Is it true that … it’s harder for women to do pull-ups?

The differences in body types does mean that, on average, women find the exercise more difficult – but that’s not the whole story Pull-ups are a bodyweight exercise where you hang from an overhead bar, usually with an overhand grip, and pull yourself up until your chin clears the bar.

“They’re a great upper-body exercise,” says Prof Leigh Breen, a specialist in muscle physiology at the University of Leicester.

“They primarily work the muscles in the back, but also recruit the arms and the core.” They’re known for being tough – particularly for women.

But is that true? “If we take the population as a whole, doing a pull-up is typically more challenging for the average woman,” says Breen.

There are a few reasons for this.

First, women naturally tend to carry a smaller proportion of their muscle mass in their upper body than men – and these are the muscles relied upon for the exercise.

Second, women generally have a slightly higher body fat percentage than men.

Because a pull-up requires you to lift your entire bodyweight, having less upper-body muscle relative to the weight you’re moving can reduce what’s known as your strength-to-weight ratio.

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