Alternative to Pull-Ups!

Hey I just started lifting a month back… and yeah figured that my lats are pretty weak. I can’t possibly do a single pull up… and was wondering whether anyone has a routine to strengthen back as a whole !

slave, I’m struggling with something similar.

http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/readTopic.do?id=2004438

is a topic I recently opened up.

45 and 90 degree bent over rows are great and so are one-arm dumbbell rows.

Rack pull ups and medium / close grip pull ups are also the best way to get your pull up numbers up.

If you want to strengthen your back work out 4 times per week and do an upper/lower body split

on your upper body day make sure you do some selection of:
rack pull ups, dips, rows, decline throw overs (think its called this, when you lay on a decline and hold a dumbbell between both hands and throw it from overhead to your chest)

on your lower body day do deadlifts and squats (among other things you’d like to do)

Negatives have helped me with back strength. You kick, or cheat, your way up on the concentric movement, then lower yourself slowly on the eccentric portion.

There’s something called fat man pull-ups. I’m not exactly sure what they are, but they are said to be useful for building strength for those not strong enough [or too fat] to do regular pull-ups. But I would still train the pull-up movement itself. Build strength with assisted pull-ups and assisted chins if you have access to a machine you can do them on.

Try a chin up (palms towards you) or a neutral grip chin up (palms towards each other), even if you can only do 1.

Look up “Keep your chin up” an article by CT.

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
There’s something called fat man pull-ups. I’m not exactly sure what they are, but they are said to be useful for building strength for those not strong enough [or too fat] to do regular pull-ups. But I would still train the pull-up movement itself. Build strength with assisted pull-ups and assisted chins if you have access to a machine you can do them on. [/quote]

Fat man pull ups are basically inverted rows, you set up a bar low in the rack, grab on to it and row your body up.

Hanging from the bar is also helpful when you can’t kick and cheat your way to the top of the bar. Machine chins !

do chin ups instead

You can also try jumping pull ups, but you need the equipment to do them. Just set a bench, some of those aerobic stairs, basically just something where you can comfortable grip the pull up bar while standing. Then jump and pull. Don’t set the bench too high and jump your head over the bar, just try to add a little vertical momentum to assist in the pull up.

The other one is kipping pull ups. They are kind of hard to learn, but get a little swing going, pick up your knees, and throw your hips forward. It takes the horizontal momentum of the swing and translates it to vertical momentum. The kip is big in gymnastics.

Well yeah … i have been ddoing assisted chin ups and pull ups… which one do you think would be more effective… and at what pace should i possibly increase the weights… !?

try doing pulldowns till you can do your own weight, also t-bar rows is an awesome back strengthening exercise.

My g/f went from no chins to one chin in about 3 weeks by simply doing jumping chins: jumping up as much as is required to do the complete movement. She had prior to this used those assisted chinup/pullup machines and got basically nowhere with them. She also works her back by doing pendlay rows roughly twice a week.

Keep on the assisted chinups. You can move more weight that way than with pull ups so do them. Increase the load every time you achieve your target. You should be trying to do 3 sets of 5 each time. The actual rep/sets are not important as long as you have a benchmark so you can monitor progress.

Do horizontal rows as well. There have been a few suggestions here: Fat man pull ups, T rows, bent rows, etc. Also deadlifts, one heavy set a week (with warmups of course.

Try to get more frequency. When you are new, you can do a hard workout every 2 days (because it’s really not very hard yet). That’s why whole body workouts are recommended for beginners.

Stu