Master Butterfly Pull-Ups: Strengthen Your Upper Body Muscles

Not so long ago, if you swung your legs during pull-ups or chin-ups, you’d probably be accused of cheating. After all, swinging adds momentum, and momentum takes work away from the target muscles.

But, since the early 2000s, when CrossFit came into being, fitness has become a competitive sport, and speed is now part and parcel of many workouts.

As such, athletes and exercisers use techniques designed to improve exercise efficiency so they can pump out more reps in less time while saving energy.

Kipping and butterfly pull-ups both allow you to do more and faster pull-ups. While these exercises aren’t for everyone, they’re legitimate time-saving strategies that also offer a few additional benefits.

In this article, we reveal the benefits and drawbacks of butterfly pull-ups, explain how to do them, and provide seven alternatives and variations.

Butterfly Pull-ups – Muscles Worked

Butterfly pull-ups are a compound exercise. That means they involve several muscles and joints working together. The main muscles trained during butterfly pull-ups are:

Latissimus dorsi – located on either side of your upper back and known as the lats for short, these muscles are the engines that power your butterfly pull-ups. If you want a more muscular, more powerful upper back, butterfly pull-ups could help.

Trapezius and rhomboids – located between scapulae and across your upper back, the trapezius and rhomboids control and stabilize your shoulder blades during butterfly pull-ups. More specifically, these muscles work together to pull your shoulder girdle down and back.

Deltoids – the deltoids are your main shoulder muscles. There are three sets of fibers or heads to the deltoids; anterior, medial, and posterior. All three heads are involved in butterfly pull-ups, but the anterior and posterior delts are the most active.

Biceps brachii – flexing your upper arms, the biceps play an essential part in doing butterfly pull-ups. In fact, it’s the biceps that tend to fail first during butterfly pull-ups.

Core – butterfly pull-ups require and develop core strength. Each rep starts with a powerful contraction of the muscles that make up the core. The main core muscles are rectus abdominis, obliques, transverse abdominis, erector spinae.

Forearms – your lower arms play a critical role during butterfly pull-ups by maintaining your grip on the bar. The explosive nature of butterfly pull-ups means that your forearms are “shock loaded” at the start of each rep. Doing butterfly pull-ups will challenge and strengthen your grip.

How to Do Butterfly Pull-ups

Get more from butterfly pull-ups while keeping your risk of injury to a minimum by following these guidelines:

1. Hang from the pull-up bar with an overhand grip and your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
2. Initiating the swing with your shoulders, alternative between an arched and hollow body Do a couple of swings to gather momentum.
3. As you hit the arched position, drive your legs toward the bar and push down on the bar with straight arms.
4. As your body travels upward, pull with your arms and lift your chin above the bar. Do not pause at the top of the rep.
5. As you descend, your torso should move forward and under the bar with your body in an arched position.
6. Transition smoothly into another rep.

Butterfly Pull-up Benefits and Drawbacks

Not sure if butterfly pull-ups deserve a place in your workouts? Consider the following benefits and then decide.

Do more reps in less time – butterfly pull-ups are popular in CrossFit, where many of the workouts are done against the clock. CrossFit is also a competitive sport, where every rep and second counts. Butterfly pull-ups allow you to save energy and pump out reps faster. Mastering the butterfly pull-up could give you an edge in competitions and workouts against the clock.

Muscular endurance – because of momentum and increased movement efficiency, you should be able to do more butterfly pull-ups than strict pull-ups. Keeping your muscles working for longer will improve your muscular endurance, which is your ability to resist fatigue. Muscular endurance is a vital fitness component in many sports.

A stronger grip – starting each rep with a powerful swing means that butterfly pull-ups put a lot of force through your hands, requiring and developing a stronger grip. Grip strength is essential in many sports, including football, wrestling, MMA, and rock climbing. It’s also an integral part of many exercises, such as rope climbs, farmer’s walks, and deadlifts.

