The physics of pull-ups

Some people are naturally better than others at pulling off the elusive pull-up, writes Kyle Hill at Scientifica American. For them, it's all about mass-to-arm-length ratio — ideally, you want a low mass and short arms to minimize the amount of energy it takes to pull your body upwards. But Hill insists that the less genetically fortunate can learn to do pull-ups, too. It's just something that takes dedicated training.