Jim is there a Dip and Pullup program you use for people who suck at them ? Is there something in your books about them, I tried looking there first.
I’m not Jim, but I have sucked royally doing pullups, so I’ll share what I did.
Although I didn’t find the carry-over from lat pulldowns to pullups to be that great, I still did them until I pulled my bodyweight. By then I managed to squeeze out one or two pullups. Then I started banging out “ladder sets” as I call them (they probably have another name).
They work by doing sets like the following:
1/2/3/4/5 and so on, until you fail to reach the next step, which is the point where you will begin going down. Say you fail at doing 6 reps, and only do 5, then the next sets would be: 4/3/2/1. This will net a couple sets looking like this: 1/2/3/4/5/4/3/2/1. I found this great to add in more volume, even though I wasn’t strong enough to do high rep sets.
I cycled this with doing straight sets, like 10x3, 5x10 or 5x5, or however strong you are at the moment.
I’m sure there are better ways to do it, but this worked great for me! Good luck.
I have found out the best way to get better at them is to simply do them. I used to only be able to get 2 or 3 so I did a lot of sets of only 2-3 reps until I got better and could do more. It’s slow progress but progress is progress. Now I’m 250 lbs and can do sets of 8-10 on pull-ups. You just have to stay focused on your goal and stay determined
[quote]navid123 wrote:
Jim is there a Dip and Pullup program you use for people who suck at them ? Is there something in your books about them, I tried looking there first.[/quote]
There is not - the important lifts are the barbell lifts. Everything cannot be a priority in the weight room.
i know this is a 531 board, but maybe this will help. josh bryant has a very good book out called Jailhouse Strong… there are a lot of dip and chin progressions in there, even for people who cant do even one rep.
I find the 13 week BBB challenge ideal for adding pullups…I do pullups on overhead press and bench day…start out with a set of pullups and then alternate with your warm up sets…when you get to your work sets you can skip the pullups…you should have 4-5 sets done by this time…once you finish your work sets alternate pullups with your BBB assistance work. Do 10 sets twice a week this way.
Mine looked like this today
Overhead press
7 pullups
4510
7 pullups
655
7 pullups
953
7 pullups
work set #1 1253
#2 1403
#3 1603+
1405
7 pullups
1405
7 pullups
1405
7 pullups
1405
7 pullups
140*5
7 pullups
7 pullups
If you BBB assistance is particularly hard do all the pullups after you finish if you want to ensure you hit all the BBB sets. This is my second week of 14055 for BBB work so I knew I could hit them all while supersetting the pullups.
If you suck at pullups start with 10 sets of 1, or 2 or 3…For the 13 weeks I do Weeks 1-3 this way and then 4-6 with added weight trying to get 25 reps as quickly as possible. Deload Week 7 then repeat for 8-13.
Weak 1
103
W2
104
W3
105
W4
10 lbs to 25
W5
15 lbs to 25
W6
20 lbs to 25
W7
DELOAD don’t do any pullups
W8
104 (add I rep from week 1)
ETC
I think I stole this idea from Chris Shugart’s latest pullup article.
Harry Selkow’s pullup articles over on elitefts are great and I have heard a bunch of people use his ideas along with 5/3/1. Dips could just be used as assistance on your bench or press day.