At a petite 4 feet, 10 inches, Misty Posey couldn’t rely on her height to clear the Marine Corps obstacle course as a prospective young recruit. Instead, she learned to pull her entire body over it, eventually developing a pull-up program now used across the service.
Posey, who is now 49 and a commanding officer leading a Marine unit in California, didn’t grow up lifting weights and avoided strength training until she was in her 30s for fear of bulking up. It was a worry, she told Business Insider, that was misplaced at the time.
Pull-ups are a key strength training tool that builds full upper-body strength, grip, and core stability while improving posture and functional fitness. They’re a highly efficient, scalable exercise that also supports joint health and bone density, both of which are important for longevity.
But for many, the thought of doing a pull-up is daunting and in some cases, seemingly impossible.
It’s not actually as hard as many people might think to learn to do a pull-up, said Posey, who maxes around 20 reps. “You’ve got to do the work. But there’s some tricks of the trade in there.”
Her own pull-up journey began in her Reserve Officer Training Corps group as an undergrad at the University of San Diego back in the 1990s, after she decided to pursue a career in the Marines.
Her small stature meant she lacked the height needed to more easily clear the obstacle course, a rigorous physical test with stacked pull-up bars, a leap to raised parallel logs, and a tall wall to climb over, among other challenges. So she had to learn to pull her body over walls and bars.
She tried machines and band-assisted work and made slow progress before a Marine mentor finally pushed her onto a real pull-up bar.
“I got my first chin-up in three days after I was given proper training advice,” Posey said, recalling the mix of excitement and disbelief when she first pulled herself all the way up.
Then she did it again.
“And that’s when it clicked,” she said.
Posey, now a colonel, first started to gain attention over a decade ago after another Marine happened to mention her informal program efforts to the Corps’ top general.
At the time, the service was undergoing a shift in its physical fitness standards. While men tested their upper-body strength with pull-ups, women had long performed a flexed-arm hang. But in 2014, that changed — women were newly mandated to also do pull-ups as well.
With so many Marines suddenly focused on pull-ups, the general reached out to Posey to promote her program more broadly, she said. That gave it a major boost within the Corps.
Today, her program, which Posey said is a mix of others, is used by potential recruits who have never done a single pull-up and seasoned Marines wanting to get their numbers up. She also leads small training sessions for anyone, service members or civilians, on base looking to take their reps to the next level.
“Anybody in reasonable shape can learn to lift their own body weight,” Posey said. “If I could do it, anybody can.”
How she teaches Marines to do pull-ups
Not sure where to begin? Posey recommends testing your current strength first: from a dead hang on a pull-up bar with your palms facing away, pull yourself up as far as you can. Work within whatever range of motion you have, then drop down, rest, and repeat — focusing on engaging your core and back before each rep.
If you can’t do a pull-up, try a chin-up, with your palms facing your body instead of away. This approach can be easier, she said.
Make sure to rest between attempts, anywhere from two to five minutes.
Another option for people just starting out is to enlist a friend to help. “If you have a partner wanting your first pull-up, that’s absolutely helpful,” Posey said. “Partner pull-ups are the number one way to get your first pull-up.”
A partner can help finish reps by gently supporting your lower back area, providing a little help on the ascent and control on a slowed descent to build strength.
Those slow descents are called “negatives” and are another great method for boosting reps, Posey said, though she cautioned against doing them excessively, since they can take a toll on the body, straining or damaging muscles.
Another thing to avoid, she said, is overreliance on bands or assist machines.
“The most tension on the band is in the bottom position of the pull-up, which is where the pull-up is initiated,” Posey said, explaining that too many aids can make it harder to build strength. “That’s the hardest part of the pull-up for most people.”
For any pull-up, proper technique is critical, she said, and so is the bar height. If the bar is too high to reach comfortably, use a sturdy box to step up. Proper setup and technique matter as much as strength.
Alternating partial reps with jumping reps, where you use a small jump to reach the top and then lower yourself under control, to practice the full movement, helps to build strength, Posey said.
For any kind of repetition, including range of motion, jumping pull-ups, or negatives, the key is knowing when to stop. It’s not something you do to failure, she said, cautioning against maxing out sets.
Striking the right balance between challenging your body but not overdoing it is essential, she said.
Of the many Marines who reach out to Posey, many are either not doing enough pull-ups — relying too much on supplemental exercises like push-ups or bench press, or not training pull-ups frequently enough — or they’re overdoing it, which can burn out the central nervous system and lead to injuries, she said.
“By doing small sub-max, a person can typically accumulate more repetitions, more volume, and that’s where you succeed,” she said.
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