Technique Thursday: Savannah Bar Pull Ups

When you're checking out the workout the night before a see pull ups, no fear, the savannah bar is here!

We know that not everybody can do a strict pull, or kipping pull up.. yet.

Some of the scaling options we throw out are lat ring rows, strict pull ups with a band, and savannah bar pull ups.

We're going to take a look at the savannah bar pull up today.

Check out this video of Coach Karla demonstrating some savannah bar pull ups.

Look at her setup. She is hanging directly below the bar, arms are extended, and feet are directly below the bar and toes are pointing outward.

Next, play the video again, watch how she presses the bar down first. To do this you need to use your lats. Notice that this press down will shift your body slightly behind the bar. Once you have engaged your lats by pressing down you then pull yourself up to the bar. Keep your core engaged, trying not to break just below the ribs. If you're not quite strong enough to pull yourself to the bar, that is where your feet come in. Your legs and feet can assist you on the way up. It is important to focus on the fact that this is an upper body movement and not a lower body movement when using the savannah bar. It can be easy to use your legs too much.

We also have an example of how NOT to setup for the savannah bar pull up. Take a look at the video below.

First, look at her feet. Her toes are tucked under. This is going to easily provide too much assistance from your legs in the movement. Also, they are far behind the bar. When she performs the pull up her feet behind the bar do not allow for the natural angle of the body. You're almost doing a pull up in an arch position which will never be the case. We do our pull ups in the core hollow position.

Next, notice that she is pulling herself straight up to the bar. She is not engaging her lats to shift her torso behind the bar first. This is causing her to break just below her ribs, not tight within her core.

Do you look like video one or video two? Lets start moving towards video one.

These are just a few points of performance when completing the savannah bar pull up.