I watched a lot of youtube videos and did a lot of searches on increasing pullups. But I just can't seem to do beyond 7 pullups. Can somebody see what I'm doing wrong here?

I work out in the morning from 8am-9am at the gym at work. On M,W,F I do pullups. 2-3 sets of 6-7 pullups. I can usually do 6-7 the first set. And on my 2nd and 3rd sets, I can only do around 5. I have been doing this routine for almost a year now.

Obviously if I want to do more pullups I have to do more of them. But I can't spend more time at the gym. So this is what I'm thinking of doing:

Every hour or so, I can go down to the gym and do my one set of 6-7 pullups. I won't change, just do the pullups fully dressed. Total time spent is around 5 minutes walking to the work gym and coming back.

Anybody think this will help? The only way to do more pullups is do to more pullups. But I'm wondering if I'll get results by doing them one hour apart and not lots of them within a shorter span of time.

How about getting a pullup bar to your place?

Are your other back exercises stuck as well?

Consider taking a break for a few days or do less for a week or two. Rest is VERY important. These muscles are tired, especially after a year of pull ups. After the break you may notice it is easier, then you can break through to a new personal record. Also, pull ups are a "heavy weight" exercise. Adding one additional rep requires a lot of additional strength as you progress so gains seem to come slow, even if you are gaining strength.

what do you hope to accomplish by doing more pullups? A greater lat spread? Thicker back? You are really building muscle endurance here..

Would you say you are portly?

Why don't you try doing some lat pulldowns.


Dem boots doe

The only way to do more pull ups is not 'to do more pull ups'.

Firstly, I'd stop attempting to squeeze out 6-7 pull ups 3 times a week. You've been doing this for long enough and it isn't working. It's a waste of time and it is the definition of insanity doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

You've been doing this for over a year now and you have plateaued. In fact, you probably plateaued 6 months ago. You need a fresh approach to your training.

Ok, a couple things that may help you.

Perhaps you should:

Add in other exercises that specifically target the back.

Such as:

Bent over barbell rows. Multiple grip widths.
Single arm dumbell rows.
Lat pull down if you have access to one.
Multiple grip widths on pull ups.
Underhand 'chin ups'.
Deadlifts.

If your not eating sufficiently your body is going to struggle to grow. If your looking to gain muscle you need to be in a slight caloric surplus. If you don't know what that is then Google the term and fish around the bodybuilding forums. There's a ton of great information on there.

If your goal is simply to master the pull up, I would reduce the frequency to 2 days a week and hit the back with the range of exercises I suggested and others that you can find via a quick Google search. Hit it with a high intensity and make sure you give yourself the high quality nutrition that you need to recover.

Good luck brother.

I've been doing The Figher Pullup Program by Pavel. Check it out here:

http://www.kbnj.com/FighterPullupByPavel.htm

Give it a shot.

I did 5, 4, 4, 4, 3 last time.

One other thing that worked for me, when I could only do about 3 chins, was doing ladders. I'd do 1, 2, 3. Rest a bit longer. Then repeat. Each time I'd go to the gym (or the pull up bar), I would aim to increase the total number of reps done without increasing the time spent on pull ups too much.

Blackwell, thanks for your recommendation. I do have access to a lateral pulldown machine. After my 3 sets of pullups and I can't do them anymore, I use the pulldown machine and set it to a weight lower than my body weight. And then I do maybe 2-3 more sets of 5 reps each.

Good suggestion though and taking a break on pull ups and doing some other back exercise. I will try the bent over rows and chin ups for a change and see what happens.

DavidZRH

Do a search of Pavel Tsatsouline GreaseThe Groove. I think is from his book "The Naked Warrior". I'm on the road with bad connectivity so I'm having trouble posting links.

I've had no problems at all with my pullout routine, seems to be working fine.

How much do you weigh? Excess body fat is a limiting factor. I would up the frequency to 5 days a week or more, and go to failure in every set. +1 on reading Pavel as well, probably the most well written book on how to increase bodyweight strength.

