Tag Archives: pull-up

goals, Health/Fitness

The Pull-Up Saga Continues! (Includes advice!)

(First off, no, that’s not a photo of me. Photo by mentatdgt from Pexels.)

So, some people are probably tired of hearing about my continual inability to do even one pull-up. Trust me, I’m more tired of talking about it. 😉

But I think I’ve finally hit upon the formula that works (at least for me) so I wanted to share it.

Short version, do more sets.

Really, I should have realized this sooner, because the basic formula for weight lifting is:

Training Volume = Sets x Reps x Weight

Now, I am aware that there is plenty of debate about the best ways to play with those numbers. But I’m just sharing my experience and what works best for me. 🙂

First of all, I can’t do much weight, so there’s not a lot of wiggle room there. 😉 So that leaves sets/reps.

And actually, even as I’ve gotten stronger and been able to pull more weight, it works better for me to do less weight (to a point) more times.
(This article by Nerd Fitness is my favourite article about getting that first pull-up, and I’ve read a *bunch*. They recommend doing 3 sets/day, 3 times/week. That’s where I started, but I’ve found that I make faster progress doing more sets/day, especially when I’m not able to do very many reps (sometimes I progressed faster than I really should have). The main problem with this method is most of us have to go to work, and we probably don’t have the opportunity to do these exercises several times during our work day. On days when you’re home (or maybe you work from home!) it’s relatively easy to just do a few extra sets (assuming you have a pull-up bar), since each set only takes a couple of minutes. (If you don’t have a pull-up bar at home, I recommend getting one! My husband & I got one from Amazon several years ago and I think it was less than $30. This one, but unfortunately it’s not currently available.))

I’ve been following the guidelines in that article, but also making it my own to a certain extent. I’ve been doing a mix (off-and-on) of assisted pull-ups (with resistance bands) and negatives. (See this post for more info.)

My two main takeaways from that article by Nerd Fitness have been:
1. keep doing your current routine until you can do 5-8 reps/set
2. negatives should NOT be “all out”. Holding them for 3 seconds is good. (As I was getting stronger, my negatives were getting slower and slower, but I was never able to do *more* of them in a set. This seems REALLY obvious now, but I didn’t realize it until I reread that article.)

I have reread (or at least skimmed through) that article *several* times through this adventure, and I frequently notice things that I hadn’t picked up before.

It’s also great to mix things up. When you stop seeing progress, switch from assisted pull-ups to negatives, or vice versa.

Okay, that’s all the advice I have for now! I hope you are seeing progress towards whatever fitness goals you’re currently working towards. And again, if you’d like some extra support, please contact me!

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Routines I’ve Tried for Getting That First Pull-Up (Still Waiting, but Making Progress)

So, as I’ve said before, I still am not able to do my first pull-up.

But I have learned some things along the way.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to be able to do a pull-up (or a chin-up, I’d be happy with either, but I’m starting with pull-ups). Several years ago my husband bought one of those pull-up bars that fits in a doorway. He was using it a lot, but I got discouraged because I couldn’t do one and didn’t know how to start trying.

Assisted Pull-ups with a Chair:

Then a friend shared a trick with me. She told me to put a chair under the pull up bar, and use my legs as much (or as little) as I needed.

I was excited to try it, since when you do that you get through the whole range of motion. I started with 10 reps (1 rep being a pull up and letting yourself back down. I tried to go down slowly so that I was working my arms in both directions.) I was doing that about every other day.

Negative Pull-ups:

Similar to my friend’s idea with the chair, except you just climb up to the pull-up bar and then lower yourself down as slowly as possible. Although this is a great method, if you’re just starting out (like I was) I recommend keeping a foot on the chair (or using resistance bands) so that you’re not just free-falling. 😉

I think negatives work the best for me. I saw a video online that mentioned that doing negatives really just makes you better at negatives, which makes sense, but I *am* able to pull myself up farther, even though my progress might be slow.

Assisted Pull-ups with Resistance Bands:

So, I got super excited about this because it seemed so cool to be able to actually pull myself up, even if it was with help. But then *after* purchasing them, I did some *more* reading, and resistance bands have disadvantages because the “help” isn’t even (more help when the band is stretched more at the bottom, less help as you get up towards the pull-up bar), plus there can be momentum from the band kind of snapping back into its unstretched position.

But, I went ahead and tried them. But honestly, I don’t think I gained much/any strength using them. I think negatives work better for me. But I also think I might go back to them sometimes, because using them would be better than not doing anything, and it gets discouraging when I’m not seeing improvement.

Other Exercises:

I haven’t actually tried this, mostly because I like to keep things simple. But there’s a lot of info out there on the web if you want to try exercises like ring rows to build up the muscles you need for pull-ups.

My Routine:

This has evolved as I’ve continued to read and try things, but basically this is what I did/do with most of the methods I discussed, unless stated otherwise:

Do as many reps as I can
Break for 2 minutes
Repeat until I can’t do any more
The whole process takes less than 10 minutes (although I guess it could take longer if you’re stronger)

I currently use negatives, and so where I used to several pull-ups if I was using the resistance band, now I only do 1 negative before resting for 2 minutes. But that’s if I do a REALLY good negative. REALLY slow. If I don’t try as hard I could do more. So it’s something you have to figure out for yourself.

However, I found that I wasn’t making progress any more with that, so I decided to do that 2-3x/day (which is hard if you’re at work all day and don’t have access to a pull-up bar). Then I still wasn’t making progress, so I decided to do it 3-5x/day, but that hasn’t been working, because of logistical reasons (like being away from my bar) and just flat not wanting to do that. 😉 So . . . I’m still figuring it out.

What’s your favorite method? Do you have any tips? Do you want to join me on this journey? Let’s chat in the comments! 🙂

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