Thanks guys, lots of good advice here. I’m gonna work on it, from what all of you have said looks like it can be done.
One more thing, any recommendations for:
[quote]KombatAthlete wrote:
To me being able to say I can do more than 8 chin-ups just wasn’t worth the time and energy it took away from other aspects of training. I would do 30 chins for time once a week and the time stayed the exact same for three weeks; I only improved after the first week.
[/quote]
Yep, practice, practice, practice. Mix it up every couple weeks. 2x heavy, 1x repout for a few weeks. The next few 2x reps, 1x heavy. Even throw in isometric holds if you can.
Ladders, pyramids work wonders. Superset them with handstand pushups and your numbers will go up more and more.
One method I had zero success with is greasing the groove, but I think I used too much grease.
Anyway, I can do 33 at bw of 205, but I really don’t do any other pulling.
[quote]sumabeast wrote:
One more thing, any recommendations for:
Since you are a heavyweight, most door mounted chinup bars can only handle 300 pounds. So you won’t be able to do much in the way of weighted chins.
You may be better off building one into your basement rafters or hang some rings from a tree.
I don’t get the whole big guys can’t do pull ups. You’re big and muscular as opposed to fat, so you should have bigger muscles than I do. I regularly knock off 5 sets of 8 at 190 with 55 pounds strapped to me and can do singles with 145, so what the hell is your excuse?
Of course this took a lot of hard work to do. I did the movement religiously 3 or 4 times a day plus some barbell rows for good measure and a variety of curls. If you are doing pull-ups especially you need strong biceps. I can also cheat curl within 10 pounds of my bodyweight.
[quote]Julius_Caesar wrote:
I don’t get the whole big guys can’t do pull ups. You’re big and muscular as opposed to fat, so you should have bigger muscles than I do. I regularly knock off 5 sets of 8 at 190 with 55 pounds strapped to me and can do singles with 145, so what the hell is your excuse?
Of course this took a lot of hard work to do. I did the movement religiously 3 or 4 times a day plus some barbell rows for good measure and a variety of curls. If you are doing pull-ups especially you need strong biceps. I can also cheat curl within 10 pounds of my bodyweight.[/quote]
The whole point is the guy has neglected it and now he wants to start up again.
He is looking for help.
This site is supposed to be about people helping each other.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
The whole point is the guy has neglected it and now he wants to start up again.
He is looking for help.
This site is supposed to be about people helping each other.[/quote]
I will be glad to help him all that I can. I didn’t mean to come off like a dick…
May I suggest to him that he tries to do them 5 sets of singles until he can start doing 1. This is how I did it.
He can also alternate strapping some weight on to himself and trying some partials.
OK more than one of you has suggested doing them few times a day. That’s something I never would have considered.
At most I was only attempting chins and pull-ups once every other 2 days, and then after say 2 weeks of that laying off to recoup.
but you guys who have had success train them non-stop regularly, even daily few times a day.
So I’m learning something new.
[quote]sumabeast wrote:
Of course this took a lot of hard work to do. I did the movement religiously 3 or 4 times a day plus some barbell rows for good measure and a variety of curls. If you are doing pull-ups especially you need strong biceps. I can also cheat curl within 10 pounds of my bodyweight.
OK more than one of you has suggested doing them few times a day. That’s something I never would have considered.
At most I was only attempting chins and pull-ups once every other 2 days, and then after say 2 weeks of that laying off to recoup.
but you guys who have had success train them non-stop regularly, even daily few times a day.
So I’m learning something new.[/quote]
I only do them 3 times a week. When I did them every day, grease-the-groove style, I didnt see good results. If you are just starting back, I would even say 1-2 times a week. Use pyramids on your work days so you can get a lot of reps in and then recover.
[quote]uberswank wrote:
sumabeast wrote:
Of course this took a lot of hard work to do. I did the movement religiously 3 or 4 times a day plus some barbell rows for good measure and a variety of curls. If you are doing pull-ups especially you need strong biceps. I can also cheat curl within 10 pounds of my bodyweight.
OK more than one of you has suggested doing them few times a day. That’s something I never would have considered.
At most I was only attempting chins and pull-ups once every other 2 days, and then after say 2 weeks of that laying off to recoup.
but you guys who have had success train them non-stop regularly, even daily few times a day.
So I’m learning something new.
I only do them 3 times a week. When I did them every day, grease-the-groove style, I didnt see good results. If you are just starting back, I would even say 1-2 times a week. Use pyramids on your work days so you can get a lot of reps in and then recover.[/quote]
It might be hard to grease the groove when you are not really in the groove yet but if you have a swingset or tree limb that will hold you you could try to do it a couple times a day.
It is not like a heavy leg day that you need days of recovery.
When I was starting out doing them, I did chins one day, and pullups the next. I took off one day a week from doing them. From what I see, it is a matter of just making yourself get out there and do them. The more you do, the more you can do.
I went from a body weight of 172 up to 207, and they best weight for me to do them was 200-205. That was when I did the most.
I told some guy in the gym a couple of weeks ago, who was attempting them. That when I started out, my total was 6, that’s a set of 3, a set of 2, and a set of 1.
[quote]sumabeast wrote:
Of course this took a lot of hard work to do. I did the movement religiously 3 or 4 times a day plus some barbell rows for good measure and a variety of curls. If you are doing pull-ups especially you need strong biceps. I can also cheat curl within 10 pounds of my bodyweight.
OK more than one of you has suggested doing them few times a day. That’s something I never would have considered.
At most I was only attempting chins and pull-ups once every other 2 days, and then after say 2 weeks of that laying off to recoup.
but you guys who have had success train them non-stop regularly, even daily few times a day.
So I’m learning something new.[/quote]
I have done all kinds of shit to boost my chin/pull-ups. Mostly I did them every other day and took a few days off every once in awhile. I have also done marathon sessions, where I would do them every half hour or so, but these were rare.
OK that’s it, I’m convinced it can be done.
I’m doing chin/pull-ups almost every day for now on when and wherever I can find a bar, ledge, cross beam, whatever.
I would have figured that would be way too much overtraining on the lats and especially bis (which is a small muscle group), but judging by all the replies to this thread, I must be wrong.
Let you guys know how it turns out by the end of the year.
thanks
Like said above, Isn’t this a power to weight ratio type of thing? You should continue to be able to do pushups/pullups if the weight you gained was primarily muscle vs fat.
[quote]sumabeast wrote:
OK that’s it, I’m convinced it can be done.
I’m doing chin/pull-ups almost every day for now on when and wherever I can find a bar, ledge, cross beam, whatever.
I would have figured that would be way too much overtraining on the lats and especially bis (which is a small muscle group), but judging by all the replies to this thread, I must be wrong.
Let you guys know how it turns out by the end of the year.
thanks[/quote]
Try them every other day. I think every day might be too much.
Squats and Milk.
[quote]sumabeast wrote:
…especially bis (which is a small muscle group), …
[/quote]
Get your ass in the squat rack and get curling!