How do/did you increase your pullup reps?

[Zyonasan]

Yeah, its kind of a newbie question. I've been here for almost 3 years but I had to make a new account because my old one got erased.

ANYWAY, what is the best way to train to be able to do pullups? at best I can do maybe 3 "pull/chinups" where my palms are facing toward me. I can't even get half way up with a real pullup.

I doesn't make sense. i'm seeing people in my gym with 35/45lbs wrapped around their waist doing these weighted pullups and its almost kind of embarassing when I go up to the bar after him and can't even crank out 1.

I know deadlifts train the lower back so its not the best exercise....what about shoulder shrugs for the traps?

[Steve]

How about pull ups/chin ups?

[CoolY-BoY]

First of all there is no such thing as the "best" training for increasing your pullup numbers, you could try all kinds of training to increase your reps by ladders, pyramids, isometric holds, Greasing The Groove or just in couple of sets, but try to make sure that you wont go to failure too often, and don't be embaressed that you can't even do 1 rep i was just like that when i started, and today i can put on me about 30kgs and perform pullups just work on it and you will get better, also an important note try to incoporate variety in your schedule that way you will see much more faster results, have fun with it and you will see you'll get better

[J.B. II]

how about branling?

[acidhell1]

i second that^^

[Rahf]

What C-boy says. I had the same problem along time ago when I also had a real horrible sack of lard bulging on my abdomen.

It gets better over time. Just keep working on it and don't give up.

[Fanya]

If you can't do a pullup hit the lat pulldown and work that like a motherfucker. I've always been a wiry bitch so pullups were initially pretty easy for me. Once I started stagnating with my progress, I began adding weight to a belt and cranking out low reps with some rowing work afterwards too.

[J.B. II]

or branle

[Lobo]

How about pull ups/chin ups?
The thread should have ended here, kids.

[Rahf]

The thread should have ended here, kids.

Quoted for truth. But the problem with kids is that you have to pound the information in before it sticks, hence why everyone is basically copy-pasting from now on.

[Vormav]

I don't know if it is available to you or not, but many gyms have 'assisted' pullup/dip stations (http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/LatissimusDorsi/AsPullup.html). Basically, you put your feet on a bar that connected to a weight stack- the more weight on the stack, the more the bar 'assists' you.

Using one of these machines would help you by letting you perform pullups/chinups at an effectively lower bodyweight until you are strong enough to exercise at your full bodyweight.

[OhDuKwon]

I second Lobo secondly...just do pull ups/chin ups

[JackedJapanimal]

There are 487 things I want to tell you about how to do it because no one has struggled with it more than me. I'm 6'3" with arms so long I look like an ape. When I started I had to take off about 80 pounds of my own bodyweight to even do one real (palms out) pullup. Now I can go from entirely hanging for a few seconds in a super wide grip to pulling my chest as high as the bar with my back arched for about 6 reps. Absolute perfect wide grip form is so impossible it's a joke but if you hammer away at it for a long time you'll get it. The best thing I can tell you is warm up and take as much weight off as needed on the pullup assist and keep absolutely perfect form for about 12 reps, then keep going for maybe 4 sets and go all the way to failure. On your last set after you can't do anymore, cut the weight in half and go to failure, which should only be about 4 more reps or so. Keep your back arched and your shoulder blades completely squeezed back the entire time. Everyday you aren't training your back, except for the one day after your back workout, stretch out a little bit and do a set to failure. After a while you will get it down to the point where you are doing maybe 8 reps or so only taking off maybe 30-50 pounds of bodyweight. If you keep doing this in my experience you will be stuck there for a long time. The next step is crucial. Get off the assist machine, and bang out as many reps as you can on the regular bar. You will probably only get maybe two good ones and the form will probably look like 3 donkies in a video with a midget who didn't sign a photo release. Even when you can't go all the way up keep doing more reps just pulling urself as high as u can which should get all the way down to about 1/4 of the way and hold it there as long as you can. Do about 3 sets of this and on your last set jump on the assist and take off about 60 pounds and just bang out reps and strip weight until you can't do anymore. I promise if you follow these guidelines you will make progress.

[DeeJay]

What a load of shit.

[CoolY-BoY]

What a load of shit.


EXACTLY!. if you want to be good at pullups you do pullups, when i couldn't do even 1 rep i didn't try to find some other exercises or equipment that could help me get over the bar, i do believe however if you can lose a bit of weight it can help you, but just get out and wherever you find something you can grab on it try to pull yourself up, just make sure you don't go to failure too often, and remember to add variety you will see great gains :good:

[FatTricks]

start at the top...with your chest touching the bar.
Slowly try to lower yourself but only about 1 inch every 10 seconds or so. Try to lower yourself down taking about 30 seconds total. Do ONLY this for one week. Sounds easy...but not really.

On the following week try your pullups again. Guarantee you'll have a new max. GUARANTEE!

For once it's GOOD to be NEGATIVE!

[Wesker]

GREASE THE GROVE JACKASS

[Augenatic]

lol, at first, I thought you ment that you couldn't do pushups ^_^.

[rock_ten]

Wesker - I don't think GTG works too well when you can only do a few pullups. At that stage, even 1 or 2 pullups is far too stressful to be doing frequently. Maybe when you can do 10, sets of 3 could be done frequently. I'm talking from my own below-average recovery abilities, though.

