How to do more pull ups

[Vegemighty]

Ahh pull ups. The ultimate weakness for many of us. I can do about 4-6 depending on spacing, but I can't do anymore. Whats the best way to do more? Is the answer just to do them more frequently?

[King_mob]

Greasing the groove (doing them everyday) certainly works, as do negatives and assisted pullups (if you have a band). I suck at pullups, your already over my max, and my plan for improvement is negs everyday, as that is what got me from zero pullups to a few.

[Knightwatch]

If you can manage 4-6 at any given time, do 2 or 3 as often a you possibly can. I'm talking every day, upwards of 10 sets a day. If you can, get a doorway pullup bar for home, and every time you pass through that door, bam, a couple pullups. Never take it anywhere close to failure, even if you're doing just one at a time.

Or, if you can only manage a short period of time per day, do ladders. Image you have a partner (or, hey, get a partner), and trade off sets. You do one pullup, and rest for as long as you imagine it would take a partner to hop up, do one, and get back off the bar. Do two pullups. Rest for the amount of time it takes a partner to do two f their own. Do three. Same deal. Then, go back to one. Then two. Then three. Go back to one. Repeat a couple times through. If you're at 4-6, though, maybe capping the ladders at 2 would be best. So it's be sets of 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. Right there, you've done 12, without ever taking any set to failure.

But really, use that only as needed, and do the spread-throughout-the-day method, also called Greasing The Groove, as often as you can .

[js290]

Ahh pull ups. The ultimate weakness for many of us. I can do about 4-6 depending on spacing, but I can't do anymore. Whats the best way to do more? Is the answer just to do them more frequently?

[K Po]

If you can manage 4-6 at any given time, do 2 or 3 as often a you possibly can. I'm talking every day, upwards of 10 sets a day. If you can, get a doorway pullup bar for home, and every time you pass through that door, bam, a couple pullups. Never take it anywhere close to failure, even if you're doing just one at a time.

Or, if you can only manage a short period of time per day, do ladders. Image you have a partner (or, hey, get a partner), and trade off sets. You do one pullup, and rest for as long as you imagine it would take a partner to hop up, do one, and get back off the bar. Do two pullups. Rest for the amount of time it takes a partner to do two f their own. Do three. Same deal. Then, go back to one. Then two. Then three. Go back to one. Repeat a couple times through. If you're at 4-6, though, maybe capping the ladders at 2 would be best. So it's be sets of 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. Right there, you've done 12, without ever taking any set to failure.

But really, use that only as needed, and do the spread-throughout-the-day method, also called Greasing The Groove, as often as you can .

This is exactly what I did. At home, I set up my pull up bar by either by the kitchen or the bathroom (two places I frequent the most). Whenever I'd pass by it, I'd have to do pull ups. Definitely got better at pull ups. Switching up grips works too.

[Knurdle]

I would say a combination of what everyone else has said. I tried doing the negatives once I was able to do about 5-6, then I started doing them just once a day to max reps, that got me to about 8. Then I took a few days off to rest and came back at it again and my max jumped after those couple days of rest.

I actually just did my max chinups(12) and max pullups(11) after about 5 days of not working out at all due to being sick and just being busy in general.

That was a nice surprise.

So to summarize my rambling, try the different techniques everyone else mentioned and try resting a few days every couple of weeks.

[Quickdraw]

Volume is the key. Over the past few years, I've gone from doing 0, to 3 as a Marine recruit, all the way up to 20 now after years on active duty. I've actually got a set of workouts I suggest for friends who are trying to add pullups, condensing all the varieties of stuff I did that got me to 20.

-Ladder

Do one pullup, wait 5-10 seconds. Do 2, wait 10-20 seconds (basically, maintain the same amount of break-time-per-pullup throughout). Continue to build up until you cannot complete the next set of pullups. Still do as much of it as possible; if you KNOW you're not going to get seven, but still get 5, those 5 are still worthwhile. For added challenge, immediately do 20-40 pushups and ladder again. (Note that, unlike a pyramid, you only count up until failure; there is no coming back down).

-21-15-9

Do 21 pullups in as many sets as necessary to get 21 altogether. Then do 21 dips. If you have dip bars available, use them, otherwise do dips with your hands on a chair behind you and your feet together on the floor straight out ahead of you. Repeat with 15 pullups-15 dips, then 9-9. Once you can finish this reasonably easily, add 3 to each set.

-Negatives

Pullup, then stay hanging for as long as possible at each stage as you come back down. Do until you can't pull up.

-Top-half focus

Execute a full pullup, but only come down halfway (upper arms parallel to the ground). Pull back up. Repeat until you can't remain up. Do 10 narrow-grip pushups, rest half a minute, repeat. Do at least 3 sets, or until you can't get at least 3 pullups out of it. Keep your legs straight and together. You'll find that this adds pullups quickly, as the last few inches of your final pullup depend on the weakest muscles while the rest of your body could still give more. This exercise equalizes the strength of those muscles. As a bonus, it also works the upper half of your abs.

-Three halves

Divide your max pullups in half, round down. That's your number. Do three sets of that many. After the first set, rest 30 seconds. After the second, rest 45. If you complete all three sets at your target number, add one the next day. This exercise improves short-term recovery, and will build your ability to do longer sets of ladders.

-Leanback

Position your hands slightly wider than shoulder width apart, overhand grip. Lean back until your upper body is nearly parallel with the deck. Pull up quickly and come back down slowly. This will burn you out faster, but long-term it builds your back muscles very effectively. My old squad leader used it when he wants PT to be done quickly.