A recent study suggested that even fit women can’t do pull ups (or chin ups), and it went on to explain why. Although it’s obviously more challenging for women to perform pull ups than it is for men (due to differences in muscle mass and leverage), I do have some concerns with how this poorly designed study was conducted.  First of all, according to the New York Times, here is the basic outline of the study: “The Dayton researchers recruited 17 women of normal weight who were unable to perform a single pull-up. They then trained them for three months, prescribing exercises to strengthen their upper bodies, improve their aerobic fitness and lower their body fat. All that training produced results: the women’s upper-body strength increased by 36 per cent and their body fat was reduced by 2 per cent. But they failed to produce the main result researchers were [...]