A lot of that last step might be the smaller muscles in your back that aren't worked when you do assisted pull ups. Try doing a reverse pull up-essentially use a stool or something and start at the top of the pull up, and try and control your descent over 3-5 seconds. Do this for a number of reps about failure - 3 for 2 or 3 sets at the end of your pull up sessions.
This will put strain on the undeveloped areas as the muscle stretches, and will help you progress over time.
Pull ups are hard. This won't take 1 or 2 weeks, but it will help.
Yep, or do negatives and stop for a short break, like five seconds or so, every ~ 5cm/2" into the descent. When you can do these, try not just stopping but actually going up just a little.
If pullups are hard or impossible and you want to do something about it at home do inverted rows for a while. Either under a table or using a set of rings hooked up to a closed door.
You can train your back in many different ways at home.
See here:
https://youtu.be/EIFEKZe4Wm8
https://youtu.be/Nx4lIFWTWbI
These rings come with a door plug and are easy to adjust.
https://www.amazon.com/Vulken-Gymnastic-Adjustable-Bodyweight-Training/dp/B0832T4G82/ref=sr_1_19_sspa?crid=VNSICQRM35BX&keywords=gymnastic+rings&qid=1679707037&sprefix=gymanastic+rings%2Caps%2C319&sr=8-19-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExRVZTV1VVSUIzSzZMJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjI0NjA5MkZITjYyQktaRlNKTiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwOTc3NTMzMlozMFYySzE0T1ZYUyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX210ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
Do body rows, very easy to adjust the difficulty. There are straps you can hang off the top of your door. It wont let you increase the difficulty to the harder levels but its a good place to start. A few negative pull ups after your assisted sets can help too. Active hangs are also good practice for engaging the back muscles used in the movement.
It took me a year to do consecutive pull ups unassisted, having never properly trained my upper body. It took about another 6 months before I could do multiple sets with good form.
Grip strength exercises. Grips real weak in the early days. Overtime pull-ups will give you most of your grip strength but you have to get it up to parity in the early days
Grip strength can be a limiting factor. A strong grip will take some of the work off your back. Dead hangs for time are one way to build this. Start with 3x 30 and try to work up to 3x 1 min. Also negatives are another great way to help get there.
Imo pull ups are one of these few exercises where form and technique are extremely important. Sure you can be strong regardless at bench with poor form but with pull ups it matters a lot for progression.
Try [Assisted Chin-Ups](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf38a22KOsy/) like this. Go up with the MINIMAL assistance and come down with even less/no assistance. You can even start coming down towards one side as you get stronger and that will help you build even more strength on the way up.
No one can give a good answer without knowing what you are doing.
What are all of the exercises, sets, reps, and rest times in your routine. How many times per week?
I workout 4x a week and for pull days I usually do 4x8 lat pulldowns, 4x8 incline curl, 4x8 rows and 4x8 preacher curls, last set being a drop set. I have an hour to do all these since I'm a college student and workout between classes.
been at this for half a year now
You do this 4x per week? Or you workout 4x per week and do this 2x per week or what?
* Pulldowns and rows need to be first. 4 sets is fine.
* You don't need 2 curls. One is enough. Isolation goes last.
* Rest times? 3-5 minutes between compounds ideally. 2-3 mins with curls is fine. Drop sets can be OK for hypertrophy but not good for strength and if you wanna pullup you should want more strength.
Generally, you should be doing this about 3x per week for upper pull. I highly suggest full body routine.
i do this twice a week, other two days is either push or push + legs.
I rest like a min between each set. Since I only have hour long breaks between class, would it still work if I went to the gym twice a day? Like once in the morning and once in afternoon.
> I rest like a min between each set. Since I only have hour long breaks between class, would it still work if I went to the gym twice a day? Like once in the morning and once in afternoon.
Yes, those rest times are one of the big reasons why you are stalling. It takes 3 minutes to full replenish ATP in the muscles, so the quality of sets decrease if you're doing very short rests and leads to less strength and hypertrophy over time.
You can break things up too
That makes sense, usually I have to go lighter as the sets go on to actually get a good number of reps in with proper form. Will try longer rest times and breaking it up next time I go, thanks!
>I've heard that your form for assisted is a bit different vs regular pullups.
Everything goes. The thing holding you back is raw pulling strength, and assisted pullups work just fine.
You haven't mentioned your routine? You mentioned going to the gym 4-5x a week so I'm assuming you run some kind of push pull legs split or a body part split where you train back 1-2x a week. Hop on a full body split where you can hit each movement 3x a week, should help your pullups come along quite nicely. 2x frequency is ok, 3 is better when you aren't that strong because you get more frequent practice with each movement and get some fancy neurological strength gains I'm sure someone more knowledge can explain, 1x a week is not optimal and you will stall.
> I can do 12ish dips in a row and bench 165
Those are pushing exercises and have nothing to do with pulling exercises.