A full-body movement – unlike strict pull-ups, kipping pull-ups involve virtually your entire body. As such, this exercise will teach you to use large numbers of muscle groups at the same time, improving intermuscular coordination. Using so many muscles simultaneously, combined with high reps, means that butterfly pull-ups are also effective calorie burners and will have a significant impact on your cardiovascular system.

Develop muscle power – power is force generated quickly and is a component of most sports. While there are plenty of upper body pushing power exercises, e.g., push-press, push jerk, plyometric push-ups, etc., there are not as many power pulling exercises. As such, butterfly pull-ups could be useful for athletes.

While butterfly pull-ups are a potentially beneficial exercise, there are also a few drawbacks to consider:

Hard to learn – butterfly pull-ups are a technically advanced exercise. You need to master basic pull-ups and kipping pull-ups before you attempt them. You’ll also need to be able to do hollow holds and back arches. As such, this is NOT an exercise for beginners.

Not so good for hypertrophy – the aim of butterfly pull-ups is to engage as many muscles as possible and move efficiently so you can do more reps in less time. In short, it’s designed to make pull-ups easier. In contrast, if you want to build bigger muscles, more challenging is usually better. So while butterfly pull-ups will probably lead to some hypertrophy, strict pull-ups are likely to be a superior choice.

Injury risk – as soon as momentum is involved, injury risk increases, and butterfly pull-ups involve a LOT of momentum! While they can be done safely, this exercise could be dicey if you have any pre-existing lower back, elbows, or shoulder problems.

You’ll need a suitable pull-up bar – you probably won’t be able to do butterfly pull-ups using a power tower or pull-up bar that’s prone to wobbling or too close to a wall. Ideally, you need a gymnastic pull-up bar, which is freestanding, stable, and slightly flexible. While common in CrossFit gyms, conventional gyms may not have a suitable pull-up bar to do butterfly pull-ups safely.

7 Butterfly Pull-ups Variations and Alternatives

Butterfly pull-ups are a highly effective upper back and biceps exercise, but that doesn’t mean you need to do them all the time. There are several variations and alternatives you can use to keep your workouts productive and interesting:

1. Kipping pull-ups

Like butterfly pull-ups, kipping pull-ups use momentum to help you conserve energy and do more reps. However, they’re not as technically demanding and involve less arching. So if you want to do butterfly pull-ups, you need to master basic kipping pull-ups first.

How to do it:

1. Hang from your pull-up bar with an overhand grip, hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
2. Hollow and then arch your body to initiate your rep.
3. As you return to the hollow position, drive your hips forward and up and pull hard with your arms.
4. Pull up until your chin is above the bar.
5. Descend by pushing yourself away from the bar.
6. Immediately transition into another rep.

2. Bar muscle-up

Bar muscle-ups (BMU) are a great way to develop and display upper body strength, power, and coordination. Popular in CrossFit and a bonafide gymnastics skill, the BMU combines a kipping pull-up with a straight bar dip. Done correctly, these two moves flow seamlessly together so that you go from hanging below the bar to balancing on straight arms above it in one smooth movement. Needless to say, such a complex movement is easier said than done!

How to do it:

1. Hang from a sturdy overhead bar using a shoulder-width, thumbless grip. A thumbless grip means less friction, which will make the transition from hanging to pushing a little easier. Your arms should be straight and your shoulders pulled down and back. Brace your core and extend your legs very slightly in front of you, so your body forms a hollowed position.
2. Swing your legs backward and then forward again, simultaneously flexing your lats. At this point, you should be leaning back.
3. Using this momentum, pull hard with your arms and heave your chest up toward the bar. Your aim is to pull your chest above the height of the bar. The higher you pull yourself up, the easier the next phase will be.
4. As you feel your weight rise up and over the bar, roll your hands forward and then transition from a pull to a push. Do this by leaning forward over the bar and extending your arms until your elbows are straight and supporting your weight on top of the bar.
5. Bend your arms and lower yourself back down to full arm extension. Avoid descending too fast as you will shock-load your muscles and joints and that could cause injury.

