BOXROX Pro

6 Best Pull Up Bar Complexes to Explode your Strength and Skill

Level up your game.

If you are looking for an upper-body challenge, these pull up bar complexes might be just what you need.

Complexes help you get more comfortable with hanging and swinging movements, strengthen the pulling strength and most importantly, challenge you a bit more. We made a list of six different routines we found around the web.

pull up bar complexes

6 Pull Up Bar Complexes

1. Beginners’ starting point

If you’re a beginner skip complex for a while and work on your basic strength to work up to the first strict pull-up. Great advice on how to improve and adjust those movements for your level of training can be found on Sean Lind’s Instagram channel.

2. Try mixing pull-ups with toes-to-bar

Next step after conquering a pull-up could be adding toes-to-bar or knees-to-elbow into your bar routine. Get inspiration from the following video from CrossFit DFW, combining chest-to-bar with t2b.

Related: 5 Reasons CrossFitters Struggle With Toes To Bar

3. Pull Up Bar Complexes From Alec Smith: pull-up + c2b + mu

Advanced level athletes can go on and try more demanding complexes including muscle-ups, pullovers and similar elements. Ben Smith’s younger brother Alec did one consisting of:

butterfly pull-up
butterfly chest-to-bar
muscle-up

All three exercises present one rep. GRID’s Dc Brawlers’ coaches who programmed the workout, set the bar high: 20 reps for time.

4. From our friends at CrossFit Waterford comes a complex with:

toes-to-bar
chest-to-bar
clapping pull-up
muscle up
pullover
and reverse/repeat everything.

5. Sam Briggs: t2b + k2b + pull up + c2b + mu + pullover

A while ago Sam Briggs challenged you to do her complex consisting of:

toes-to-bar
knee-to-elbow
pull-up
chest-to-bar
muscle-up
pullover

6. Nawid Reinermann’s Bar Dance

Advanced level athletes skilled in callisthenics might be interested in pull-up routine Nawid Reinermann loves doing. It’s called bar dance.

When being interviewed for BOXROX, Nawid also came up with a pull-up bar challenge for all are fans:

3 Rounds:

  • 5 Dead Hang Pull-ups
  • 5 Explosive Pull-ups
  • 5 leg raises
  • 50 diamond push-ups
  • 5 fast pull-ups
  • 5 negative pull-ups:
    -5sec chin over bar hold
    -5sec head under bar hold
    -5sec hang out


(one minute break between each routine)

Whichever complex you choose, don’t forget to have fun with it.

Related news