Difference Between Wide Grip vs. Close Grip Pull-Ups

Incorporating pull-ups into your fitness routine is a great way to better your fitness level.

Pulls ups happen to be one of the most effective exercises that you can implement into your routine because they are extremely good at working out your shoulders, triceps, and back muscles.

There are differences between the various kinds of pull-ups that you might be looking to incorporate into your routine.

You might be interested in implementing a wide grip or close grip pull-ups.

Below, we will be going over some of the differences between wide grip vs. close-grip pull-ups.

Differences between wide grip vs. close-grip pull-ups:

When you are looking to incorporate close grip pull-ups into your routine, you are going to essentially be reaching up and grabbing the bar with your hands around shoulder-width apart with your palms facing forward.

Whereas, when you are utilizing a much more traditional wide grip option, you are going to have your hands wider than shoulder-width.

The difference is primarily between your hand placement on the bar. iHerb.com promo code gives you a 5% discount and you can find some apparel for pull-ups too.

Each technique is going to offer different benefits because the position alters how your shoulder joints move as you perform each rep.

They target muscles differently

While you are performing a close grip pull up, your shoulder joints are going to be extended to the point where your upper arms will move completely behind you.

Whereas, if you are implementing wide grip pull-ups, your shoulders will force the upper part of your arms to end toward the side of your body.

Both of the forms end up working out the largest muscles in your back.

With that being said, during close grip pull-ups, your biceps and pectoral muscles help which places less emphasis on your back and shoulder muscles.

Therefore, if you are looking for pure back and shoulder workouts, you will want to spread your hands out in a wide grip style.

Each has its own difficulty

When you have your hands in a full close-grip position, you are going to be placing your shoulders in a much easier position to be able to utilize other muscles to assist with each pull-up.

Because you will be able to utilize your pectoral muscles along with your biceps, it is going to make doing pull-ups much easier.

Thus, you should be able to complete more pull-ups when you do a close grip style as opposed to a wider grip.

When you focus on a wide grip style, it is going to be a much more difficult position to complete as many reps because you are going to be focusing specifically on your back muscles along with your shoulders.

Benefits of wide grip vs. close-grip pull-ups

Wide grip: better for bulking

When it comes to bulking up and getting significantly stronger in your back, you are going to want to focus on wide grip style pull-ups.

By getting wide grip style pull-ups in your routine, you will be able to place the sole emphasis on your back and shoulder muscles.

Doing this is going to allow you to avoid compensating and using your arms or pectoral muscles as a means to lift your body.

Because you are going to be solely focused on your back with wider grips, it is going to help you maximize the size of your back muscles which will add much more bulk than strengthening your biceps or pectoral muscles.

Because there are better options to work out your pectoral muscles, you will want to incorporate more wide grip style pull-ups if your entire fitness goal is to gain more bulk.

Close grip: easier to handle more repetitions

One of the main benefits of close grip vs. wide grip would have to be the fact that you are going to be able to get more repetitions in with a close grip.

By getting more close grip pull-ups into your routine, it is going to allow you to get a lot more reps in each and every workout which will enable you to handle more pull-ups each time you go to workout.

Being able to get more pull-ups in your routine is one of the best ways to gain muscle and to get in an effective workout.

This is going to be more for those that are looking to get lean rather than bulk up.

While close grip will certainly help you gain muscle, it is going to help gain lean muscle and rip your back, pectorals, and biceps at the same time.

Tips for wide grip vs. close-grip pull-ups

Add weight

If you are able to perform pull-ups very easily, you can always think about adding extra weight in order to give you even more bulk and to make each pulls up even more difficult.

Doing this is going to allow you to make each pull up more difficult which can help you add more strength and muscle as a result.

Build up reps

When you are looking to do pull-ups, it is important to build-up to the reps that you are able to do. In order to increase your strength, you will need to increase the number of reps that you can do every time.

Overall, there are a lot of benefits to doing both.

The fact is, if you are going to be incorporating pull-ups into your routine, you should probably focus on getting a good mix of both into it.

Not only do they each have their own benefits associated with them, but you will be able to work out more of your body by incorporating them both.

By doing wide grips and then finishing with close grips, you will likely be able to build more muscle because you will be able to compensate with close grips with your biceps and pectoral muscles.

Therefore, when you are too tired to complete more wide grip pull-ups, you can switch to a close grip to finish off your workout.