Zyonasan - how have you currently been training pullups? I mean what reps/sets and frequency, and how long have you been doing them?

[anfeyd]

Absolute perfect wide grip form is so impossible it's a joke but if you hammer away at it for a long time you'll get it.

Wide grip pullups are useless anyway.

[rock_ten]

Zyonasan - I just noticed this post on DD: http://forum.dragondoor.com/training/message/441282%5C and the articles section might help, too: http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode2/Workouts

[Steve]

I don't understand what is supposed to be so hard about wide grip pull ups. Are they practically iron crosses on rings or something? With my arms as wide as possible on my bar, I can do about 14-15.

[Zyonasan]

Zyonasan - how have you currently been training pullups? I mean what reps/sets and frequency, and how long have you been doing them?

For training, i've usually been really fopcusing on lat pulldowns on back day. since I can only do chinups I can normally crank maybe 2.5 if i'm good and warmed up.

There was a post further up that said for me to start at the top and then lower myself....well, i've already tried that. any kind of grip with my palms facing away form my body and its like I hav eabsolutly no muscle support. I just fall straight down. I can' t hold anything.

Also, I know I need to lose some weight i'm about 35lbs (15kg) over weight, but wouldn't that technically make pullups even harder since I will lose some muscle mass in the cutting process?

[Steve]

Muscle mass barely matters in determining strength at your development, haha. You would be far better off just losing the fat. There are scrawny 130 pound dudes who just fly around doing one handed pull ups for reps.

[CoolY-BoY]

I don't understand what is supposed to be so hard about wide grip pull ups. Are they practically iron crosses on rings or something? With my arms as wide as possible on my bar, I can do about 14-15.


I too don't understand what's so hard about wide-grip pullups it suppose to be easy since there isn't enough ROM, i can do sets of 15-20 of those with good form, but i'm not able to do the same numbers on shoulder-width grip pullups

[rock_ten]

what reps/sets and frequency, and how long have you been doing them?

or training, i've usually been really fopcusing on lat pulldowns on back day. since I can only do chinups I can normally crank maybe 2.5 if i'm good and warmed up.

that doesnt answer my question at all. Do you even have a clue about how you've been trying to improve your pullups, or do you just go and do a set of 2, feel miserable, then play with the lat-pulldown for 10 mins? Have you been doing them for about 2 weeks and haven't given it a chance to change?

[Zyonasan]

that doesnt answer my question at all. Do you even have a clue about how you've been trying to improve your pullups, or do you just go and do a set of 2, feel miserable, then play with the lat-pulldown for 10 mins? Have you been doing them for about 2 weeks and haven't given it a chance to change?

oh well, now that you put it that way....To improve i've just been...doing them the best I can. usually by jumping up in the chin-up/pull-up position and seeing how long I can hang. You know, stuff like that.

Last year I was seriousy dedicated to trying to get in a full ROM pullup I actually got to the point where I could hang in the pullup position and I could almost do 5 full chinups. But then my Gym closed down. and I haven't been able seriously "workout" since about late November When the gym at my campus opened. so its been about once a week for the pst 5-6 six weeks i've been training. But only once a week on back day.

I've already had my back WO earlier this week. Since i'm trying to focus on a specific skill, shouldn't I attempt pull-ups more than once a week?

I'm actually getting ready to go WO in about 30minutes. If I SHOULD attempt pullups today (for the second time this week) what should I try?

[rock_ten]

do like 10-15 singles, if you can do that without trouble. Take long rests between each one, like minutes. Stay tight on the way down, keep your shoulders pulled down; arms into their sockets

[Steve]

If you can do a single fine but you still can't do two, you could also try increasing the length of the rep.

[Fanya]

do like 10-15 singles, if you can do that without trouble. Take long rests between each one, like minutes. Stay tight on the way down, keep your shoulders pulled down; arms into their sockets

Nah, I think he should let himself down with his arms out of their sockets.

[Steve]

No, he should never let himself down.

[rock_ten]

werd, keeping my arms pulled in tight, tensing my upper back on the descent, made a big difference when I started doing it. The concept of taking up the stretch on the negative, to spring back up with. Just dropping down all loose will disadvantage your next rep, and especially if you're doing it with added weight, can be dangerous to your shoulders.

[Steve]

If you cannot do a lat spread then you will probably injure yourself doing pull ups.

[shengoikee]

If you cannot do a lat spread then you will probably injure yourself doing pull ups.

haha i couldnt do that for a long time for some reason. just happened one day.

[chorou]

do em alot!

[Wesker]

OK, try this !

Do a total of twelve. This is one workout. You don't need a gym, use a sturdy door or simply a bar.

Now do as many as you can do, then rest for 60 sec. Now repeat until you reach 12 reps. Do this 3 times a week and for every new day you take away 5 sec from your resting time. Ultimately you will be able to do 12 consecutive chins.

This is a great way to get basic pullup strength from nothing. Have at it !

[receive]

A slight alteration to Wesker's EDT idea. Don't do "as many as you can" in each set, stay some way below failiure (for me, several reps). I guess you can see how you tolerate it - plenty of people train to failiure all the time and get very strong.

[rockmonkey]

chinups are a good way to train to do chinups
but branlehism is better

[Ashtar]

Lat pulldown's cool.