But the picture was so cool I had to use it anyway!
I have this thing about first pullups – I help people get them all the time.
My clients all get their first pullup.
All of them.
One year or less.
My boot campers, if they are close to their first pullup, we’ll get them there in about ten minutes.
Here’s how:
Your First Pull-up Plan
Start every workout with pull-ups. Cut all other pulling out of your workouts.
- Day One: 3 x 3 Assisted Underhand Pull-ups
You can “assist” pull-ups with an assisted pull-up machine, a flexband, or having a friend hold your feet. - Day Two: 3 x 3 Slow Underhand Pull-up Negatives
The “negative” part of the movement is the lowering part of the movement. So you would climb or jump up to the top, and lower yourself down slowly (like four seconds down), then climb or jump back up and lower yourself again. - Day Three: 3 x 3 Assisted Overhand Pull-ups
Assist the pull-ups again (machine, flexbands, friend) but this time overhand – with your palms facing away from you instead of facing towards you. - Day Four: 3 x 3 Partial Range of Motion Underhand Pull-ups
You could start with 1/4 range pull-ups. Over the next month work your way into 1/2 range of motion pull-ups. Then over the next month or two, work into 3/4 range of motion pull-ups.
Do Pull-ups Often, Never to Failure, Before Every Workout
This isn’t a new idea, I borrowed it from strength genius and kettlebell guru Pavel Tsatsouline in his landmark bodyweight strength training book: The Naked Warrior.
He calls it “Grease the Groove”, I just call it “Do It All The Time”.
It’s pretty simple: If you want to get good at something, you do it all the time, and you do it *fresh*, at the beginning of the workout.
How To F*ck It Up
If you go balls to the wall all the time, you are going to burn out fast.
The trick with doing something every day, is that you almost NEVER do a 100% set.
I always have my clients rate each set on a scale of 1-10, from 1 being asleep to 10 being a hard enough set that their form is wrong.
I want these 3 sets of 3 every day to be about a 7 or an 8 on that scale. It’s relatively easy.
Here is the thing about relatively easy – I want it to stay relatively easy… and I want you to get better at it.
You want to get stronger and stronger… at relatively easy.
Active Shoulders
Shoulders down and back – this is what’s called an “active shoulder”.
Not only will your shoulders feel better, but I’ve seen clients get their first pull-up just because having an active shoulder is so much stronger a position to pull from!
An active shoulder is very simply a shoulder pulled down and back.
While this seems to make sense for people at the top of the pull-up, it’s much harder at the bottom of the pullup.
If *AT ANY POINT* in the movement, your shoulders jump up and/or forward, then the movement is wrong.
You do not ever want to practice wrong movement….
…Because you get better at doing it wrong. *doh!*
Tension
When you want instant strength, tension is your friend.
Squeeze the bar as hard as you can, brace your abs like I was going to punch you in the stomach, and brace your butt like I was going to kick you in the butt.
Don’t Pull Yourself Up
Trying to pull yourself up often leads to a weaker pulling movement.
What I want you to think about is pulling the bar to your shirt.
We’re really good at creating motor patterns for moving a thing to a thing. Oddly, we’re not as good at focusin on our own bodies. At least not from a strength perspective (there are muscle gain and physical therapy times to focus on muscles and moving our bodies).
So just think: Pull bar to shirt.
If you’re really a nerd, look up Gabrielle Wulf’s research on internal versus external cues for movement performance, or Nick Winkleman’s work on external cues and athletes.
Pull the bar to your shirt.
You’ll be shocked at how much stronger a pull that is, if your pull-up form wasn’t dialed in before.
You Can’t Handle The Pull-ups!
Look, if you’re in the marines and you can’t do a pull-up, they’re going to put a bar of soap in a sock and beat you with it until Tom Cruise takes Jack Nicholson to court.
But sadly, in the general population, most people can’t do a pull-up.
Pull-ups are one of my favorite fat loss strength movements.
They immediately reward strength…
…and they immediately reward low body weight.
If you clean up your diet and drop ten pounds, your pull-ups will get better!
They also look cool.
Less than 3% of the people in the gym can do a pullup. That means that if you are doing pullups, you’re automatically cooler than 97% of the people there And that’s half the fun.
So jump on the *rock your pull-ups* program, and join the 3% of the population that’s lean enough and strong enough to pull themsleves up to the bar!
A Couple Benchmarks
People always like benchmarks, so I’ll give you some.
I’ve noticed that, in general, most of my female clients get the body they want (usually under 21% body fat) right around the same time that they get 3 underhand pull-ups.
Even though my specialty is fat loss for women, occasionally I train dudes, and the dudes I train usually are in the neighborhood of 10+ overhand strict pull-ups and/or weighted underhand pullups with 53lbs.
Now, as usual, I always have to mention that we’re hitting the nutrition hard at the same time. And without the nutrition being right, you could hit all the pullups in the world and it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
So rock your pullups AND rock your food.
-Josh Hillis, RKC2, NASM-CPT/PES, Z-R/I
I’ve been working in this since you tweeted the program to me 4 weeks ago. I haven’t been concentrating on the down and back shoulders though, so I’ll make sure to do that from now on.
I haven’t done a pullup yet… But I’m feeling a definite strength difference! Judging from my pullup & fat loss progress right now, you’re probably right that I’ll hit my first pullup and 21% BF at the same time. I can’t wait!!!
Thanks again for continuing to be awesome!
Mel
“What I want you to think about is pulling your elbows down and back.
That’s right, forget about the bar.”
WHY OH WHY has nobody told me this before? tonight i just did my first unassisted pullup thanks to this little piece of advice. seriously, thank you.
We’ll get you there rockstar! One year or less!
How are you with tension techniques? Are you rocking those also? Are you making progress (like are your pullups getting 5-10lbs stronger each month?)
This is the awesomeness! You totally earned yourself a DOUBLE HIGH FIVE!!!! That’s so kick ass!
Oh, man… I hope it’s not a year! I’m hoping for another 2-3 months!! lol
I haven’t added any specific tension techniques as separate training. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean concentrating on tension during the pullup itself?
It’s hard for me to give you an objective measure of my pullup progress. I have a pullup bar at home and do assisted pullups by putting my foot on my bench and giving myself as much assistance as I need to get moving. I can do the top half of the pullup unassisted, but not the bottom, so this usually means giving myself a small boost at the bottom (from dead-hang) and then doing the rest of the motion unassisted. I feel now like I don’t need to give myself the same boost as I used to. I can’t use bands because I’m allergic to latex and they’re all made of real rubber. The closest I have to an objective measure is that, with my partial pullups, I’m dropping at least 1-2″ every week.
My sister-in-law is allowed to bring a guest into her gym sometimes – maybe once per month or so I should go with her and test my strength on their assisted pullup machine?
Mel