Can women do pull-ups?

This question was posed by a New York Times article Why Women Can't Do Pull-ups – Well in 2012 – and it provoked a storm of controversy.

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Research shows that there are reasons why it may be more difficult for women to achieve a pull-up than men – but that certainly doesn't mean we can't achieve it. There are many women who can do pull-ups.

Women tend to have up to 40% less muscle mass in their upper bodies than men, and we also tend to have more slow twitch fibres in the upper body. But on the plus side, women tend to have lower body weight than men, and shorter arm length, both of which can be advantageous when trying to do a pull-up.

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Is it really so important to be able to do a pull-up? Certainly not for everyone, but if you're passionate about indoor bouldering, as I am, good upper body strength is not just an advantage – it's essential if you want to progress beyond a certain level.

Climbing and fitness coaches Tom Randall and Ollie Torr of latticetraining.com conducted research based on in-depth analysis of more than 500 climbers. They found that progression for female climbers was often limited by the strength and condition of the shoulder girdle.

For whatever reason, it appears that women tend not to build strength this area as much as men. But that doesn't meant we can't develop it.

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One of the reasons I decided to start doing indoor climbing and then indoor bouldering, just over 18 months ago, was because after a lengthy period of feeling very unfit due to subclinical hypothyroidism, I wanted to get my health and fitness back on track. I had taken up regular hillwalking, which gave me lots of exercise and increasingly strong legs, but my core and upper body were woefully weak.

The effect of ageing on strength and muscle loss

As we age, we tend to lose muscle mass. Most people achieve peak muscle mass in their late 30s to early 40s. After that age, people who are physically inactive can lose as much as 3 to 5 percent of their muscle mass each decade, or 0.5-1% per year after the age of 50. The process speeds up in our 70s (even earlier for some people) and can lead to a range of health problems normally associated with old age.

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This is a condition known as sarcopenia, and the best treatment is resistance training or strength training.

I didn't want my upper body strength to go into decline.

I'd always been vaguely interested in climbing, and it seemed like a good sport to help build upper body strength. In fact, this isn't really the case – it's generally more important to use the legs when climbing and NOT to depend too much on pulling with the arms, hands and fingers.

But upper body strength is very helpful for climbers, especially when climbing overhung walls.

Indoor bouldering is a type of climbing, but without a harness, on a climbing wall which is not quite so high and with a soft floor. Indoor bouldering routes are often more traversey and less straight up and down, with more overhanging climbs, which can be good for developing strength in the upper body and lower arms.

Flabby arms

One of the effects of my subclinical hypothyroidism was rapid weight gain, and I'd noticed that I was starting to develop "bingo wings" – loose fatty skin on the underside of the upper arms. I'd always been relatively slim and health-conscious before, so I found this quite depressing.

Rapid weight gain due to hypothyroidism led to loose fatty skin on my upper arms.

Since my hypothyroidism has been treated and I've been able to lose the weight, strengthening my upper body has helped me tone up the skin on my arms.

I didn't spend hours in the gym in order to achieve this – in fact, I haven't been near a gym in years! The climbing wall is my gym. I do bouldering at least once a week, usually on a Friday night – and climbing at least once a week, usually on a Monday night.

I always do 20 minutes of yoga before I start to climb. I do a type of yoga aimed specifically at climbers. It's very strengthening for the upper body, but in a gentle, gradual way.

I also do about 30 reps on the pull-down machine at an outdoor gym about once or twice a week, which takes about five minutes, and two or three reverse pull-ups when I'm in the bouldering cave.

Doing reverse pull-ups in the bouldering cave

This has dramatically improved my efforts to do a pull-up, though I'm not there yet.

Woefully inept

When I first started trying to achieve a pull-up, I was woefully inept. I could barely even hang on the bar, never mind pull any part of myself upwards. The whole thing seemed utterly impossible.

After a couple of months of practising the exercises described above, I tried to do a pull-up. I was actually demonstrating to a friend how impossible it was to do one, and to my utter astonishment, I managed to get about a third of the way to doing one!

I'm now about two-thirds of the way there. I made it my New Year's Resolution to achieve one pull-up this year, and @scolari-ire recently challenged me to see who see who can do one first!

It's certainly improved my appearance, to the point where people have commented on how fit I'm looking. I feel fitter and stronger too. I'm better at lifting things!

If you want to learn how to do a pull-up, it's best to approach it gradually and to take care, in order to avoid injury. There are some excellent online guides and videos showing how to achieve a pull-up, many of them aimed specifically at women. I particularly like this one because it details each step while alerting you to incorrect body positioning which could lead to injury.

This website also has some excellent guidelines, and video evidence that women definitely CAN do pull-ups.