I wanted to share a 6-Degrees of Freedom (6DOF) pull-up routine that I put together.  The concept of 6DOF comes from Scott Sonnon’s Circular Strength Training (CST) protocol.  The idea is that training in natural movement patterns will ensure the body remains balanced.  It also helps prevent overuse injuries or over compensations from repetitive movements.

What is 6-Degrees of Freedom?

The term comes from aviation, but it more completely describes how the body moves through space.

“We don’t move robotically through one plane at a time. Human movement is a complex weave through different planes and on different axes. If we take the three axes of conventional movement descriptions, we can think about moving both along and around those axes in order to take advantage of our true movement potential: “

6-degrees of freedom patterns:

• Heaving: moving up and down
• Swaying: moving right and left
• Surging: moving forward and backward
• Pitching: bending forward and backward
• Yawing: twisting right and left
• Rolling: turning right and left

That’s a brief primer on the theory. Let’s get to my adaptation to pull-ups.  Here are the descriptions and a video montage to following…Disclaimer: I am not yet a CST coach so this is my interpretation of Coach Sonnon’s theory so if you have a better pull-up variation for one of the movement patterns than please put it in the comments.

1. Heaving Pull-up: do a standard pull-up with palms facing away or a chin-up with palms facing you.
2. Swaying Pull-up: Side-to-side pull-ups; start with your hands wider than shoulder width apart on the bar, pull up into the top position, shift sideways towards the right hand, then shift across to the left hand, then back to center and down is one rep.
3. Surging Pull-ups: Reach-ups; is a pull-up but on the top position reach with the right hand, back down, pull up, and reach with the left hand to complete one rep. This is a dynamic/explosive movement.
4. Pitching Pull-ups: Perform a standard or mixed grip pull-up but on the up movement arch back until your sternum is under the bar.  Think of doing a back bend combined with a pull-up.
5. Yawing Pull-up: Grappler pull-up with a wide grip; start with hands in a mixed grip and wider than shoulder width apart.  If your left hand is closest to your face you will twist to the right as you pull up. This will have your left hand in a palm facing you position and your right hand in a palm facing away.  Reverse the twist while lowering back down.  Switch hand position and perform to the other side.
6. Rolling Pull-up: Wide grip pull-up, pull up to the right hand, back down, pull up to the left hand, and back down to complete one rep.

Video Demo:

Programming:

You need to ask yourself what your goal is…what are you training for?  This will determine whether you are doing a certain number of reps, going for max reps in a set time, or need to make the exercise harder/easier.

I have been focusing on metabolic conditioning.  So I performed all 6 exercises in sequence in 6 minutes.  I started with 30 seconds of max reps and 30 seconds of rest while I transitioned to the next exercise.  Then I would rest for 1 minute after all 6 variations.  I performed 3 rounds to complete the series.  As you progress lengthen the work time and shorten the rest time so that you are doing 6 consecutive minutes of work.  The only rest would then be the time to switch hand positions

Give it a try and let me know how it goes for you!  Drop a comment if you changed the pull-up for any of the 6DOF movements.

-Richard