3 Months to Do a 1 Arm Pull-Up

Training Powerlifting
1

I made a bet with my flatmate that in 3 months I could do a one arm pullup. I could do with some ideas on how to achieve this. I started training badly to do a OAP a few months ago and have beastskills.com bookmarked.

Right now I can do 3 strict pull-ups with an added 28kg of weight. I weight 65kg now. My right arm is stronger that my left arm at the moment. If I try to do a OAP with my right arm, starting at an angle of about 135degress, I can pull myself up to 90d. With my left arm I can only get up to about 110d.

My secret weapon is 142 caps of MAG-10 and 160 caps of TRIBEX. They are a year past the best before date, are they still ok to use? If I do go on a 2 week MAG-10 phase I’ll be concentrating on maximum strength increases and not size, since added weight in detrimental to me.

Thanks.

2

if you froze the MAG-10 caps they should be ok… using MAG-10 isn’t going to help all that much the strength gains you garner are going to be from an increase in lean muscle mass which will probably keep your relative strength at par. Save the MAG-10 till you want to slap on slabs of muscle…

right now you want to get STRONGER.

one arm PULLUP? or one arm CHINup… thats important to know… beastskills i your best bet

if you had more time weighted chinups would be your bread and butter, but you’re not THAT far off from the strength you need

this isn’t exact because you a gave me a 3rep max but you need to be able to generate ~143lbs of pulling power with one arm…

you can pull an additional ~62lbs

143/2 = ~72

62/2= 31

72+31= 103

you need to be able to pull 80more lbs on your total weighted chin (40lbs each arm)

its actually quite a bit less than that probably like 60-65lbs but… point is you’re not strong enough yet to overcome the need for technique and intermuscular coordination.

imo, start practicing 1 arm negatives because the most important part you’re going to need is the body control…

when you can do 10-15negatives and stop & hold wherever you want while going down slowly you have great control and your strength will have increased…

something i’ve been fucking around with lately (except that i can already do 1 arm chins) is to do them with wrist straps just so you get accustomed to the “Up” portion

it makes it a lot easier.

also practice 1 arm chins holding your wrist, then move down to your forearm, then your bicep, then your shoulder, then eventually your pec, till you don’t need to touch something to generate the entire body contraction needed to chin with 1 arm.

there’s a bunch of other shit you can toy with if i remember anything i’ll post again.

3

I’d recommend trying some heavy iso pullups. between 5-10 seconds.

4

Weighted negatives? Iso holds?

5

One arm or one hand?
There is a difference.

6

i think he wouldn’t abandon the thread if he was serious… but we’ll see if he has time to get back around here and straighten us out with his specific goals.

7

It’s a one arm pull-up with the other hand loose. Any fool can do a one-handed pull-up :wink: Only legends like myself in 3 months can do one arm pull-ups.

Any ideas about how often I can train for the one-arm pull-up? I’ve had to take down the chinning bar from my room after I was constantly trying isometric one arm holds with no warm up. I think I tore few hundred fibres in my arm.

I have ligament damage in my left knee, so leg training is out of bounds bar some rehabilitation. I might aswell use the MAG-10 I’ve got to train upper body twice a day, then legs, then back to upper body.

Something like this:
Day 1 AM: Upper body, heavy (isometric holds, 3RM etc etc)
PM: Upper body, light
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Same as day 1
Day 4: Same as day 2

Will that be effective? About isolation exercises, should I do some bicep curls to strengthen biceps? The worst part of my one-arm pullup attempt is getting out of the lockout at the bottom, I don’t know exactly how to fix this. Isometric holds with my elbow at about 160-170 degrees is one idea I had.

8

there he is! lol@ legends

use the MAG-10 when you want to bulk… do not use it for this… trust me… dont gloss over this.

DO NOT USE THE MAG-10 TO CHASE A ONE ARM PULLUP.