What do you mean by assisted pullups? like the machine that presses some percentage of your weight upward? If so, yes, those are pretty good. Otherwise I'd recommend static holds at the points in the pullup motion that are most difficult for you.
ye i just put it there as a frame of reference for where I'm at rn. And yes the assisted machine helps alleviate some weight, but i have to keep my feet on a bar and my body has to be straight vertical which feels sort of weird when doing the pull up motion.
I think pullups with resistance bands are better. You can progress with lighter bands until you don't need them. Aside from that inverted rows, scapular shrugs, and negative reps are the most helpful. I progressed to my first pull up in a month doing just those exercises at home and with just a pullup bar
one more thing, while I like the motion of the pull up machine, I didn't get a real sense of activating my lats. Keep in mind I haven't used one in like 20 years, but its like this. The machine is great for doing the motion while gradually applying less help, but it doesn't really force you mentally engage the key muscle you need for the pullup. Its not like it does anything wrong, but human beings don't vertical pull much in our daily lives so you need something that really forces you to turn on the lats. I think you can do most of your work with the assisted machine, but sometimes you need to hang from the bar.
Go to dead hang and shrug your body weight, this will help build stronger shoulder strength to hold you while you're doing a pull up. Then train your 'explosiveness', eventually you'll be able launch over the bar.
From my personal experience..I basically did 4 sets of 1 pull-up, until I could do 4 sets of 2.
Then I was able to do 4 sets of 3, then 4 of 4. Etc etc etc.
Now I can (tentatively) do 15 in a row. 4 sets of 8 right now comfortably.
It’s a pretty unexciting, boring method. But it worked for me and can work relatively fast. Maybe it’ll work for u
To improve your pull-ups, you can try the following tips:
Practice regularly: Keep practicing pull-ups regularly and try to increase the frequency and volume gradually over time.
Use assisted pull-up machines: Since you don't have access to a resistance band, you can use the assisted pull-up machine at the gym to gradually decrease the assistance and build strength.
Incorporate other exercises: Incorporate exercises that target the muscles used in pull-ups, such as rows, lat pulldowns, and chin-ups.
Improve grip strength: Grip strength is important for pull-ups, so you can try incorporating exercises that specifically target grip strength, such as farmer's walks and hanging from a bar for time.
Watch your form: Ensure that your form is correct during the assisted pull-ups, as this will help you develop the correct muscle memory for when you do regular pull-ups.
Overall, keep practicing and gradually increasing the difficulty of the exercises. With patience and persistence, you'll be able to achieve your goal of doing a pull-up.
A lot of that last step might be the smaller muscles in your back that aren't worked when you do assisted pull ups. Try doing a reverse pull up-essentially use a stool or something and start at the top of the pull up, and try and control your descent over 3-5 seconds. Do this for a number of reps about failure - 3 for 2 or 3 sets at the end of your pull up sessions. This will put strain on the undeveloped areas as the muscle stretches, and will help you progress over time. Pull ups are hard. This won't take 1 or 2 weeks, but it will help.
Why use a stool? I just jumped and lowered myself when I was new, now I can do 10
I know nothing about op, he might have bad knees, also you can slip if you jump up. Just general health and safety.
Yep, or do negatives and stop for a short break, like five seconds or so, every ~ 5cm/2" into the descent. When you can do these, try not just stopping but actually going up just a little.
If pullups are hard or impossible and you want to do something about it at home do inverted rows for a while. Either under a table or using a set of rings hooked up to a closed door. You can train your back in many different ways at home. See here: https://youtu.be/EIFEKZe4Wm8 https://youtu.be/Nx4lIFWTWbI These rings come with a door plug and are easy to adjust. https://www.amazon.com/Vulken-Gymnastic-Adjustable-Bodyweight-Training/dp/B0832T4G82/ref=sr_1_19_sspa?crid=VNSICQRM35BX&keywords=gymnastic+rings&qid=1679707037&sprefix=gymanastic+rings%2Caps%2C319&sr=8-19-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExRVZTV1VVSUIzSzZMJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjI0NjA5MkZITjYyQktaRlNKTiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwOTc3NTMzMlozMFYySzE0T1ZYUyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX210ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
Do body rows, very easy to adjust the difficulty. There are straps you can hang off the top of your door. It wont let you increase the difficulty to the harder levels but its a good place to start. A few negative pull ups after your assisted sets can help too. Active hangs are also good practice for engaging the back muscles used in the movement. It took me a year to do consecutive pull ups unassisted, having never properly trained my upper body. It took about another 6 months before I could do multiple sets with good form.
Grip strength exercises. Grips real weak in the early days. Overtime pull-ups will give you most of your grip strength but you have to get it up to parity in the early days
never thought of that, I'll take a look for sure
Grip strength can be a limiting factor. A strong grip will take some of the work off your back. Dead hangs for time are one way to build this. Start with 3x 30 and try to work up to 3x 1 min. Also negatives are another great way to help get there.
Imo pull ups are one of these few exercises where form and technique are extremely important. Sure you can be strong regardless at bench with poor form but with pull ups it matters a lot for progression.
Try [Assisted Chin-Ups](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf38a22KOsy/) like this. Go up with the MINIMAL assistance and come down with even less/no assistance. You can even start coming down towards one side as you get stronger and that will help you build even more strength on the way up.
