Pull-ups are a versatile exercise that works your back, shoulders and arms at the same time. Pull-ups work your biceps but not exclusively. Because your back muscles are larger, they tend to lift more of the weight than your biceps. Pull-ups, which closely resemble the sort of functional movement you perform any time you pull something heavy down or across toward you, are at their best when used to develop coordinated strength between multiple muscle groups.
About the Biceps
Your biceps muscle, located on the front of your upper arm, is primarily responsible for two movements: turning your hand palm-up and flexing your arm at the elbow. It also helps lift your upper arm straight ahead or bring it in across your body -- flexion and transverse flexion of the shoulder -- but only very weakly, so for general strength-training purposes you can disregard those motions.
Muscles Worked
Although conventional palms-facing-forward pull-ups work your biceps, they're not in their strongest, palm-up pulling position. Because of this, a number of other muscles share the load. These include your large back muscles, the latissimus dorsi and trapezius, and the smaller teres major. Your deltoids also help lift you up toward the bar, and two other major pulling muscles in your arms -- the brachialis and brachioradialis -- also engage strongly. This also applies to palms-in, neutral-grip pull-ups.
Chin-ups
If you want to work your biceps as much as possible with a body-weight exercise, try doing chin-ups. Chin-ups are a variation on pull-ups; just turn your palms toward you as you grasp the bar, then lift yourself up to the bar. This places your biceps in the strongest pulling position possible. Although your other muscles still help lift your weight, your biceps are able to exert more force.
Modifications
If you can't do normal chin-ups, do self-assisted chin-ups. Set the bar on a Smith machine at about shoulder level. Ensure the bar is securely hooked onto the safety stops, then grasp the bar, palms facing in, and squat down below it. Pull yourself up to the bar, using as much arm and back power as possible; exert only the minimum of leg force necessary to bear whatever portion of your body weight that your arms and back cannot lift.
Equipment Needed
If you're going to do pull-ups or chin-ups, you need a pull-up bar. If you choose to hardware-mount a pull-up bar in a doorway, make sure the doorway is strong enough to support the bar, plus your body weight. The same caution applies to using a leverage-mount pull-up bar, which you can easily install and remove with no hardware but still depends on the doorway's structural integrity for support.
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