Frequency but tempered with controlled volume is key here.

put up the chinup bar again

only 1-2x a week i would bust out some super heavy shit… in other words doing 8-10 straight 1 arm negatives per arm. on monday , a leg day on wednesday, and weighted chins or the ‘wrist, forearm, shoulder’ thing i detailed above on friday.

other than that 3-4x a day i would pass the chinup bar and do 1-3 one arm negatives with each arm.

the problem here is avoiding tendonitis, so keep your supplements up take plenty of fishoil, wear neoprene sleeves when you train, warmup well, stretch use a cryocup after you train, etc…

tons of things you can do to rehab so dont be dumb.

9

I have this goal since I began to train(2.5 years ago) and I still can’t do one. I too started at 65 kg and my 2RM was with an added 32kg. As you can see I was pretty much like you. so I’ll share my experience.

1-Keep the OAC (one arm chinup) as you’re primary goal.
I had a lot of goals and couldn’t concentrate enough on the OAC. I think it’s the main reason of my failure.

2-Max effort method will get you strong, but don’t forget about periodization.
I worked to a good max, at 68kg I could do chinup with an added 50kg. I was afraid to lose my newfound strength, so I kept pushing, lost strength, and ended up with a max of +43kg.

3-Keep lower body training to a minimum, and try to limit weight gain.
I remember reading something from Pavel Tsatsouline about rock climbers:“A good climber has the lats of a flying squirrel, Popeye forearms, and the legs of a starved chicken”. With any weight gain, it’s gonna be harder for you to do chinups. Gaining weight in the lower body will only slow your progress. I now weight 72kg and trust me, 6-7kg makes a hell of a difference when you’re trying to get a OAC.

4-COC grippers
If you can only hang from the bar for 5 seconds, you’re not gonna pull yourself above the bar.

Get stronger in the weighted chinup and the 1 arm negative chinup and maybe one day you’ll achieve the OAC(and I hope I achieve it too). But 3 months, I think your friend’s gonna win the bet…

10

1-Arm Lat-Pulldowns.

Once you’re doing 20lbs over your bodyweight on these you should be ready to do 1-Arm Pull-ups.

11

This smells a bit trolly. BUT I would get on a weighted pullup assister if your gym has one, and just do one arm pull ups and slowly decrease the weight.

12
  • 1 arm lat pulldowns… no.

-the weighted pullup thing, you’d think so but no maybe as an assistance exercise.

  • thick bar > coc gripping
13

Gravatron Assist Machines don’t offer much assistance with weights below 60lbs. You just end up moving faster than the platform you’re standing or kneeling on.

There’s not much correlation between thick-bar grip endurance and regular grip endurance. Sure, thick-bars are more demanding on the grip and may be better for getting athletes used to working with implements like hammers, shots, and stones but they don’t have much carryover to barbell grip strength. Besides, thick-bars aren’t really that common in most gyms.

14

I’ve only met one person that could train their way to the one-arm chin, yet I have known many who could just do it because they were freaks. Unfortunately it is largely genetic.

15

one arm negatives, heavy weighted chins, power chins (think dynamic method WSBB), various degrees of help from other arm (start with both arms even. wrap a towel a few inches lower on one side, do chins there, switch towel to other side. when you get to a certain number of full ROM reps, increase length of towel. as it gets lower, there will be less assistance from your “free” hand).

eat right, take fish oil, stretch. make sure you’re doing enough pressing work. don’t do 20 rep squats.

16

[quote]FightingScott wrote:
Gravatron Assist Machines don’t offer much assistance with weights below 60lbs. You just end up moving faster than the platform you’re standing or kneeling on.

There’s not much correlation between thick-bar grip endurance and regular grip endurance. Sure, thick-bars are more demanding on the grip and may be better for getting athletes used to working with implements like hammers, shots, and stones but they don’t have much carryover to barbell grip strength. Besides, thick-bars aren’t really that common in most gyms.

