Started my new workout today which involves pull ups, my aim is to do sets of 6 -8 reps then move to a harder variation of pull ups when this is achieved. I started today with chin ups and was a bit disappointed with what i managed, which was 3 for set 1, 2 for set 2, and only 1 in the last set booo. Is it worth just powering through with the chin ups and aim to improve each time i do the exercise or do you wise MAPpers think it would be more benificial to maybe focus on negatives for a while and if so at what point should you move on from doing the negative part of a pull/chin up? Cheers for any hints and tips
I would stay with it since you can do a few already. I started the year only able to do about that many pullups (pronated) but managed to get up to sets of 5-6 reps, and total 25, only managed 4 sets of 4 reps yesterday. They do suffer if you don't practice regularly and get heavier. If 3 is your limit try 3,3,2,2,2 then build up to 3,3,3,2,2 then 3,3,3,3,2... 4,3,3,3,2 and so on. Play around with rest times too, I was varying from 0:30 to 2:00 between sets
Hello there! I'll try sharing my personal experience with you. When I first bought a pullup bar, I could do 2 reps - I was slightly overweight too and 16 years old -. I started doing pullups/chinups EVERY SINGLE DAY, I didn't have an exact order or rep/set range, I just did pullups but DIDN'T reach my max or got burnt out. This way, I was able to work at my pullups the next day and so forth. My maximum on pullups nowadays is 20-22. I've read about like 1000000 ways to improve at your pullups and seen many "specialized" programs to help you increase your pullups, but from my personal experience, just giving your 80-90% at pullups everyday or day in-day out is gonna make you A LOT better. Consistency is everything. -RaKzaroK
I usually recommend this routine to people looking to improve pull-ups. It works pretty good for building up repetitions. http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/07/08/pull-ups-fitness-routine/
Joining the Marines really increased my max pull-ups! But I'm think there might be easier ways... Harus' advise sounded good.
I dont do chin ups when i train. I only do pull ups because i need the staminato climbs walls and ropes. So, pull ups, every third day, 3 max sets. You will get better just by doing it.
stupid question(s)... first off, full disclosure, after failing the presidential fitness exam in like the 5th grade, i didn't even attempt a pullup until like 35 years later, when i was fat. i still couldn't do one then. what would you suggest to someone that can't even do one of these things? what i did, was to go as far as i can, take a rest, do it again, roughly 10-15 times, two to three times a week. i just want to know if this seems like an efficacious way of getting to that one pullup, or should you attempt it using some type of assist. oh yeah, losing weight helped...a lot!
Oh yeah, me too. When you have some maniac standing behind you screaming about how worthless your are, the dubious marriage status of your parents, the possibility that you may be something less than human and that failure to complete one more would lead to dire consequences you tend to get "motivated". :evil: Worst of all, your failure to show due respect to his beloved Corps. Semper Fi!
My suggestion would be to do sets of 2-3 pull ups between your other exercises. At the end of your workout you should have done at least 20-30 and if thats not meet your required rep target finish with a light set of Lat Pulldowns. Do this until your can increase the amount per set and then you will be able to stop doing Lat Pulldowns. I started out this way and still only do sets of 5 pull ups between other exercises like squats and bench. Gotta love Jim Wendlers wisdom of lots of chin ups/pull ups Edit: Also some people will argue that there is a huge difference between chin ups and pull ups but really much of a muchness. Chin ups are easier so you could do them and switch once you are stronger.
If you can not do atleast one...then it is time to do rowing and assited pull ups ona machine or with a buddy spotting your legs. If you bend your knees and cross your feet a spotter can help.
I could do 30 at the end of bootcamp, went in doing 13. The way the Marine Corps makes you good at pull-ups is a great way to get good at pull-ups though. We used to have to do pull-ups when we woke up (pull up bar in the barracks), when we went to the bathroom, before we went to sleep. They also had pull up bars randomly all over the base so any time we passed one you were doing pull-ups. I would say we did at least 50-100 pull ups every day for 3 months. Took about 2 weeks to go from 13-20. My advice would be to just do a lot of pull ups. Make them your first exercise and your last. You can also set a goal of doing 20 total for a workout during week 1 and just hang out doing sets of 1 rep until you reach 20. Once you can consistently do sets of 2-3 bump that 20 to 30 or 40. You'll be doing sets of 10 before you know it and then you can start changing it up or adding weight. All in all the best thing to do is pull-ups, and do a lot of them.
