Hey guys, just getting back into training after a long, injury-related, time away from the gym.
To make a long story short: my strength sux! I can barely do 2 BW pullups now.
Looking for a program appropriate for a starting level (where I am) so that I can increase my strength and reps.
Thanks so much.
Really is that simple. I started out being barely able to do 4 shitty regular grip pullups and today I banged out a set of 8 wide grips from a dead hang easily.
Read up on GTG and “ladders” if you need to improve ultra-fast, but otherwise just stick to the basics; do lots of 'em and do 'em often.
There was a point where I did them for multiple sets throughout the day and I never improved faster as I did then.
3 sets of max reps twice a week?
If you can do 3x2 which would be a total of 6 today, try to do a total of 7 friday, and then 8 monday, and then a 3x3 on the following friday, etc…
well if you can only do 2, then doing sets of max reps probably isn’t gonna do much.
1)If you are over weight, lose some weight.
2)Negatives, go for 5x3. (do this once a week)
3)Lat pulldowns or assisted pullups (in the 5-8 rep range)
You could probably get away with training them 3x a week.
M: 5-10 sets of 1
W: Lat pulldown 5x5
F: 5-8 sets of 3 (negatives)
Focus on good form an progression
dankid: thanks man, that sounds pretty sensible for where I’m unfortunately at right now.
On a side-note: I just got back from the gym and I am humbled to say the least…I missed the iron. Does that make me masochistic?!
Thanks again fellas.
I’ll have to recommend having the negatives be one-armed. Try em out, if you like em, keep em. Lower yourself slowly, trying to pull yourself back up as hard as you can. As they get easier, you could lower yourself halfway down, then try as much as possible to pull yourself back up for a few seconds, then keep lowering yourself.
Oh and losing bodyfat will of course help out.
[quote]That One Guy wrote:
I’ll have to recommend having the negatives be one-armed. Try em out, if you like em, keep em. Lower yourself slowly, trying to pull yourself back up as hard as you can. As they get easier, you could lower yourself halfway down, then try as much as possible to pull yourself back up for a few seconds, then keep lowering yourself.
Oh and losing bodyfat will of course help out.[/quote]
I seriously hope you are not recommending negative one arm chins to someone who can only perform two bodyweight chins?
Harry Selkow on elitefts.com is giving free advized on pullups, just do a search on his q/a or ask your own questions.
Selkow = Dr Pullups
Start with rack chins.
200 pullups a day, every day, for 4 weeks.
I’m training for Marine Corps Boot Camp and I have been using a program called Recon Ron’s Pullup Program. Just Google it. It is a progressive volume program and it has you doing pullups 6 days a week.
It has helped me with not only pullup quanity but also with my repitition quality. I could do about 12 shitty pullups with my eyes meeting the bar, now I can do around 15-16 pullups with my chin being pulled over the bar.
Look it up and give it a shot. It is a 38 week program and gets you up to doing a ton of pullups.
[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
200 pullups a day, every day, for 4 weeks.[/quote]
Don’t forget the 20 tablets of BCAAs. Otherwise it just won’t work.
I also am doing the Recon Ron’s Pull up Program (just finished first week). It was pretty brutal the first week, but this week I am noticing that I am not quite as sore.
This program is probably not the best idea for you if you can only do 2 pullups. Start off with the weight assisted pull up machine and progress from there.
[quote]JamFly wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
I’ll have to recommend having the negatives be one-armed. Try em out, if you like em, keep em. Lower yourself slowly, trying to pull yourself back up as hard as you can. As they get easier, you could lower yourself halfway down, then try as much as possible to pull yourself back up for a few seconds, then keep lowering yourself.
Oh and losing bodyfat will of course help out.
I seriously hope you are not recommending negative one arm chins to someone who can only perform two bodyweight chins?[/quote]
why not? Like I said, if he likes em, keep em. If it’s too hard, he can do them with both hands. When they become easy he can do them one armed instead of doing negatives with weight.
[quote]Devil Dog Autry wrote:
I’m training for Marine Corps Boot Camp and I have been using a program called Recon Ron’s Pullup Program. Just Google it. It is a progressive volume program and it has you doing pullups 6 days a week.
It has helped me with not only pullup quanity but also with my repitition quality. I could do about 12 shitty pullups with my eyes meeting the bar, now I can do around 15-16 pullups with my chin being pulled over the bar.
Look it up and give it a shot. It is a 38 week program and gets you up to doing a ton of pullups.[/quote]
Are you doing weightlifting along with that? I’m preparing for OCS, at 12 pullups, maybe more after this program I’m on now, and still figuring out how best to combine weights and pullups.
Well its a unfortunate reality that weightlifting means little to nothing when it comes to Military fitness. The basic training schools are all about running and body weight endurance exercise. This was a hard pill for me to swallow but I compromised with doing body weight endurance 5-6 days a week in the morning and just 2 weight lifting sessions at night on tue-fri. Due to all the running my weightlifting has been very moderate and its hard to go up on any lifts.
I also will suggest you should stop thinking about pullups as a strength exercise and just think of body weight pullups as an endurance thing. If you want to get better at pullups then just do them 5-6 days a week but in a progressive pattern so you will improve.
Everybody is different but if you want to see exactly how I train you can look up my log and read up on that.
[quote]That One Guy wrote:
JamFly wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
I’ll have to recommend having the negatives be one-armed. Try em out, if you like em, keep em. Lower yourself slowly, trying to pull yourself back up as hard as you can. As they get easier, you could lower yourself halfway down, then try as much as possible to pull yourself back up for a few seconds, then keep lowering yourself.
Oh and losing bodyfat will of course help out.
I seriously hope you are not recommending negative one arm chins to someone who can only perform two bodyweight chins?
why not? Like I said, if he likes em, keep em. If it’s too hard, he can do them with both hands. When they become easy he can do them one armed instead of doing negatives with weight.[/quote]
One arm chins are for extremely advanced trainees, if he is a complete novice who has a two chin max recommending one arm negative chins is just dumb. He would likely seriously hurt his shoulder if he tried it.
Thanks for all of the responses, I’m getting back into the gym after an injury (shoulder) so while I really would love to attempt single-arm negatives, I will leave those alone for quite some time!
I will be following a negatives-biased routine that will be in addition to my standard in-gym back workout. I’m projecing to have my strength and endurance back to within ~80% of pre-injury within 14 weeks.
I’ll keep all updated and let you know how it goes.
Again, thanks for the advice.
[quote]JamFly wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
JamFly wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
I’ll have to recommend having the negatives be one-armed. Try em out, if you like em, keep em. Lower yourself slowly, trying to pull yourself back up as hard as you can. As they get easier, you could lower yourself halfway down, then try as much as possible to pull yourself back up for a few seconds, then keep lowering yourself.
Oh and losing bodyfat will of course help out.
I seriously hope you are not recommending negative one arm chins to someone who can only perform two bodyweight chins?
why not? Like I said, if he likes em, keep em. If it’s too hard, he can do them with both hands. When they become easy he can do them one armed instead of doing negatives with weight.
One arm chins are for extremely advanced trainees, if he is a complete novice who has a two chin max recommending one arm negative chins is just dumb. He would likely seriously hurt his shoulder if he tried it.[/quote]
Actually, as long as he doesn’t have any serious flexibility or mobility issues in his shoulders, trying it once probably won’t mess him up. But who knows, it’s not like we have any real background knowledge on how he has trained in the past so all we are doing now is theorizing.