Pull Ups

The lifter hangs from a fixed bar with an overhand grip a little wider than the shoulders, arms straight. The pull begins by drawing the shoulder blades down and back, then continues by bending the arms until the chin passes above the bar. The descent returns to a full hang with the arms straight. Because the resistance is the lifter’s own body, the load changes only when bodyweight changes or when weight is deliberately added.

The pull up is the reference measure of vertical pulling strength, training the lats, the mid back and the biceps against the whole body. It differs from the chin up mainly in grip — palms away rather than palms toward the lifter — which reduces how much the biceps can contribute and shifts more of the work onto the back. The lat pulldown is the loadable machine analogue.

Pull ups can be logged at 0 kg for a straight bodyweight set, or with the weight you added if you used a belt or vest. Because a strength score needs a load to apply the coefficient to, a set logged at 0 kg is recorded as a set and counts toward your training history, but produces no score — add the extra weight and it will be scored like any other loaded movement.

Every scored set is turned into an estimated one-rep max, and that estimate is scored with the DOTS coefficient against your bodyweight and sex — so a set is comparable with your own past work and with lifters of a different size. Sets above ten repetitions are recorded but not scored: the estimate is a curve fit that stops being honest past that point, so orcatrain returns nothing rather than a confident guess. Weights are stored in kilograms.