Originally Posted by
brianmcg123
....There is ABSOLUTELY no benefit whatsoever to try to pull up or pedal in circles. ....
....You may be able to do it for a second or two when climbing a supersteep hill in a really low cadence. But other than that just push down.
You can probably do it for more than a few seconds, but pulling up should remain Plan C or maybe D. It's only useful when you need more torque (not power) at low rpm, like when you're in a too high gear for the situation.
There's another thread talking about super steep hills. You might use the pull up technique to top these hills if you made it 3/4 of the way before running out of gears and momentum, but that's about it as far as pulling up goes.