I got better at doing pull ups by doing lat pull downs, and challenging myself each time with more weight. In other words, I train to fatigue on lat pull downs (while keeping technique impeccable). Lat pull downs develop the same muscles as pull ups, but I think you have more control with developing strength with the lat pull downs.

Here's my theory. If you weigh say 170 pounds, then the most you can lift just doing pull-ups is 170 lbs, so there is a constraint on how strong you can get. With lat pull downs, you can blast through 170 lbs by adding 10 lbs each time you conquer the prior weight. Say you get up to 200 lbs with lat pull downs. Then when you try pull ups, your 170 lbs body weight will feel light, and you can do a lot more.

The armstrong pullup program should be able to take you from where you're at now to 12 pullups.

The morning routine for the armstrong pullup program is 3 sets of pushups to failure a couple hours before you do your pullups. If you're doing other pressing movements, then the pushups aren't terribly necessary.

As for the routine itself, it's a 5 day a week program that can be done in a minimal amount of time.

Day 1 : 5 maximum effort sets of pullups with 90 seconds rest in between.

Day 2 : Pyramid day, start with one pullup and work your way up one rep at a time. For every rep you do, you rest 10 seconds. Since everyone asks questions about this one, your sets would look like this.

1 pullup
10 seconds rest
2 pullups
20 seconds rest
3 pullups
30 seconds rest

and so on

You go until you miss a rep, rest, then do one max effort set at the end of all that.

Day 3 : Do 9 training sets of pullups. You'll want 3 different variations of pullups for 3 sets of each. Rest 60 seconds in between sets. Variations could be overhand grip, underhand grip, wide grip, behind the neck, feel free to experiment.

A training set is what you can do for 9 complete sets with 60 seconds of rest in between sets. For a lot of folks, that's one rep. For some, that's 10. The only way to know is to start with one rep, then the next time you do two. If you fail to complete 9 sets at the given intensity, you stay with whatever you were doing before.

Day 4 : Max number of training sets with 60 seconds in between sets. So just start with 1 rep on this one and go until you fail to complete a rep. If that's below 9 sets, you have some work to do. If it's above 9 sets, then go up to 2 reps.

Day 5 : Repeat the hardest day you had all week.

And that's all there is to it.

This routine took me from 5 pullups to 12 in about six weeks.

Quote: (09-07-2014 11:44 AM)Dusty Wrote:  

I got better at doing pull ups by doing lat pull downs, and challenging myself each time with more weight. In other words, I train to fatigue on lat pull downs (while keeping technique impeccable). Lat pull downs develop the same muscles as pull ups, but I think you have more control with developing strength with the lat pull downs.

Here's my theory. If you weigh say 170 pounds, then the most you can lift just doing pull-ups is 170 lbs, so there is a constraint on how strong you can get. With lat pull downs, you can blast through 170 lbs by adding 10 lbs each time you conquer the prior weight. Say you get up to 200 lbs with lat pull downs. Then when you try pull ups, your 170 lbs body weight will feel light, and you can do a lot more.

Although true.... since pull ups are like the upper version of squats it probably is more beneficial to do pull ups than lat pull downs since pull ups work many body parts. Plus there are guys that can do 200lb pull downs but can't do a pull up.

Quote: (09-07-2014 02:36 PM)jimukr104 Wrote:  

Quote: (09-07-2014 11:44 AM)Dusty Wrote:  

I got better at doing pull ups by doing lat pull downs, and challenging myself each time with more weight. In other words, I train to fatigue on lat pull downs (while keeping technique impeccable). Lat pull downs develop the same muscles as pull ups, but I think you have more control with developing strength with the lat pull downs.

Here's my theory. If you weigh say 170 pounds, then the most you can lift just doing pull-ups is 170 lbs, so there is a constraint on how strong you can get. With lat pull downs, you can blast through 170 lbs by adding 10 lbs each time you conquer the prior weight. Say you get up to 200 lbs with lat pull downs. Then when you try pull ups, your 170 lbs body weight will feel light, and you can do a lot more.

