Complete Guide to Doing Your First & 100 Pull Up

Pull ups can be one of the most challenging exercise that you can do. However the benefits to athleticism and achieving your AESTHETIC BACK out shines the effort put into it.

I will give you a complete guide on how to master the pull up.

Context: I am around 70kg with a max pull up of 52.5kg weighted pull up

🔓Unlocking The Pull Up (0-1 rep)🔓

🐱Losing weight can easily increase the chance of you being able to do a pull up, however for those that are not overweight and was skinny like I was, losing weight quickly becomes a flawed tip.

🐱Focus on gaining the necessary muscles to increase your pulling strength. These will be the Lats, Upper back, Biceps, Forearms (to a small extend) and the core (for stabilisation). There is a high chance that your forearms are not the one that fail in doing your first pull up.

🐱But not all exercises are created equal, I have broken down an exercise tier list to differentiate the best to carry over exercises to the worst. (Disclaimer: you should not be only doing S-Tier exercises, rather they should be a focus and you should incorporate A-Tier as well, as they complement to help achieve your first pull up)

⭐️S-Tier: Assisted pull up/ chin up (with the machine or with bands), Lat pulldowns or chest to bar Lat pulldowns (Over/ Under or Neutral grip)

💯A-Tier: Chest supported row (Lat and Upper back Bias), Single hand dumbbell row, Straight arm lat pulldowns, Hammer curls, Planks, Hollow body holds

🥉Not worth doing-Tier: Dead hangs and Scapular Pulls

🥉(Reason: people often cannot do a pull up not cause they cannot hold the bar long enough, they simply cannot pull themselves up, therefore dead hang is not important for now. Scapular pulls teaches you how to engage the lats and shoulders into proper position, it builds limited muscles required to do a pull/chin up. However this can be a good warm up before doing pull/chin ups)

🐱Tip: Squeeze the bar as hard as you can as you attempt your first pull up. Bend the bar as if you are breaking a stick in your hands, this will help engage your lats and scapular. Keep your core tight. Drive and pull explosively giving all you got, chin should be above the bar to be a proper rep.

🐱When trying to achieve your first pull/chin up, stick with a grip. Example, pull ups use pronation grip (palm facing away from you), always use a pronated grip as much as possible for your assisted pull up. Same goes to chin up, using a supination grip (palm facing you). This can help you learn the skill faster.

📈Upgrading Pull Up Tree (1-15 reps)📈

🐥Congratulations on doing your first rep now all we need to do to upgrade this skill by simply do more of it

🐥Technique used: Greasing the groove

🐥Greasing the groove is simply doing the exercise repeatedly so that you can get sufficient practice with the skill

🐥Application: Let’s say you can only do 1 rep of pull up, simply pick any 2-3 times a day (or even more if you can recover) and do your max for 1 set. Example 8am: 1rep, 2pm: 1rep, 8pm: 1rep. The time line can be compressed, means you can do this in between rest time during your workouts.

🐥Benefit: This should not be a replacement for your regular workout, instead a compliment, as you can do this on top of your workouts

- Repeat this until you can do around 5 reps. You can then either continue greasing the groove, or program it in your workout and progressively overload: Secret to unlimited gains

💪🏼Advance Skill Tree (Weighted/Calisthenics/Hybrid)

🦁You have finally built your foundation. Now you can choose to branch it out into several skills tree by means of progressively overloading and improving your pull ups to reach mastery.

🦁Calisthenics route: To progressively overload by doing harder variations, like one arm pull ups, archer pull ups, muscle ups and more.

🦁Strength: You can overcome gravity and look super cool in the process. Better CNS (Central Nervous System) recover if you only use body weight.

🦁Weakness: Progression is not always as easy or linear, it means that if you can do 15 pull ups, it not necessarily means you can do 1 rep of one arm pull up. Also you need a lot of time to practice the skill.

🐯Weighted pull ups: Adding weight is the primary focus of progressive overloading. This is the skill tree which I personally branch into, as I prefer raw strength and it feels cool to lift a lot of weight imo.

🐯Strength: There is a better carry over to other lifts in the gym. It is easier to measure progression. Become very proficient in the bodyweight pull up.

🐯Weakness: If you progress too quickly it may be quite taxing on your CNS. There might be joint injury from doing one particular exercise too frequently without breaks.

🐯Tip: Switching grips every few training cycle can minimise the overuse of that movement to reduce joint injury.

🐸Hybrid: Of course you can do both which is the better idea

🐸Strength: Reap the benefits of the two

🐸Weakness: Steeper learning curve, as you need to juggle programming both and how to cycle them in your program. Take longer time to perfect a skill when doing both. Might be too taxing on your CNS. Recommended for more advance lifters looking to add more exercise variation in their routine.

‼️Bonus Weighted Pull Up Hack:

🦦Pick a weight that you can do for 5 reps. Example +20kg

🦦Do this (Reps x Sets) with +20kg at least Twice a week: 3x3, 3x4, 3x5, 4x3, 4x4, 4x5, 5x3, 5x4, 5x5

🦦Then one you are able to do 5x5 for +20kg strict pull ups, +10kg more (+30kg pull up)

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⭐️ P.S. I would really like to reach out to as many people as possible. If you find this helpful, do drop me a follow. Hope these help you feel less lost and more confident in your fitness goals❗️ #SolidApp

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