What it measures
Upper-body pulling strength and strength endurance. Bodyweight-dependent: a 60 kg athlete doing 15 pull-ups is performing very different work from a 100 kg athlete doing the same number.
Equipment
- Pull-up bar at a height where the athlete can hang with fully extended arms (feet off the floor)
- Optional: chalk
Protocol
- Athlete grips the bar overhand (pronated grip), shoulder-width or slightly wider, with arms fully extended in a dead hang.
- On the athlete's cue, pull the body up until the chin clears the bar.
- Lower under control to a full dead hang before the next rep — no kipping, no leg drive.
- Count only reps that achieve chin-over-bar with a full dead hang at the bottom.
- Test ends when the athlete fails a rep or rests > 2 s in the hang position.
Scoring
Total strict reps. Variants (chin-up with supinated grip, neutral-grip pull-up) should be flagged separately — the grip materially changes the test.
Typical ranges
NCAA male field sport: 12–20+ reps. NCAA women's soccer: 3–8 reps. Recreational adults (men): 5–12; (women): 1–4.
Practical notes
- For athletes who can't complete a single strict pull-up, the test becomes useless. Use the assisted pull-up (banded or machine) or a flexed-arm hang (max time at chin-over-bar position) as an alternative measure.
References
- Pollock ML, Wilmore JH (1990). Exercise in Health and Disease, 2nd ed. W.B. Saunders.
Use this test in Performance House
Performance House supports Pull-Up Max-Reps as a built-in test metric — log results from any device, see longitudinal trends, and contribute the result to the athlete's Performance Index automatically. Free for up to 5 athletes on the Starter plan.
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