Switching to Hypertrophy Deviation: Seeking Feedback on Upper-Body Focus & Pull-Up Progress

Training Bodybuilding
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21 years old male, 172cm, 75 kg (on cut 80 → 72). Skinny fat. Developed lower body, underdeveloped upper body. 1.6-9g of protein per kg of body weight. 1.5 year of training experience and have primarily been strength training without much hypertrophy-specific training.

I’m looking into fixing my physique (aesthetics). I primarily train using tactical barbell program (hybrid/op) and was thinking about switching to hypertrophy training as an off-season deviation. My plan is to switch to Zulu H/T (from Green Protocol) and reduce my conditioning (30-45 min LISS 2 times a week to somewhat maintain my aerobic capacity).

My primary goals is to grow bigger chest, back, and arms — basically my whole upper body.

Zulu H/T consists of workouts A and B. It’s a 4 day template consisting of 2 primary lifts (A - OHP/SQ, B - BP/DL) and pull ups as a finisher exercise + 2-3 accessory exercises for both workouts – A and B (4-6 in total).

The problem is that I have problems with pull ups and can’t yet do respectable amount of pull ups to switch to weighed pull ups — I can only do 2 body weight pull ups. For them, I’m following Athlean X 0-5 pull up program. It consists of negatives, Australian pull ups, and leg support pull ups. Won’t it interfere with Zulu as I’m gonna use it as a substitute for actual pull up? Additionally, I’m going to do this training session in the evenings — after a gym session basically.

The accessory exercises I’m gonna use:

Workout A: OHP/SQ + face pulls, calf raises, and dumbbell rows

Workout B: BP/DL + incline bench press, lateral raises, triceps pushdowns

finisher: abdominal machine on day 1 and 4

*I dropped biceps work as I’m afraid it will interfere with my pull up program (0-5).

What are some tweaks I could make in my plan to maximize my hypetrophy gains?

Thank you for reading this far. Have a blessed day!

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@T3hPwnisher as the resident expert on this program.

Just two quick thoughts from me:

  1. Huge kudos on thinking about what needs to come out of a program when you add something in - seriously refreshing.
  2. Pull-ups, in my opinion, are not enough for big arms. Folks that say so typically have underdeveloped arms relative to what I think people want when they say they want bigger arms. That said, I’m not suggesting you put curls back in. Focus on pull-ups for now, get good at them, your arms likely will grow, and just be aware you will probably have to address them more specifically down the road… but that’s future @Ismail999’s problem
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Thanks for your reply!!

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Direct from The Green Protocol

“After you reach your first pull-up make the switch and do sets of 1 if necessary”

With that, here’s what I would do. It says “3-5x12/10/8” I’d key in on the sets, rather than the reps. Let’s max out the sets and do 5 sets in a workout. On workout 1, that’s 5 sets of 1. Workout 2, try 4 sets of 1 and a set of 2. Then 3 sets of 1 and 2 sets of 2. Keep it up until you’re at 5x2. You see how this pattern goes.

From here, the assistance is whatever you want it to be. Nothing wrong with curls: strong arms are helpful.

You are doing no assistance work for your lower body, aside from calf raises. Your glutes/legs are your biggest muscles. Neglecting them will NOT help you maximize hypertrophy. Meanwhile, workout B has you absolutely smashing ALL your pressing muscles. I’d move incline bench to workout A and consider using dips in workout B to remove those tricep pushdowns. From there, I’d include some sort of lower body assistance exercise. I like belt squats.

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wow, thank you for your comprehensive feedback, sir! It’s not the first time you’re giving me valuable advice! Much appreciated

By the way, I really liked the progression on pull ups that you suggested. Again, Thank you!

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Definitely echoing this.

To be fair, pull ups/chin ups do add a bit of indirect volume but it falls far short of actually isolating the arms in terms of outcomes. I’ve never actually seen someone say pull ups are all you need for arms who has arms I would want to trade with mine lol.

Personal anecdote sure, but even in my experience it rings true. I just hit a three plate pull up, and if pull ups were the golden ticket for arms mine would definitely be bigger than they currently are based on my pull up numbers. Even if it’s a future goal after focusing hard on vertical pulls for a season, if you want big arms then do your curls.

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I’ve never actually seen someone say pull ups are all you need for arms who has arms I would want to trade with mine lol.

I will say we have an exception with our very own @Alpha / Brian Alsruhe, who, with his arms at his biggest, did not employ curls and relied on indirect arm stimulus via chins, rope pulls, etc

image
image1280×720 233 KB

A photo from a youtube video on the very subject

However, Brian has very recently started to include curls in his programming and has spoken positively of them. Which also corresponds with after him having torn his bicep.

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I don’t normally comment on these kinds of threads, but I’ve tried to run Zulu H/T twice - key word tried. It’s HARD. Get ready. I think in the book he mentions it being a 3 week kickoff to a much longer block, rather than something meant to be run continuously. I believe that.

Here’s what I would do if I were giving it another go, but from your shoes.

A days: Superset the OHPs and Squats, then superset DB Inclines and DB chest supported rows (assistance rep scheme), then superset some kind of curl (assistance rep scheme) with some ab work

B days: Superset the Bench and Deadlifts, then superset DB Presses and some kind of machine row (assistance rep scheme), then superset some kind of curl (assistance rep scheme) with some ab work

I would do pullups at some other part of the day, if possible; if not I would use them as a 5-10 minute warmup to your main workout. Your progression scheme seems fine.

I would do a ruck or fun run/fobbit that included squats or swings or both as my conditioning. I would call this “good enough” for my lower assistance work, since you are already squatting/deadlifting 4x a week.

Hope this is helpful!

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I would do pullups at some other part of the day

This has been my favorite way to include chins into TB. Just a daily goal to hit.

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I will definitely hold that there are exceptions and will gladly place @Alpha on that list! Great stuff, I wish my arms would do that. In the vast majority of cases, though, this is not the norm.

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Oh yeah: it’s why I called him an exception, haha.

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I, too, didn’t expect it to be THAT HARD!! Definitely not going to run it for a long time, just a 3 week “treat”. Those 4×10 squats left me gasping for air haha

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