Learn more about bar muscle-ups here.

3. Front lever raise

While front lever raises don’t look a whole lot like butterfly pull-ups, they actually involve many of the same muscles. Also, they could be safer for some exercisers because they are done using a slow, controlled tempo.

How to do it:

1. Hang from a pull-up bar with an overhand, shoulder-width grip. Your arms and legs should be straight. Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
2. Lean back, and simultaneously push your arms forward to raise your legs. Keep your body straight.
3. Lift your legs to parallel to the floor or, if you prefer, until you are fully inverted. The inverted version is slightly easier as you get a brief rest between reps.
4. Lower your legs smoothly and under control and repeat.
5. Each rep should start from a dead hang; swinging (kipping) is not allowed! Instead, your arms, legs, and hips should remain straight during front lever raises.

4. Weighted pull-ups

If you want to take your pull-up performance to the next level but can’t or don’t want to do butterfly pull-ups, do the weighted pull-ups instead. Increasing your bodyweight by wearing a weighted vest, backpack, or using a chin/dip belt will build strength and is good for hypertrophy. If you can do ten or more regular pull-ups, you’re probably ready for the weighted version.

Start off without about 10% of your body weight to avoid injury. So, if you weigh 180lbs, use an added 18lbs.

5. Plyo pull-up

Like butterfly pull-ups, plyo pull-ups are suitable for developing muscle power. However, while plyo pull-ups are physically demanding, they’re not as technical as butterfly push-ups, so they’re easier to learn.

Plyo is short for plyometric, which is a form of reactive power training. With plyo pull-ups, you pull yourself up as fast as you can so that you can release and re-grip the bar mid-rep. This forces you to slam on the brakes to control your descent, which provides a massive overload for your fast-twitch type 2b muscle fibers.

How to do it:

1. Hang from a pull-up bar with an overhand, shoulder-width grip. Your arms and legs should be straight. Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
2. Using a kipping action if you wish, powerfully pull your chin up and over the bar.
3. Quickly release your hands and then grab the bar again as you start to descend.
4. Control your descent and then repeat.
5. Take care not to bounce out of the bottom of each rep, as doing so could injure your shoulders or elbows.

6. Towel grip pull-ups

 

Butterfly pull-ups are a real test of grip strength. If you need to strengthen your hands, but don’t want to resort to doing butterfly pull-ups, towel grip pull-ups are an excellent alternative. Simply loop a couple of towels over your bar and hold the ends tightly. Use an underhand, neutral, or overhand grip as preferred.

Don’t be surprised if you can’t do as many as usual. This exercise is especially useful for military personnel as it closely replicates the upper body demands of climbing a rope.

7. L-sit Pull-ups

If you want to take your pull-ups to the next level but aren’t quite ready to try butterfly pull-ups, this could be the variation for you. They’re much more core-centric than regular pull-ups but still provide your back and biceps with a challenging workout. However, because they’re done with a controlled tempo, the risk of injury is pretty low.

How to do it:

1. Grab the bar with an overhand, shoulder-width grip. Pull your shoulders down and back and brace your core.
2. Lift your legs and hold them parallel to the floor.
3. Bend your arms and pull your chin up and over the bar.
4. Lower yourself down smoothly and repeat.
5. Keep your legs up for the duration of your set or raise and lower them rep by rep as preferred.
6. Make this exercise easier by bending your legs and tucking your knees to your chest.

Butterfly Pull-ups – Wrapping Up

Pull-ups, and their close relative chin-ups, are great bodyweight exercises. However, there are lots of different pull-up/chin-up variations you can use to develop a stronger upper back and more muscular arms. But, if you want to do more reps using less energy and in a shorter time, butterfly pull-ups could be the exercise you need.

While this exercise isn’t easy to learn, it could shave minutes off your CrossFit workouts.

This is not a bodybuilding exercise. In fact, it’s not all that great for hypertrophy. But, if you are training for increased performance, the butterfly pull-up could help.

---