Towel Pull-Ups—Building a Vice Like Grip

Kyle Pighini, Demoing Towel Pull-ups

A tool sitting in your bathroom can be used for more than cleaning up after a night of sake bombs gone wrong which falls short of making it to the porcelain throne; for the more civilized, it’s used for drying off after a shower.

This tool— the TOWEL— is one of the most underutilized tools for building a savage grip.

Grip strength is important because it serves a purpose in every aspect of weight lifting and athletics.

If you’re a strongman, powerlifter or bodybuilder, you’ll be able to handle more weight on various exercises because grip won’t be a limiting factor. If you’re a fighter, it could provide a stronger punch, a tighter choke and even better takedowns.

And furthermore, you have great  physical prowess with bigger, stronger forearms—imagine next time you ask your boss for a raise?  They may not win friends but they will sure as hell influence people.

So, why towel pull-ups?

Grip Strength

The principal benefit of using towels in exercises is that they heavily train two specific areas of grip strength. These two areas include support grip like deadlifts and farmers walks, they also train a crush grip due to the forced squeezing of the towel to support your bodyweight, as well as additional weight, if applicable.

Increased Range of Motion

For pull-ups, using towels allows you to increase your range of motion for various movements, which  helps increase  muscle activation and movement mechanics, because, with towel pull-ups, you can pull yourself higher than with a bar.

The reason you don’t hear more about towel pull-ups is no equipment company or famous infomercial trainer makes dead presidents—they benefit no one but you!