http://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-female-soldiers-fail-3-pullup-requirement/
There's all this drama about whether female Marines can do pull-ups. Which is dumb… because women do pull-ups all of the time!
So I've been doing this 10 years, and I can tell you that female clients get 3 pull-ups within a year of training 2x per week.
People knock the assisted pull-up machine these days, but it's not that hard to increase someone's 10 rep pull-up by 10 pounds per month. And if they're hard dieting and losing weight, it can increase faster. This isn't with any special "pull-up program". I'm just talking about doing them.
And when someone gets down to about 40 pounds of assistance, then some real magic happens having them do partials for reps, hangs, negatives, ect.
As a correlation, most of my female clients hit 3 pull-ups at the same time they landed in 19-21% range. So food, obviously, is a major factor.
The one thing I would add, silly as it sounds: If you want to get better at pull-ups, you have to do them. They have to have some level of priority. Like, you have to do them. It really, really, really can be as simple as mixing up the assisted pull-up machine once a week (get 10 pounds stronger every month) with some pull-up bar hangs/partial pull-ups once a week.
And the pull-up hangs and partial pull-ups are a really important transition step that most people miss. When you get under 50 pounds of assistance, you should spend some time on the actual bar, even if it's just a hang.
And it's important to note that just having them be important, and doing them, is enough. I don't (usually) have my clients do pull-up specialization programs. They're just doing assisted pullups twice per week inside of fat loss supersets
I'm a huge fan of having female clients do pull-ups. Really, with strength training and a the right nutrition, 3 pull-ups usually hits right at 19-21% body fat.
by Josh Hillis
P.S. One of the best fat loss workouts I've ever written is called Fighter Workouts for Fat Loss, and is now available in Kindle format for under $3
Love your point that just making them a priority and practicing them regularly is enough.
I find myself using lots of inverted rows at varying angles (more similar to a pull up) to progress resistance. Its often a lot easier than getting a client to the nearest assisted chin machine, and is getting the job done well.