all posts post new thread

Bodyweight Please, help me get that pull-up PR

Timur

Level 3 Valued Member
[TL;DR — how to get from 18 pull-ups to 20 faster?]

Some time ago I set two goals:
1) to move from 13 bodyweight pull-ups to 20
2) to make 1 weighted pull-up with 32 kg

Fighter pull-up program definitely worked for me (thanks Pavel), but on 18 rep max I hit the wall. And #18 was not even always strict! Muscles got too close to cramps, couldn't touch bar with my neck.

18-18-16-14-12
18-18-16-14-12
18-18-16-14-12 (yawn)

Did it GtG-style three times a week: at age 37 I just can’t recover fast enough to do close sets or 4-5 times a week. Sometimes I took a rest, tried new PR and it still was 18 rep max. Then I realized: ~1000 pull-ups a month is frigging boring!

Reread the article, changed the numbers to 18-18-15-12-10 for a week or two. That didn’t help.
Reread the article of Dan John about pull-ups and switched to weighted pull-ups (24,16, 28 kg). It gave me some mild unpleasant after training sensations in the elbows, but:

1) I hit the goal #2 and made a strict pull-up with a 32 kg bell on my belt. 81 bodyweight + 32 = 113 total, woohoo.
2) Added one bw pull-up, now I do 19 or almost 19 (head high enough, cannot touch the bar).

And this is my new WALL, it seems. So, the questions:

1. Would you recommend bodyweight or weighted training to squeeze extra 1-2 reps someday? (weighted ones somehow troubles my elbows though not much…yet). Should I do it 3 days a week or 2 is enough?
2. Should I cut my swings for better recovery? I now do mostly 48 kg swings two-handed and 40 kg one- and two-handed, about 500 swings a week as a complement to push-ups. Not much else.

I am sure someone here knows the answers, PLZ HALP
 
Timur said:
[TL;DR — how to get from 18 pull-ups to 20 faster?]
Click to expand...
Don Fairbanks said:
Five sets of 12, weighted, twice a week, 4+ minutes rest in btwn.
Click to expand...
+1 to @Don Fairbanks suggestion in general, but I would suggest cutting the rep range back in training to about 50% of your current max reps unweighted, e.g., if you can do 18, then weight yourself down so that you are doing sets of 9 or so, even better, vary the reps and the weight between 6 and 12, mostly 6-10 reps. Don't add a ton of weight, maybe a 12 kg. Do this twice a week.

Once week, do this:

warmup set of pullups

near-max set of pullups

near-max backoff set of chinups

and for that day, that's all you do, at least in the way of pullups.

-S-
 
all good suggestions.
I got from 20 -28 pullups using these 2 methods.
1-Increasing grip strength
2-weighted pullups at lowere rep ranges
3-shed as much fat as possible. Highly underrated how much weight plays a role
 
Abishai said:
all good suggestions.
I got from 20 -28 pullups using these 2 methods.
1-Increasing grip strength
2-weighted pullups at lowere rep ranges
3-shed as much fat as possible. Highly underrated how much weight plays a role
Click to expand...
I have nothing to cut, that's the issue. Leg muscles maybe, but no, no way :)

Folks, thanks for all the suggestions, I will report back to you. Glory to the Forum!
 
lais817 said:
How do you work out the loading for this? Is it based on an 1RM etc?
Click to expand...
Yes. Maybe not a true 1RM, but a weight that you can just do the reps with. I have run this many times to good success, but I’ll admit that it’s a bit finicky to get the load right. It’s explained pretty well in “Training for the New Alpinism”
 
offwidth said:
Yes. Maybe not a true 1RM, but a weight that you can just do the reps with. I have run this many times to good success, but I’ll admit that it’s a bit finicky to get the load right. It’s explained pretty well in “Training for the New Alpinism”
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll check the book out.
 
Not to sound flippant, but when you need to.
If you can do more reps than what is called for then you need to up the weight. Like I said… thats the finicky part…
 
Ladders with a 10 kg plate worked great for me. Three days per week alternating light/medium/heavy kinda ROP way helped me reach 17 dead hang strict pull ups adding one rep to my max every two weeks aprox. When I worked up to a 45kg RM pull up I experienced zero carryover to my reps, but for other people works fine.
 
Miguel Sunen said:
Ladders with a 10 kg plate worked great for me. Three days per week alternating light/medium/heavy kinda ROP way helped me reach 17 dead hang strict pull ups adding one rep to my max every two weeks aprox. When I worked up to a 45kg RM pull up I experienced zero carryover to my reps, but for other people works fine.
Click to expand...
One rep to the max every two weeks sounds nice, thanks!
 
Aaand finally I did it! Folks, if anyone of you visits Varna (Bulgaria) some beers are on me.

Also seems that working on my secondary goals (X swings a year, Y training days a year) really slowed my pull-up progress down. So I became a bit less stupid now and that's another win here.

Merry powder coat Christmas to y'all!
 
Timur said:
Aaand finally I did it! Folks, if anyone of you visits Varna (Bulgaria) some beers are on me.

Also seems that working on my secondary goals (X swings a year, Y training days a year) really slowed my pull-up progress down. So I became a bit less stupid now and that's another win here.

Merry powder coat Christmas to y'all!
Click to expand...
Great works, just in time for Xmas too! What strategy did you end up using?
 
A buddy of mine (Adam Dailey) hit 44 pullups a few years back at the TSC. Granted, he is a sponsored ice climber, but he never does bodyweight pullups. He always loads them, similar to the aforementioned Steve House program.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom