: Wide grip pull-ups vs "normal" pull-ups What is the purpose why people do wide grip pull ups? I know that these pull-ups are harder, but I would like to know why. Are there different muscle groups being stressed? Or is a

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I wrote a rather big post about pull-ups vs. chin-ups where I also discuss the issue of grip width. I did it based on a few scientific papers whose links you can find there.

Those papers study the grip width in percentage of your shoulder width. In other words, if your shoulder-to-shoulder distance is 40 cm, then 100% grip width corresponds to a 40 cm distance between your hands, 150% grip width is 60 cm, 200% grip width is 80 cm, etc. The conclusions are that grip width doesn't change that much how much the lats are involved, as long as you stay in the range 100% to 150%.

Other papers I've read indicate that going over 150% width can be a good way to force your lats to be more involved, but you will lose a lot of biomechanical advantage. In other words, your lats will do a larger percentage of the work, but the total work is smaller (fewer reps due to the worse biomechanical position of your arm muscles, also smaller distance that you travel vertically in each rep).

All things considered, you should look at shoulder-width pull-ups (100% width) and normal-width pull-ups (150%) as very similar. Do the one which you like the most. Use wide grips (200%) if you want to isolate your lats, but remember to do compounds (normal pull-ups) before isolations (wide pull-ups)

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Wide grip pull ups work the forearms and hand grip strength much more than do shoulder width pull ups. My take only and what I have found for myself when doing them.

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Any time you change your body's orientation to an exercise the muscle is used differently. One of the easiest-to-see examples of this is your bicep. Bend your elbow so your palm is facing towards you and look at your bicep, then turn your hand away from you and you will see your bicep disengage and your brachialis engage.

Holding your hands at a wider grip forces you to use your lats more. Close grip pull-ups allow you to use more of your bicep to pull yourself up. Therefore the wide-grip pull-up seems hard because you only use your lats.