[/quote]

the gravatron thing your body position is all wrong… would be a better idea to use a jump stretch band because at least you can replicate your body positioning…

thick bar will improve your grip faster and with better transferance than a coc gripper. If coc grippers don’t help with deadlift why would they help w/ one arm chin?

if you don’t have a thick bar, get the pussy pad people use for squats and do chinups with that…

putting your hands in a wider position (thick bar) gives them a disadvantaged leverage position so when you are in a more advantageous position (smaller bar) you can squeeze harder… that will cause “irradiation” if you read Pavel’s stuff and you can pull stronger.

one arm pullup is an exercise in irradiation really its not just flexing that one arm, your legs have to be tight, squeeze your glutes, abs, even your opposite arm.

unless you have outrageously strong weighted chinup (like 250lbs @ a bw of 160) you can’t overcome this mechanical aspect of the 1 arm chin…

17

[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
FightingScott wrote:

if you don’t have a thick bar, get the pussy pad people use for squats and do chinups with that…
[/quote]

First time I ever heard it call that :slight_smile:

18

[quote]Oldfart wrote:
Xen Nova wrote:
FightingScott wrote:

if you don’t have a thick bar, get the pussy pad people use for squats and do chinups with that…

First time I ever heard it call that :slight_smile:
[/quote]

lol, at my gym they call it the Maxi pad.

19

Having trained myself to a 1APU, I can tell you from experience that you’re up against it. 3 months probably isn’t enough time given your weighted PU numbers.

That said, I think the daily practice Xen suggests offers your best chance. If you had more time, I would recommend rotating though several progressive templates, with important deloading periods to spare the joints. But because you only have 3 months, your best bet is to build strength by practicing the movement itself.

Negatives are great, but in my opinion represent only one aspect of a successful 1APU program. The 1APU in particular requires strength from the bottom up, and negatives tend to be “top-loaded” – slow up top, then dropping like a rock. If you only do negatives, you’ll probably neglect strength at the bottom of the movement. Add isometric pauses in 3 positions (the 3 sticking points): the bottom, with your elbow flexed only a few degrees; the middle, elbow at 90 degrees; and the top, with your chin just over the bar. Try to hold each position for 2-4 seconds, several times per day to ensure strength through the entire range of motion.

If you train 3 times per day, I would suggest doing maybe 4 regular chins slowly to warm up. Then rest a couple minutes before doing a negative. To make the negatives more effective, I recommend performing them in a variety of ways, the major 4 being: standard (slow and controlled through the entire movement), top emphasis, middle emphasis, and bottom emphasis. With the latter 3, move yourself as slowly as possible through the emphasized range of motion and merely control your descent through the rest of the movement. Do one of these in each training session, being sure to attack your weakness. Then move on to isos. Then just hang from the bar for a few sets to strengthen your grip and stretch your lats (and chest and bis).

Take a day or two off whenever you feel like you need it. Expect joint pain, but don’t let it get so bad it keeps you from training and getting stronger – obviously, you can’t win a bet if you’re injured.

The true 1APU, in my opinion, is at least as complicated as a squat, so there is much more to say, but time is precious for both of us. You need to get training, and I need to get back to work.

If you’re still at it in a month, check back in.

Good luck!

Sam

20

[quote]Xen Nova wrote:

the gravatron thing your body position is all wrong… would be a better idea to use a jump stretch band because at least you can replicate your body positioning…

thick bar will improve your grip faster and with better transferance than a coc gripper. If coc grippers don’t help with deadlift why would they help w/ one arm chin?

unless you have outrageously strong weighted chinup (like 250lbs @ a bw of 160) you can’t overcome this mechanical aspect of the 1 arm chin… [/quote]

Jump Strench Bands? Thick bars? COC Grippers? This guy isn’t going to blow over $100 on gear to help him do a 1-Arm Chin-up. If he already had access to all this equipment, he’d probably belong to a hardcore gym that would either

  1. Set up a Circa-Max, Band-Assisted, 1-Arm Chin training phase.
  2. Tell him his bet is stupid and that he should be more worried about his squat numbers.

The only people I see doing 1-Arm Chins are Gymnasts and Mountain Climbers. You know how they get strong enough to do them? They do a lot of chin-ups, slow negatives, and they get better at climbing or gymnastics. They don’t have a bunch of odd equipment to help them. Neither does anyone else.

And are you honestly saying that someone must pull 250lbs added to their 160lb frame in order to just do a 1-arm chin? Or that they need to pull 90lbs added to their frame? It would seem to me that if a 160lb person wants to do a 1-arm chin, they would need to do a weighted chin with about 160lbs of added weight.