Although true.... since pull ups are like the upper version of squats it probably is more beneficial to do pull ups than lat pull downs since pull ups work many body parts. Plus there are guys that can do 200lb pull downs but can't do a pull up.

Still a big fan of pull-ups here, for the reasons you state. Just saying you can use lat pulldowns to build up your back muscles to get better at pull-ups. I kind of discovered it by accident. I did lat pull-downs for awhile and kept incrementally adding weight each week. Then I did pull-ups after a couple months hiatus and couldn't believe how light I felt.

I used this http://www.kbnj.com/FighterPullupByPavel.htm

to go from 9 pull-ups to 18 pull-ups in about 2 months, same bodyweight.

For me personally the limiting factor in pull ups is my bicep strength and not my back strength. So if you feel you are the same way, try doing some more heavy bicep exercises for a while and see if that helps.

Also, if you can drop some body fat, do that too.

These are all solid suggestions. I broke into the 15-20 range a few years back when I started the pyramid style routine, and I'd do 21's twice a week when the pyramids failed to really boost my rep max. I've tried lots of other things since then, and the things that increased how many pull ups I can do the most were, in this order:
-21's
-Pyramids
-Weighted pull-ups (twice a week)
-Negatives
-Pulling up to top of bar and holding for a set time
-Dead hanging after maxing out reps
-Pull downs (I just find that these don't help as much as they theoretically should for pull ups)

Naturally, if you can't do 7, 7, and 7 for the sets of 21's, try 4, 4, and 4, or some other variation with lower reps.

If you don't know what I mean by 21's, check out the link. Here he's doing curls, but the concept is the same. http://www.muscleandfitness.com/workouts...biceps-21s

I recently noticed I had peaked at 15 and couldn't seem to get past that. I revamped my routine by following the Pull Up Challenge. Doing much fewer and building my way up slowly has allowed my form to really improve, if nothing else.

I went from being able to do 2 pullups to 20 in roughly 1 year. Doing tons of cardio and lowering bf% helped a lot, as well as weighted pullups. Once you do weighted, bodyweight will seem much lighter by comparison.

I assume you're talking here about how to do as many dead-hang pullups as possible, right?

If so, I have something to offer in the way of an opinion. As part of the old USMC physical fitness test, there was a pullup event, where the max score was being able to do 20 dead-hang pullups.

In case you're wondering, the other events were the 3 mile run (max score: 18 minutes) and the situps (max score: 80 in 2 minutes).

I know something about how to max the old PFT (physical fitness test).

The way I used to max my score in this event was the following:

1. Do several sets of pullups (say, 3) with added weight on your body. I used to use a weight vest or a weight belt to which I would attach weights. Doing pullups with an extra 15 or 20 pounds will produce progress. Do this about 3 times per week. Then, when you do regular pullups, you will see how easy they are.

2. Learn how to do a "kip" when you do the pullups. A "kip" is a serpent-like twisting of your body as you make the upward movement towards the chin-up bar. It's a way of using momentum to propel you up to the bar. With some practice, you can do it. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that's easier to describe than it is to demonstrate.

If you do these things, your performance will improve.

Lots of good suggestions here..

"Weighted pull ups" is my favorite piece advice.

The only thing I will add is to be sure and get lots of quality sleep. When I am not well rested, my strength suffers.

^ Right.
Without quality sleep everything else will suffer. It doesn't matter if it's about banging,working out or being productive.
It's really sucks to feel tired and not well rested.

This is one of my big interests, how to get quality sleep and how to feel high energy.
Without energy things are hard.

Another thing you can do is reverse pull ups. You jump and set yourself in the top of the pull up position, then slowly lower yourself to the bottom of the pull up. This is eccentric instead of concentric. It works the same muscle groups and will strengthen them.