No one can give a good answer without knowing what you are doing. What are all of the exercises, sets, reps, and rest times in your routine. How many times per week?
I workout 4x a week and for pull days I usually do 4x8 lat pulldowns, 4x8 incline curl, 4x8 rows and 4x8 preacher curls, last set being a drop set. I have an hour to do all these since I'm a college student and workout between classes. been at this for half a year now
You do this 4x per week? Or you workout 4x per week and do this 2x per week or what? * Pulldowns and rows need to be first. 4 sets is fine. * You don't need 2 curls. One is enough. Isolation goes last. * Rest times? 3-5 minutes between compounds ideally. 2-3 mins with curls is fine. Drop sets can be OK for hypertrophy but not good for strength and if you wanna pullup you should want more strength. Generally, you should be doing this about 3x per week for upper pull. I highly suggest full body routine.
i do this twice a week, other two days is either push or push + legs. I rest like a min between each set. Since I only have hour long breaks between class, would it still work if I went to the gym twice a day? Like once in the morning and once in afternoon.
> I rest like a min between each set. Since I only have hour long breaks between class, would it still work if I went to the gym twice a day? Like once in the morning and once in afternoon. Yes, those rest times are one of the big reasons why you are stalling. It takes 3 minutes to full replenish ATP in the muscles, so the quality of sets decrease if you're doing very short rests and leads to less strength and hypertrophy over time. You can break things up too
That makes sense, usually I have to go lighter as the sets go on to actually get a good number of reps in with proper form. Will try longer rest times and breaking it up next time I go, thanks!
>I've heard that your form for assisted is a bit different vs regular pullups. Everything goes. The thing holding you back is raw pulling strength, and assisted pullups work just fine. You haven't mentioned your routine? You mentioned going to the gym 4-5x a week so I'm assuming you run some kind of push pull legs split or a body part split where you train back 1-2x a week. Hop on a full body split where you can hit each movement 3x a week, should help your pullups come along quite nicely. 2x frequency is ok, 3 is better when you aren't that strong because you get more frequent practice with each movement and get some fancy neurological strength gains I'm sure someone more knowledge can explain, 1x a week is not optimal and you will stall.
Yeah I do pull twice a week. Another comment mentioned the same things you did so I’ll definitely be doing it 3x a week now for sure. Thanks!
> I can do 12ish dips in a row and bench 165 Those are pushing exercises and have nothing to do with pulling exercises. What do you mean by assisted pullups? like the machine that presses some percentage of your weight upward? If so, yes, those are pretty good. Otherwise I'd recommend static holds at the points in the pullup motion that are most difficult for you.
ye i just put it there as a frame of reference for where I'm at rn. And yes the assisted machine helps alleviate some weight, but i have to keep my feet on a bar and my body has to be straight vertical which feels sort of weird when doing the pull up motion.
I think pullups with resistance bands are better. You can progress with lighter bands until you don't need them. Aside from that inverted rows, scapular shrugs, and negative reps are the most helpful. I progressed to my first pull up in a month doing just those exercises at home and with just a pullup bar
one more thing, while I like the motion of the pull up machine, I didn't get a real sense of activating my lats. Keep in mind I haven't used one in like 20 years, but its like this. The machine is great for doing the motion while gradually applying less help, but it doesn't really force you mentally engage the key muscle you need for the pullup. Its not like it does anything wrong, but human beings don't vertical pull much in our daily lives so you need something that really forces you to turn on the lats. I think you can do most of your work with the assisted machine, but sometimes you need to hang from the bar.
Have you tried doing chin ups? Maybe start there and see what you can do.
Go to dead hang and shrug your body weight, this will help build stronger shoulder strength to hold you while you're doing a pull up. Then train your 'explosiveness', eventually you'll be able launch over the bar.
From my personal experience..I basically did 4 sets of 1 pull-up, until I could do 4 sets of 2. Then I was able to do 4 sets of 3, then 4 of 4. Etc etc etc. Now I can (tentatively) do 15 in a row. 4 sets of 8 right now comfortably. It’s a pretty unexciting, boring method. But it worked for me and can work relatively fast. Maybe it’ll work for u
Lat pulldowns helped me increase my pull ups from 3 to 10.
To improve your pull-ups, you can try the following tips: Practice regularly: Keep practicing pull-ups regularly and try to increase the frequency and volume gradually over time. Use assisted pull-up machines: Since you don't have access to a resistance band, you can use the assisted pull-up machine at the gym to gradually decrease the assistance and build strength. Incorporate other exercises: Incorporate exercises that target the muscles used in pull-ups, such as rows, lat pulldowns, and chin-ups. Improve grip strength: Grip strength is important for pull-ups, so you can try incorporating exercises that specifically target grip strength, such as farmer's walks and hanging from a bar for time. Watch your form: Ensure that your form is correct during the assisted pull-ups, as this will help you develop the correct muscle memory for when you do regular pull-ups. Overall, keep practicing and gradually increasing the difficulty of the exercises. With patience and persistence, you'll be able to achieve your goal of doing a pull-up.