Increase Your Pull-ups From 0 to 20+
Over the years I’ve gone from 0 pullups to my PR of 27 strict reps. I’ve taken female clients, completely new to training, from 0 pullups to 3-5 reps in only a couple of months.
Increasing your pull-ups doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s how you do it.
If you can’t do any pullups, no worries. Getting your first pullup isn’t as hard as you think.
Lose Excess Body Fat
This is the hardest part. If you’re carrying around a bunch of extra fat, you’re starting with a bunch of dead weight. Get in the gym, stop eating crap, and handle your business.
Use a Band for Assistance
Pick up a set of resistance bands. Choke a band over the pull-up bar and hook one or both of your legs into the band. The more than band is stretched, the easier the pull-up will be. So in order of increasing difficulty:
both feet in band (straight legs) < one foot in band (straight leg) < both knees in band < one knee in band.
This is a good way to progress if you have a limited number of bands or you seem to be stuck “between” bands.
Don’t Train to Failure
I’ve never had much success training pull-ups to failure. Training to failure creates an enormous amount of muscle damage and fatigue, making more difficult to train more frequently or with more volume. Which leads me to my next point…
Train Frequently
Which do you think will help you get better at something, practicing it once per week or practicing it 3-5 times per week? The more frequently you can train, without doing too much, the faster progress you’ll make. The trick is finding the sweet spot where you’re training enough to improve, but not so much that you’re too fatigued to train well.
For example, instead of doing 5 sets of assisted pullups once per week, do 2 sets per day 4x per week. You might find that you get less sore, even though you’ve added 3 additional weekly sets.
Train in the 5-8 rep range with at least 2 reps in the tank. So if you can do a given intensity for 7 reps with good form, only do sets of 5. Your technique should not change as you get fatigued.
Progress your pullups every week or every other week, depending on what your body can handle. Follow the banded pullup progression from the last section.
Once one knee in the band is too easy, simply start the progression over with a lighter band. Add a set or two to your weekly work every week as well.
Negatives
Once you can do several easy reps with a light band as assistance, add in some negatives. Jump to pull yourself over the bar, then lower yourself to a 4 count. This should be a REAL 4 count: 1 mississippi, 2 mississippi, etc. If you drop too fast, you’re only cheating yourself.
Negatives are intense and should not be done for high reps. Don’t ever go over 5; I’d stay around 3 reps. Negatives should not be done every day. Do them every other day for 2-4 sets and continue to do your band-assisted work.
Cool, you got your first pull-up! Now what?
Good work! Now you want to do more. Your strategy isn’t going to change much. Continue to do band assisted pullups for higher rep sets of 5-8. Just reduce the band tension to keep it challenging. Keep doing your negatives, but back off a little if you’re getting overly sore. In addition….
Do more throughout the day
Get a doorway pullup bar at any discount store and hang it from a door in your house. Every time you pass it, do a rep. This will add up to a ton of reps throughout the week you wouldn’t normally get, and it will cause very little fatigue.
Once you’ve gotten to the point that you can bang out sets of around 5 without much difficulty, begin training them like other strength exercises 2-3 times per week, adding reps when you’re able.
Once you can do 8-10 pullups with perfect form, you can begin to do weighted pull-ups. Start small, only 5-10lbs of additional weight. Progress these like any other strength exercise – start with around 3 sets of 5 reps once or twice per week. Continue doing bodyweight work 2-3 times per week as well. Once your weighted 3x5 is easy, add a small amount of weight and continue, eventually working to more advanced weekly programming.
If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me