Try these - [ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rubberbanditz-Pull-Crossfit-Resistance-HEAVY/dp/B0054LUH9E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379446538&sr=8-1&keywords=crossfit+rubber+bands"]Rubberbanditz Pull up / Crossfit / Resistance band #3 HEAVY: Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors[/ame] I used to be able to hit 30 or so pull ups, then after not doing them for a year or so (arm injury) I couldn't do more then 3 to 5 with very poor form, I used these to bust out multiple reps for a month or so, and now I can hit 10 unassisted ones, WITHOUT the elbow pain I had before.
Some good advice in this thread. I'll throw in my 2 cents, too. When I started doing pullups, I used the vertical grips (the grips that stick out toward you as you face the bar). After doing a few sets of those daily for a good long time, I started on the horizontals. The horizontals still give me trouble sometimes, but I can normally do at least one set on the verticals and horizontals-back to back. I was so proud of myself when I first did that. ETA: the bars that you can hang from a doorway are also a good help in getting started. But move on to higher bars ASAP. In my experience, the best gains come from using bars high enough that you have to slightly jump up to grab or at least stretch a lot. ETA 2: I've never used the assistance bands, and they seem like a bad idea to me-they could become a crutch and hinder progress. Probably best to avoid those...but I'll defer to our resident experts on that.
Think of them as another version of negatives, the fact that your got a massive bit of rubber hanging round your one foot also reminds you that your not big cool or clever either.
Assistance bands are great. They also had those in the Marine Corps and a lot of guys had to use them to get their pull-ups up. We had one guy (don't even know how he made it through bootcamp) who was morbidly obese, couldn't do 1 pull up with a resistance band (or walk 10 meters without getting winded) and ended up doing 5 pull ups at the end. This was a case of couch potato to "Marine" though, dude looked like somebody who had never seen the inside of a gym . . . or outdoors. He was going to be admin (office work) so he got leeway though, but only after the drill instructors made him cry about 20 times. The best way to use the resistance band would be to do as many pull-ups as you can on your own, then do them with the band until you can't do them anymore. Drop the band as soon as you can do at least 4-5 on your own though. Once you're up around 20-30 pull-ups and if you want to increase to 40-50 then you would do the same thing with the band along with putting weight on your body (weighted pull ups, normal pull-ups, band pull-ups). If you're not an aspiring rock climber then I have no idea why you would want to do so many pull ups though. Another good technique that I like to do is to give myself a little jump with my legs to boost myself to complete a pull-up, then go down slow on a negative. Or jump and pull as hard as you can to the top position and let yourself fall down and repeat. That helps with really being able to contract those muscles hard and fast, but the goal of that type of exercise is a little different than trying to boost total reps.
^ I think what you said is right though, anyone who has access to a pullup bar every day should fit some in every day, and they will get better a lot quicker. Mine did improve with doing some in 2 out of 3 workouts a week but it never felt easy. There is nowhere that would be safe for me to mount a pullup bar at home alas. Trying alternate grips and adding some more exercises for the relevant muscle groups after the pullups helped too.
The wife and I decided there is no safe place in our home for 'me' to do pull-ups either. Only after she bought a home pull up bar that goes in doorways and one of the screws snapped in half from my weight. While she was extremely mad at me about it (she got it to do P90X), luckily I'm savvy with hardware so I told her to go to home depot where she got legitimate screws and nuts and not the cheap, half plastic ones that came with the pull up bar and the mechanism is in better shape than when she bought it. After the entire fiasco I still don't touch it though
The better advice has all ready been said, but for what its worth. I find a lot of this stuff is frame of mind. If you look at that bar and think..about how hard they are and how few you can do the bigger the mountain of smashing them out will be. Do them little, do them often. Do them every other day. Two weeks from now, you'l be all over it. Raz
