Need Help with Pullups? Consider These Options

Pullups (and dips too) are considered the heavy weight lifting of the calisthenics world as 100% of your body weight will be placed on a group of muscles and joints.  Being able to move with these exercises start with a basis of strength, but doing multiple sets and repetitions of these movements takes a strength exercises and requires it to become an endurance exercise - muscle stamina. That is the process to getting your first pullup and your 20th pullup. 

There are some factors that play into successful pullup improvement as well as alternatives to pullups when you cannot do ONE or fail at later sets of pullups.

Body Weight - How much you weigh is the biggest factor for most people with pullup progress.  The more you weigh, the fewer pullups you may be able to do at first, but as you build your strength to manage your bodyweight, you will find pullup improvement possible. However, the strength required to do a 225 lb pullup and a 150lb pullup is obviously greater. 

Training and Athletic History - If you have lifted in previous years, your ability to do a pullup is likely, unless you skip all pulling exercises often. Your ability to do double digits may require some extra muscle stamina training, however. 

Consider how you add these exercises: 

AFTER you fail at pull-ups or even if you cannot do a pull-up, TRY – then resort to the exercises below for a total of 10-15 repetitions combined or completion of the set of a pyramid for instance:

Calisthenics version of practice - #1 recommended method of gaining pull-up strength is actually getting on the bar and hanging, doing assisted pull-ups, doing negatives, and even jumping pull-ups. Get yourself over that bar ANYWAY you can – even if you have to cheat at first. This is going to most importantly get your arms used to pulling your body weight upward.

Yes I do recommend you do some easier-version pullups after you fail at pullups first: 

1 - Assisted Pullups - Get bands to assist you over the bar like these from RITFIT.  Place your foot or knee in the band that is secured to the pullup bar and get those remaining reps you failed on with the assisted band-aided pullup. 


2 - Assisted Pullups - Jump over the bar, or get assistance from partner, or step, and hang, but control yourself coming down 4-5 seconds (negative pullup). Assisted pull-ups mean someone helps you up and over the bar, but you do MOST of the work. Having a partner, or bands, push up about 25% of the lift will allow for you to feel 75% of a pull-up weight in motion. Eventually you will see an increase in pull-ups doing these exercises every other day for a few weeks.


3 - Do assisted pull-ups with feet on the floor, with the lower bar about waist-high (dip bars or waist-high barbell on squat rack, for instance).

4 - Pulldowns, rows, and bicep curls will also help you build the muscles needed to do a pullup.
 

5 - And Yes - lose weight - a pullup is not easy - a heavy pullup is harder.

If 20–30 lbs. overweight, you may have to be more patient with your pull-up progress until you drop to a normal weight zone for your height.

Stuck at 10 Pullups? Next Goal - Hitting 20+ Pull-ups 

When you are able to reach the “double-digit” zone of the pull-up repetition count, you can now start adding in more creative workouts that will change your strength foundation into a muscle stamina/endurance peak. This transition from strength to muscle stamina is usually a sticking point with many Marines and other Special Ops candidates trying to ace a fitness test with 20–30 pull-ups.

However, if you are stuck on a plateau, usually there are two things to do:

- Take a few recovery days, as you may be over-training – especially if you see some negative results on training days for your max reps.

- Do something new – Add in weight training (weighted pullups, pulldowns, rows, biceps) a few days a week to complement a pullup workout.

Weighted, Higher Volume or Both?

There are two schools of thought for going from 10 to 20+ pull-ups, but both require recovery days in between. No more back-to-back-to-back days of pull-ups at this level of training volume. Recovery is KEY TO YOUR GROWTH! I like both, but which way works best for you - you need to find out. 

High Volume Workouts: Now that you can push 50–100 reps of pull-ups in a single workout, this type of high-volume workout requires recovery days and should be performed only three days a week. Personally, I recommend the three workouts below to be done on Mondays, Wednesday, and Friday or Saturday: Push your base repetitions in your workouts with these three proven methods in what I call the Classic PST Week of Training:

Monday: PT Pyramid

Wednesday: PT Superset

Friday or Saturday: Max Rep Sets

Weighted Pull-ups

Weighted pull-ups also work well but you still want to occasionally push your previous max-set repetitions during the week. I recommend only doing weighted pull-ups 1–2 times per week and cut your total pull-up workout repetitions by 50% on those days. Pick a weight that will enable you to still do at least 20–25 total reps in a weighted pull-up workout.

Weight Loss and Pull-ups - Loss of body fat is extremely beneficial to pull-up progress. Add in cardio such as running or rucking your calisthenics and weight workouts to optimize the fat burning phase, as well as simulate the typical sequence of your physical fitness test.

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