Pull-ups are one of the best exercises you can do, period.
They stimulate muscle growth so much that they are probably the best exercise for the upper body. In fact, doing pull-ups can have the following effects on your body:
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Wider back
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Wider shoulders
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Bigger arms
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Stronger forearms
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Greater gripping force
They are one of the best exercises I have used, and they give results very fast, especially if you haven’t done pull-ups before. You will see changes in your body in less than 2 weeks, if you do them every day.
However, pull-ups are not easy. In fact, most people can start to push-ups fairly easily, but chin-ups take some practice; most people don’t really have the strength to do a single one.
So how do you build strength for pull-ups and then reap the benefits of this fantastic all-round muscle builder?
That’s how.
Build strength to do pull-ups
The only way to become strong enough to do pull-ups is to actively train for it. You need patience, but if you can invest in this for a few weeks, you will easily conquer this exercise.
Phase 1: eccentrics only
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To start, you should focus on the eccentric part of the movement, which is when you lower yourself to the bottom. This is also called “negative”, and this is where you start to develop a lot of the strength needed for pull-ups.
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Just jump up and grab the bar and using the momentum of your jump or with a chair, get on top of the movement with your chin on the bar.
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Then release your legs from the chair (if you are using one) and lower yourself to the bottom AS SLOWLY AS POSSIBLE.
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This is a one-rep exercise and you shouldn’t try it more than 4 times, therefore 4 sets during one session.
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Your goal is to work to stretch your negative from top to bottom for as close to 20 seconds as possible. I mean, it should take you 20 seconds to get from top to bottom. Once you can do this in all four sets, you are ready for the next phase.
Phase 2: eccentrics with pauses
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As in Phase 1, reach the top of the bar, but this time, as you get off, pause midway.
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Hold your pause for 8-10 seconds.
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Then go down two-thirds.
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Hold for another 8-10 seconds.
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Then go down to the bottom.
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Rinse and repeat, 4 sets in the same way.
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Once you can do this, move on to Phase 3.
Phase 3: Spotter + 2 ankle support
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By now, you should be ready to start doing full-range pull-ups with support. This is where having a friend or an observer really helps.
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Grab the bar, assume the lower chin-up position and bring your ankles together, and ask a friend to grip your ankles firmly.
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This way, when you push your ankles into his hands, you will push yourself up.
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Do this and work your way up to 12 reps in one set. When you can do that, move on to Phase 4.
Phase 4: Spotter + 1 ankle
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This phase is the same as the previous one, but now your helper will only grab 1 ankle for support.
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This forces you to use your stabilizer muscles more to generate the power needed for the lift.
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Do this version until you can get 12 reps in one set.
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Then move on to the next phase.
Phase 5: Spotter + waist support
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Final phase: the helper will now support you by holding you around the waist as you rise towards the bar.
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Once you can do 12 reps this way, you are good to go.
Proof
Now, you should try to perform a strict pull-up without support. If you followed the program, you will already be able to do about 4-5 clean reps without any help.
From now on, it’s all about practice and practice. Keep it up and watch your numbers increase!
Last words
If you can only do 4 pull-ups, keep doing sets of 4 as often as you can, you will progress very quickly to 5, then 6, and so on.
The other way to do it is to set a numerical goal, so let’s say you decide to do 25 pull-ups at once, but you can only do 4 at a time. Do all 4 pull-ups. Take a short break, maybe 30 to 60 seconds. Then do 4 more. Then take another break. Now try again, you may only get 3 reps, and that’s fine. Do the 3, take a break, do something else. Keep going until you get 25. You will have to polish them up and therefore you may end up with a series that looks like this:
4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1.1
And that’s perfectly fine. Next time you try it, it might look like this:
4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1.
Keep going: you’ll eventually need fewer sets to get to 25, which means your maximum pull-ups per set has automatically gone up from 4 to 5 to 6 to 7 and so on.
Once you can do more than 10 reps in a set, it’s time to add weight. You can do this with a dumbbell between your legs or by wearing a weighted vest.
That is all. This is how you improve on chin-ups. This is a great movement for building muscles, so be sure to add them to your routine.