There are several things you should be able to do as a human, one of the most essential is to pull your own bodyweight. In todays society this doesn’t hold much weight, we no longer have to escape from many things, we don’t have to track and hunt our prey. However, this should be no excuse for not being able to pull your own body weight! Anyone familiar with my training techniques will no that bodyweight always comes first! If you can’t do 10 pull-ups you have no business doing dumbbell curls. So what can you do about it? Well, lets start by doing more pull-ups, all kinds of pull-ups.
Everyone on earth should be able to do 10 pullups!
I see people spending hundreds of dollars every month on gym memberships, supplements, bosu-balls, and other ludacrisly priced equipment designed to get them strong and ripped fast… But they can’t do a – single – pullup…
The pullup is one of the fundamental ways to determine your strength level, don’t get caught up on what you can bench press, they real measure lies in how well you command your bodyweight with a pullup.
Being able to control your own bodyweight is essential, until you can do a perfect form pushup, situp, dip, and pullup, you should not waste your time with weights or circuit machines. This is non-negotiable, as a Viking, these exercises should make up the core of your routine until you have full control of your bodyweight. Full control means:
- You are comfortable pushing or pulling your bodyweight at any tempo (fast and quick or slow, deep repetitions)
- You are able to perform high volume working sets before muscle fatigue (5 pushups doesn’t wear you out)
- Your form is perfect. Your pullups are strict, no kipping (cheating) is required to make it through your set.
- You are at a point where you need to add weight or resistance to make your working set more difficult.
Here are some tips to start mastering the pullup:
1.) Lose bodyfat:
The mechanics here are simple, the leaner you are, the less dead weight you are dragging around that you have to lift. The Viking Muscle principal has always been to make your body as efficient as possible, make yourself as strong as possible for the weight you carry. Each pound of useless bodyfat you shed is a pound less you carry on a run, press on a pushup, and pull on a pullup.
2.) Use manageable working sets:
As you work toward building your pullup strength, be smart about how many repetitions and sets you try to take on. If you try to step up to the bar and do as many pullups as possible to failure each time you are going to miss out on a chance to progress measurably. Make sure before you start, you know what your current pullup max is. From there you can start with breaking your training into working sets that have you increasing your total volume each week. For example: If you currently can only do 5 consecutive pullups, 5 is your starting max. From there you can start with your max + 50% over 3 sets, so 5 + 2.5 = 7-8 pullups over 3 sets (or 3 sets of 2). Increase this by 10 % every week or so depending on difficulty.
3.) Focus on Form:
When you are starting out or even when you are doing sets of 20, make sure your form is perfect. This means, on each rep:
- You start with your shoulder blades locked into place bearing the weight on your muscles not your ligaments
- Your hands grip the bar at a shoulders width apart
- You drop your body all the way down until there is only a slight bend in the elbow (very slight!)
- You pull your chin all the way over the bar (or better yet, you get your chest to the bar)
- You drive your elbows down initiating the lats (not just pulling with your biceps)
Before each set go through this quick form check in your mind and make sure each rep is a perfect quality rep.
4.) Mix up your grips
To build all the essential support muscles you will need to do your pullups using a variety of different bar grips. this will insure that you are working all the muscle groups and not leaving a weak link in your pullup routine. Each week, change up the style of grip as you move through your working set. Try all of these variations:
- Chinup: The same movement as a pullup, but use a shoulder-width, underhand grip.
- Neutral-grip pullup: The same movement as a pullup, grip the parallel bars of the pullup station so your palms are facing each other.
- Wide / Short Grip pullups: Try bringing your grip wider than shoulder width and shorter as well.
- Towel Pullup: The same movement, put a gym towel over the pullups bar and grab it with your hand to pull yourself over the bar.
- Fat bar Pullups: Make it harder by using a wider bar, this puts more focus on your grip and forearm strength.
5.) Strengthen your grip:
Your grip is going to be the cornerstone to mastering the pullup. As you develop your muscular strength, you will notice your grip giving out in your fingers and forearms. Since the pullup is a full upper body workout, the grip is just as important as the back and biceps in your development. There are plenty of ways to build your grip up from finger squeeze devices to using fat bars like i mentioned above. Try adding a static bar hold in each week, simply hold onto the bar as long as you can until your grips starts to give. You can also do this by holding 2 45lb plates at your side as well.
Start using these 5 tips to build your base strength and work towards mastering the pullup.
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