a man, and 7 reps is considered good for a woman. If you fall within this range, it’s extremely impressive and is an achievement in itself.

We have linked a helpful source here. It’s a website that breaks down the average pull-up count in different weight classes; which makes it easy to position yourself out of the average, and see how good you are.

But while it’s great for statistics, it doesn’t explain any determining factors or anomalies. This is essential to learn, as clarifies why you may be lower than the average, or better, higher. So, let’s take a look at them…

Previous Experience
Anyone with prior fitness experience would have built some sort of upper-body strength – be it the back muscles, arms, or core. This will put your pull-up count much higher than a beginner of the same age and weight.

Pull-Up Bar Diameter
You’ll always be able to do more neutral grip pull-ups on a thin bar, over a thicker bar. This is because a thicker bar demands greater forearm engagement – which makes you feel fatigued faster. For reference, a bar 1–1.25″ in diameter is most common.

Kipping
A kipping pull-up is when you use momentum to lift yourself above the bar, essentially giving you added assistance. Someone doing kipping pull-ups will be able to do more reps than someone doing them without a swing – even if they are as strong as each other.

The ScoreCard

To conclude, we have rated the neutral grip pull-ups on several factors. These are their difficulty, how kind they are to your joints, what muscle gain is like, and how practical of an exercise they are. Overall, it’s a fantastic exercise and one we recommend to a lot of athletes.

Topic	Score out of 5
Difficulty	3
Joint Benefit	4.5
Muscle Gain	3.5
Practicality	3

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