Featured Assistance Movement of the Week #1: McGill Pull-up

By: Brian Carroll

I’ll be covering an obscure or special assistance movement each week that I feel is important and should potentially be considered as an addition to your programming at some capacity.

The McGill Pull-up

This is an exercise Dr. McGill explained to me while I was in Canada for a follow up on my back in October 2013. He was showing me the best way to improve my back strength, and overall development, while minimizing injury.

You may not know that doing sets of 10 of pull-ups at 290lb can be risky for our pecs, lats and biceps tendons, not to mention that how many 290 pound lifters are really doing to 10 pull-ups per set. Fatigue is typically the culprit with these types of injuries. What Dr. McGill advocates are sets of 1 or 2 reps at time, but with maximum force and explosion with each and every rep.

Grab the bar and hang; retract your shoulder blades and squeeze as hard as you can. Pull your body to the bar explosively and contract as hard as you can at the top. Lower back down and take a rest from 10 to 20 seconds. Start with 6-8 reps, and progress up each workout. Everything is controlled and methodical, not sloppy or like a fish out of water.

As Dr. McGill states in the video; he has seen tremendous improvements in many athletes’ ability to do reps on the pull-up in as little as a month or two (please see video as Dr. McGill explains this). Some athletes are tested by their pull-up count, so this is a good way to build up your pull-up volume and have it ready for test days when you need it and for those that don’t need a pull-up test, it’s a great way to add volume to the movement. I’m currently at about 20 sets of 2 at this point and feel great.

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Brian Carroll

Owner and Founder at PowerRackStrength.com
Brian is a retired world-class powerlifter with over two decades of world-class powerlifting. From 1999 to 2020, Brian Carroll was a competitive powerlifter, one of the most accomplished lifters in the sport's history. Brian started off competing in bench press competitions 'raw,' then, shortly into the journey, he gravitated toward equipped lifting as there were no "raw" categories then. You only had to choose from single-ply (USPF) and Multi-ply (APF/WPC). Brian went on to total 2730 at 275 and 2651 at 242 with more than ten times his body weight in three different classes (220, 242, 275), and both bench pressed and deadlifted over 800 pounds in two other weight classes. He's totaled 2600 over 20 times in 2 different weight classes in his career. With 60 squats of 1000lbs or more officially, this is the most in powerlifting history, regardless of weight class or federation, by anyone not named David Hoff. Brian realized many ups and downs during his 20+ years competing. After ten years of high-level powerlifting competition and an all-time World Record squat at 220 with 1030, in 2009, Brian was competing for a Police academy scholarship. On a hot and humid July morning, Brian, hurdling over a barricade at 275lbs, landed on, fell, and hurt his back. After years of back pain and failed therapy, Brian met with world-renowned back specialist Prof McGill in 2013, which changed his trajectory more than he could have imagined. In 2017, Brian Carroll and Prof McGill authored the best-selling book about Brian's triumphant comeback to powerlifting in Gift of Injury. Most recently (10.3.20) -Brian set the highest squat of all time (regardless of weight class) with 1306 lbs – being the first man to break the 1300lb squat barrier at a bodyweight of 303 lbs.
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