Many of our long-time readers already know that I’m a big fan of the “dip” and consider it to be one of the finest upper body exercises for building mass and strength.
But there’s another upper body exercise that’s just as good for building strength and size.
In fact, some people even call it the “upper body squat”.
I’m talking about the old, tried-and-true pull-up. Not only will pull-ups pack meat onto your biceps, but the pull-up may also determine your level of athletic ability.
Coach Joe Defranco believes that the number of pull-ups you can do is tied directly to your time in the 40 yard dash.
Many guys have certain lifetime goals for weightlifting: The 300lb bench, 400lb squat and 500lb deadlift are excellent lifetime goals for natural (drug-free) trainers.
But I’d like to add one more to that list: 20- Pull-ups.
In this article, I’ll show you how to improve your pull-up performance and get you closer to the lifetime goal of 20 consecutive pull-ups.
First, let’s quickly define the difference between a pull-up and a chin-up.
Pull-ups: Palms AWAY from your face.
Chin-ups: Palms TOWARD your face.
It doesn’t matter which style you use but it’s important to know the difference.
What You Need To Know On The Road To 20 Pull-ups:
#1) Be patient. While many people can increase the weight by 5lbs on the squat every single time they perform the exercise, there’s no such luck with pull-ups. In fact, it’s completely normal for the average trainer to increase the number of pull-ups he can accomplish by one rep in a month. While that sounds incredibly slow, that’s an additional 12 pull-ups after one year of training if you can continue at that pace.
#2) Excess body fat will hurt your numbers. This is one of the reasons why pull-ups are such a good indicator of overall athletic ability. A fat guy can knock out plenty of reps on the bench press but when you are working with your own bodyweight even 5 pounds of excess body fat will hamper your efforts.
#3) You need different strategies based on your current level of pull-up prowess. Just as the guy bench pressing 285lbs will need a different strategy than the guy bench pressing 85 pounds.
So here are three different strategies you can use to boost your pull-up numbers:
Strategy #1: Multiple Sets With Half Of Your Maximum (For the guy who can do more than 5 pull-ups but less than 10.)
Let’s say you can only do six pull-ups in a row. For this example, what you would do is multiple sets of 3 pull-ups. Basically, you want to spread this out throughout the day. Perhaps installing a doorway pull-up bar in your bathroom doorway. And everytime you enter the bathroom, stock and knock-out and 3 pull-ups.
Shoot for a minimum of five sets per day. With this strategy, you will find yourself able to more than 10 pull-ups in a matter of weeks.
Strategy #2: Alternate between weighted and non-weight pull-ups. (For the guy who can do more than 10 pull-ups but less than 15.)
When you can do more than 10 pull-ups, it’s time to start adding some additional resistance. I recommend you alternate between regular pull-ups and weighted pull-ups. So one week you do regular pull-ups with no additional resitastance and the next week you focus on weighted pull-ups for lower reps. (Choose a weight that allows you to get around five reps per set.)
Incorporating weighted pull-ups will automatically increase the number of regular pull-ups you can do.
Strategy #3: Incorporate Speed Sets (for the guy who can do more than 15 pull-ups but less than 20).
When you can get 15 pull-ups or more, you’re in the home stretch. Now is a good time to make sure you strip off any excess bodyfat because that could make all the difference on your way to 20 reps.
It’s also a good time to incorporate speed sets. Speed sets teach your muscles to “fire faster” and as a result can improve your performance. So for this strategy, you’re going to do 10 sets of 2 pull-ups (bodyweight only). Rest 60 seconds between sets. Each rep should be performed explosively. Meaning that it’s your goal to go from dead hang to chin above the bar in a lightening fast manner. Aim to make each rep faster than the last one.
With these strategies and a ton of hard work you could reach the goal of knocking out 20 straight pull-ups.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Matt,
Great article, ill be sure to add pull ups to my routine. I saw what you said in the last paragraph about muscles firing faster. The accepted belief is that bigger is better, but this video here:
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-total-access/09000d5d808feae0/NFLTA-Polamalu-s-rehab
they say that faster muscles are better than bigger muscles. What is better to have?
If you’re competing in a sport with weight classes (wrestling, boxing, powerlifting), then some guys will purposefully try to avoid increasing muscle size and focus only on pure strength and explosiveness.
However, I would not say that faster muscles are better than bigger muscles. Because for the most part, bigger is usually faster. And in the case of NFL players, they all need size.
Great post Matt, and I really wished more average Joe’s would spend more time @ the bar than in the gym. One thing I love about pull-ups is either you can do them or you can’t. I can use poor form to push a weight off of me, but once you grab the bar, either you can pull yourself up or not …
Keep up the good posts.
Matt, I am 60 years old and have been working in the gym for many years. I am 6’0″ and weight 210. I used to do heavy weights bbut now do lighter weights at 20 reps per exercise. I do biceps, forearms and chests (mostly pushups for chest) one day and back, triceps and shoulders the next day. I work both routines twice a week, resting 4 to 5 days between each routine. But, I can’t do pull-ups because my shoulders just won’t take it. They both need operations, bone spurs, etc., and I try to do pull-ups using a resistance machine. I can do them with about 150 lbs resistance, but not without any resistance for the 210 lbs. I have found that push-ups have increased my chest strength far more than just weights. I would like to do pull-up and chin-ups for the upper body. I just want to keep in shape at 60 years of age. Any suggestions?
Thanks Muata.
For those of you who don’t know, Muata runs a very famous fitness blog. Check it out by clicking his name.
@ Derek:
I don’t have any personal experience with bone spurs, however I have talked with others who claim that high reps help alleviate some of the symptoms from their bone spurs.
So you might want to try high-rep pull-ups (between 15-20) using whatever level of added assistance you need to get into that rep range. Hope that helps.
Very famous fitness blog? Hey, who’s this guy?
Thanks for your kind words Matt, but my blog is far from famous. I’m just glad that through my blog, I’ve found other great fitness blogs, like this one, that gives simple and effective advice. Thanks again and keep the great posts coming Matt!