The Most Important Bodyweight Exercise for Building Strength, Muscle and Athleticism (And How You Can Improve It)

There are COUNTLESS bodyweight exercises.  Just about any movement that your body is capable of can be considered bodyweight training.  I absolutely love bodyweight training because it can be so simple and so effective yet allows for such much creativity.  There are some schools of thought that might suggest that the squat is the most important bodyweight exercise.  Others might say burpees, pushups, or even lunges.  For me, the one exercise that will build an incredible foundation of strength and athleticism while taking your training to the next level...is the pull up.

The pull up primarily targets the lats and other musculature of the upper back, as well as the biceps.  However, many people don't realize that the abdominals, lower back, and other stabilizing muscles come into play when doing the pull up.  The reason so many people ignore pull ups is because they're hard!  They require great relative body strength, and because they're tough, most people just say screw it and walk over to the lat pulldown machine.  Simply put, if you aren't doing pull ups not only are you missing out on one of the best upper body exercises around, but you just aren't strong!
A main reason that pull ups are so overlooked is our society's obsession with a big chest.  People spend entire days in the gym working on the pressing motion, (the fact that they'd spend an entire day on one body part is the subject for another rant) which overdevelops this motion and the muscles involved in it.  These include the chest, triceps, and especially the shoulders.  The problem is, this leads to tremendous muscular imbalances.  Not only will your pressing motion be much stronger then your pulling motion, but this imbalance can lead to shoulder problems.  The point is, if you want a strong bench press or a strong deadlift or just want an athletic and balanced physique, you need tremendous back strength, and pull ups is quite possibly the best way to build this.
Now, because pull ups require more strength and bodyweight control then many other bodyweight exercises, many people who may be too heavy or too new to training can't do them.  If you want to improve pull ups, look no further then Pavel's philosophy..."Grease the groove."  This simply means if you want to be good at something, do it every single day.  This is an idea I first learned from Zach Even Esh and Elliott Hulse, two tremendous strength coaches I greatly admire, (http://zacheven-esh.com/ http://www.strengthcamp.com/blog/).  This concept may not apply to everything in strength training, but they can apply to pull ups.  For the past three or four years, I've had a pull up bar in my bedroom doorway, and every time i pass that doorway throughout the day, I do a set of pull ups. Over the years I've varied the grips, styles, leg positions, etc. as my strength has increased.  So, if you're trying to improve pull ups, practice them everyday.
The other important thing to remember when trying to improve pull ups is that if you haven't built up the necessary muscles involved in the pull up, you're not going to get better.  Therefore, you should deadlift, do barbell and dumbell rows, recline rows, elevated recline rows, band pull aparts, and other exercises that will help to build the muscles involved in the pulling motion.
I might be biased because pull ups are my favorite exercise, and because they've lead me to the bodyweight strength that I have today, which allows me to train creatively and do advanced exercises like L-sit pull ups, front and back levers, and muscle ups, all at a bodyweight of 235 pounds; but there is no exercise that has had such a tremendous impact on my training as the pull ups.  No more excuses, make pull ups a staple of your training!