Pullups

[PWR1982]

I can do only about 7 consecutive pullups and Im not very happy about this. How many pullups should I do daily to work my way to lets say 20 pullups? I think I do about 80 pullups every 2nd day, in sets of 5 and see little improvement after about 1 month - from 3 to now 7 pullups, so Im doing something wrong. Any tips?

 

[grrthetree]

Do 20 pullups, rest less and less as you progress. Do it in sets. If thats your goal do that, if you want total strength do a 5x5. If in 2 months you've doubled your pullup count you're not doing bad.

 

[chaserton]

Go until muscle failure not until your tired but until you physically are unable to pull yourself up. So do at least 7 if that's where you maxt out. That's one set then rest and do a couple more sets like that. Do that 3 times a week or so and I think you'll see improvement.

 

[Highway0311]

are you doing palms in or out? Do you kip or are you doing dead hangs? I like to do dead hangs until Failure then kip then (if available) have someone hold my legs until total failure. Also working on you back, shoulders, and biceps will help. Also I suggest Palms out. It's harder at first but I always progressed faster that way.

BTW 20? you joining the Corps?

 

[rEdShawks]

well the perfect pullup website has a nice routine u can kinda do without buying thier expensive product, ill tell ya it so u dont have to look it up. pretyy much if u can only do 8~9 and under do a set of 5 then 3 then 2 all within 2 minutes, then take as much time as u need (can be 6 hours) and do that again then wait another couple hours and do it once more (do this every other day). then after 4 workouts go do 4 stes every other day. should allow u to reach max of >10 by doing this

 

[JinKazama]

just keep at it dude,

 

[Jasonny5895]

Also depending on your weight, arm length, built etc. their will always be a limitation and you should avoid comparisons.

I have been training hardcore for many years, played college football where I trained like an animal, now I compete in amateur fighting bouts, and I still struggle to get 12.

Ive seen kids that never did shit in their life bang out 20. Overall my point is keep some record of your progress so you can keep challenging yourself. Also try adding some minimal weight, like 10- 15 lb. db's and go for 5 lets say and try and increase in that regard. I find constantly just challenging myself in reps gets boring and unproductive after awhile.

Good luck seems like your on a good track, and I would advise you to rest it like any other exercise/muscle group (i.e 2-3 days in betweem) and keep the progression and intensity high

 

[false crack]

Also depending on your weight, arm length, built etc. their will always be a limitation and you should avoid comparisons.

I have been training hardcore for many years, played college football where I trained like an animal, now I compete in amateur fighting bouts, and I still struggle to get 12.

Ive seen kids that never did shit in their life bang out 20. Overall my point is keep some record of your progress so you can keep challenging yourself. Also try adding some minimal weight, like 10- 15 lb. db's and go for 5 lets say and try and increase in that regard. I find constantly just challenging myself in reps gets boring and unproductive after awhile.

Good luck seems like your on a good track, and I would advise you to rest it like any other exercise/muscle group (i.e 2-3 days in betweem) and keep the progression and intensity high

pretty much what he said... keep changing it up. One day do 3-4 sets of your max. Next time do 5x5. Next time add a little weight and concentrate on the negatives. Sooner or later all of the muscles you use to do pullups will get stronger and you will be able to do more reps.

 

[Bainbridge]

Here are a few ways:

- "Grease the groove"
- Add weight and get stronger in a lower rep range.
- Negatives (but don't go crazy with this technique as it will cause extreme soreness and increase risk of rhabdo)
- Learn to Kip (it will transfer over into strict)

 

[w0cyru01]

Do 20 pullups everyday resting less like someone else said

also known as
greasing the groove

 

[PWR1982]

alright thanks for the tips, Im not joining corps, but I figured that I should always work on my weak spots. And if I compare the number of pullups I can do to pushups/jump squats/crunches ... its not very even.

 

[DeadMeat]

Hehe don't compare apples and oranges, I litterally can do ten times as many pushups as pullups.

 

[Cactot]

Hugely depends on your build, tall/heavy (or worse, both) people typically have a far harder time doing pull ups than short or light people.

Here are some other tricks if its hard for you to improve your pull ups:
1. Try using chalk, sounds weird but it helps 100% for me. Increased grip on what otherwise would be an oily/slippery bar (especially if your gym has chrome plated POS pull up bars) is a godsend.

2. Try weighted pull ups, if you can do sets of 5 with +2.5/5 lbs, then increase that by another +2.5/5lbs per week, pretty soon your body weight pull ups are going to go through the roof.

3. Lose weight, as stupidly obvious as this is, if you have extra body fat on your frame (anything over 8%), you are not at your optimum strength to weight ratio, and losing weight will make a big difference on pull ups.

 

[Dao Jones]

80 every second day sounds like overtraining to me. I do 3-4 sets to failure every other day. When I can't do any more pullups I drag my icechest over and use a leg assist to pop a few more. Might be worth a shot.

 

[tahoe]

Dude check out t-mag.com and put pullups in the search engine, there are tons of great articles.

 

[Blomy]

Train Pull ups 3 - 4 times a week but try different methods every day.

One day weighted pull ups do quality sets I mean go heavy but stop 1-2 reps before failure,this way you will improve your strength a lot faster.
One day 100 pull ups all day I mean do every half an hour 5 pull ups until you reach 100
One day do pyramids 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 or even more.here you do 1 rest for 10 sec or more then 2 and e.t.c. you do this until you achieve your maximum number and then go down.try to stop about 1 rep before failure,I mean if you find it difficult to complete 5 reps do not go to 6 do 4-3-2-1.
One day Ladders 1-2-3-4-5 1-2-3-4-5 1-2-3-4-5 same as pyramids but this time you only go up to your max for three or more times.
20 minute System do 5 pull ups every minute for 20 minute.This will become more and more difficult as you approach the 20 minute mark.

there are many ways to skin the cat.Follow my advice and you'll notice amazing improvement.

Be sure to get plenty of rest,good quality food,lots of greens and drink a lot of water.

Last by not least try to do pull ups every other day,if you feel sore you better rest.Be smart and creative I mean if today you do weighted pull ups the day after tomorrow do the 100 pull ups
over the course of the day.I mean train your self to improve not to wear him out.You have to feel energetic every day,not bored.

Hope this helped.I am sure within 1 month you'll notice amazing improvements.Please let me know I f you need to ask something.

 

[rEdShawks]

80 every second day sounds like overtraining to me. I do 3-4 sets to failure every other day. When I can't do any more pullups I drag my icechest over and use a leg assist to pop a few more. Might be worth a shot.

does anyone agree about the overtraining thing?

 

[Cactot]

does anyone agree about the overtraining thing?

It would depend on how many you can do initially. If you can do under 13 or so, you need to be working on strength development and this program would be a very bad idea (IMHO), if you can do more than that you will be working on muscular endurance, in which case your muscles could probably handle it and it might work for you. Let me try and use another example.

Imagine it was squats (just because everybody knows how obvious it is when you overdo it with squats) you were doing instead of pull ups, imagine how overworked (and frickin sore) your muscles would be if you did 80 reps of 90-95% of your 1rm (which would be your 2-3 rep max). (I would be willing to bet you couldn't even do that many in one day) You most likely would not even be able to walk for comfortably for 3-5 days. As you can imagine, this would be a terribly sub-optimal training method because of acute over training.

If you dropped that weight to 60-70% (which would be your 12-15 rep max) you would most likely be able to do it without any terrible repercussions, and you would likely develop some good muscular endurance relatively quickly with the program.

Make sense?