Pullups (yes, this is another noob asking about pullups)

[thescrawnycaveman]

Ok, so I just had a quick and easy question about this particular exercise. Currently I can only do two pullups. Should I continually do these two pullups until I can do three and so on, or should I do something slightly easier that I can do more reps of?

I just feel when I only do two that I'm not doing much of a work out. Sure getting that second pullup requires a lot of effort, but once I get down my muscles don't hurt and I barely feel like I've done anything.

[Glenndingo]

No, don't do anything easier. Throughout the day (and subsequent weeks) do a pull up about every hour. If you have an 8 hour work day try to do one every hour, and one when you wake up and one before you go to sleep. Your number and ability to do pull ups will improve quickly, quickly enough so that the very next week you can do two pull ups every hour, on the hour, and two when you wake up and before you go to bed so on so forth. When you can get 5-8 dead hang (DEAD HANG*!!!) pull ups then you can begin doing a more pull up oriented program. Bodyweight exercises respond very well to the frequency method.

*DEAD HANG refers to grabbing the bar and letting all your weight hang dead, then pulling yourself up EACH REP. No swinging, no kipping. I know cross fitters like to do kipping pull ups to get a lot of them done, but our goal here is to develop bottom strength. Pull ups are the body weight equivalent to dead lifts if performed properly in the sense that with dips and pushups you generally start from the up position and on the way down your muscle stores energy for the upward motion. If you do dead hang pullups you will build your ability to do pull ups faster, then progress to different variants. Speaking of different variants, you can alternate between doing a pull up and a chin up (hands pronated vs supinated or "palms out" "palms in").

Once you're doing a good number, look up my old post "the Afghan anywhere workout" or the "Armstrong pull up routine". It's GREAT for doing pull ups.

[thescrawnycaveman]

Thanks for the advice, I don't know if I will be able to do them every hour, but I will definitely do them multiple times a day and see where it gets me. Also, I already do dead hangs. I've always been sort of a form Nazi, so with pullups I don't sway very much and start with arms fully stretched. I'm like that for all workouts, especially curls. I can't stand seeing someone curl who is practically whipping the wait to their chest with their back... Makes me wanna smack them. But anyways, I'll give these tips a shot and see where it gets me. Thanks Glenndingo!

[Junglizer]

I'd definitely agree with doing things like chin-ups to help out. When I first got my pull up bar I couldn't do any pull ups, I got it to start doing chin-ups as part of Steve's RSG BW. Now I'm up to 2 pull ups.

[thescrawnycaveman]

Problem with chin up is that I don't have anything I can really do it on. I do my pull ups on an outside staircase, chinups would be close to impossible to do on those.

[Junglizer]

Yes, that would make it difficult. Before I acquired my pull up bar, I was in the same situation. Everyone always suggests a tree or a playground, but I live in the city, and unfortunately there isn't much around. It's mostly parking garages, and while I constantly keep my eyes open for stuff, I haven't really found anything that wouldn't be highly frowned upon.

[thescrawnycaveman]

Same here man. City life sucks. At least thats my opinion. The only thing people like about the city, tends to be all the things indoors, when it comes to the outdoors, it is physically stifling.

[Knightwatch]

In addition to the often-as-you-can approach, do your max pullups right to the beginning of your workout, even if it's 2. Then do some of your other exercises, maybe adding in one more pullups between each movement. So do two pullups, and then move on to, say, pushups or whatever. After you've done all your sets of pushups, but before moving onto, I dunno, squats or whatever, try to do one pullup. Do all your squats, and before starting the next movement, one more pullup, if you can. At the end of your workout, try pullups one more time. This time, if you can't do a full one (or maybe even of you can, lemme ponder that one) try a few negatives: hoist yourself into the top position, and then slooooooooooowly lower yourself, slow as you can. Do that a few times. Or, do like 10 jumping pullups, or a few assisted pullups (using a chair or whatever to legpush yourself up as needed, still pulling as much as you can)

So, one regular set to start. A few singles scattered thoughout the rest of your workout between other movements. And to finish, higher reps of a pullup assistance move, like negatives or jumping or assisted.

You'll be banging 'em out in no time.

[Saggy Z]

Have you considered Inverted Rows?

http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/11/06/inverted-row-are-you-missing-out-on-this-great-exercise/

[thescrawnycaveman]

Knightwatch, Thanks for the great advice! I'm definitely going to try that, but I think I'm going to have to reserve it for my hard days. I don't think I could handle that everytime I work out.

Saggy Z, Thats the sort of thing I was asking about, whether I should do something like that until I can do more pullups or not. The consensus seems to be not to go easier for more reps, but instead just do as many pullups in a day as I can.

So far today with this advice I've done 5 pullups, and I'm about to go do another one or two. I can not wait until I get to the point of being able to do 5 or 10 in a row. For me, that is beast status.

[Vanilla Bean]

If you're having problems finding places to do pull ups have you looked into getting a door frame pull-up bar? They are great for just about any variation of pull-ups and chin-ups (though I do worry about smacking my face with kipping so I haven't attempted any of those on it).

I picked mine up at Fryz for about $20, and that is a steal for how much I have used it!

[thescrawnycaveman]

I've thought about getting one, but I hesitate because one time I was at my friend's dorm and he had one. I decided to give it a shot. I was promptly greeted by the floor with a hearty hello. It just slipped off the frame right after I grabbed onto it. And I'm not even a heavy person by any means. So I'm a little skeptical how that'll work out if I get one.

[Vanilla Bean]

Did he have one of the tension ones that was just a bar pushing out against the door frame? I don't care much for those either.

But I've never had a problem with mine, and I've had it for about a year and a half now. It looks very similar to this: http://www.asseenontvguys.com/iron-gym-pull-up-bar.aspx

You just need to be sure it is on straight, your friend might not have had the top bar resting on the door frame.

Aside from getting one of those, have you checked out your local parks? Most parks these days seem to have bars and other body weight fixtures around them for training.

[thescrawnycaveman]

Thats the one he had that slipped. Maybe it wasn't on straight or something. There is a park near me, but there are only two potential spots that are possible to do pullups on, but very difficult. One is the top of a swing set that is about 10 feet high (no joke), the other more reachable one is extremely thick and hard to hold onto. For now the stairs work pretty well for pull ups. But I might get a pull up bar so I don't have to go outside everytime I want to do pull ups.

[Timmy M]

i would say do you're pullups as regular as mentioned but negative the last one, jsut try to hold it as long as possible (not locked out at the top but just until you feel your bodyweight dragging you down and resist it all you can)

[MarcTheEngineer]

Do your max # of pull-ups, then do Kipping Pull-ups (sway back then drive upwards with your knees to aid your pull-up) until you can't (probably 1 more) then do some jumping pull-ups (different from Kipping in that you use the ground to start your pull) until you can't anymore.

[Timmy M]

or that ^... or both...

[Pulse]

I started at 1 full pull-up at the beginning of this year, and now I'm up to 3 sets of 6 reps, last week I almost made it to 9 reps in a row. Back when I was only doing one or two reps, I just focused on doing at least 3 sets of what I could do, and doing them regularly (3x a week) eventually adding 1 rep to each set. Later on doing negatives after all my sets helped with increasing my rep count.

Also I've been doing this entirely on a doorframe pull-up bar.