[quote]!vic wrote:
Awesome goal, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. I think you should focus on doing negatives and weighted negatives (chinups) to build your strength.
CT covers just about everything in his “Keep your chin up” article, even providing a newbie routing for someone how can’t perform one chin up yet:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=460273[/quote]
Bingo.
Now, ZEB, don’t make fun…
Actually, since this thread came back up I’m happy to report that I can now do one! At each workout this week, I would jump up and lower myself down as slowly as possible 3 times using the palms facing each other grip. (what’s that called?) Today I was able to hoist myself totally up to the bar for my first sloooooow negative. 
Hopefully I can use them in my next program. Thanks again for the tips!
[quote]Jillybop wrote:
Now, ZEB, don’t make fun…
Actually, since this thread came back up I’m happy to report that I can now do one! At each workout this week, I would jump up and lower myself down as slowly as possible 3 times using the palms facing each other grip. (what’s that called?) Today I was able to hoist myself totally up to the bar for my first sloooooow negative.
Hopefully I can use them in my next program. Thanks again for the tips![/quote]
Congratulations!
I was in no way “making fun” of you.
Keep up the great work you will be doing reps on that bar in no time.
GREAT progress and keep ut up!!!
[quote]Jillybop wrote:
…using the palms facing each other grip. (what’s that called?)[/quote]
The neutral grip.
Congratulations on the PR! Looks like its time for a new goal.
I would highly recommend starting with chins,or pullups when your fresh, and on a non workout day hit a set in the morn and later in the evening if you have a chin bar at home. The body will quickly adapt to the chins without overtraining if you hit them often without straining or going to absolute failure on them.
Go to your local hardware store and buy about 10 feet of bungee cord. 1/4" cord costs about 20 cents a foot. Fasten it to the bar and stand in it. The bungee will assist by lifting some of your weight. The assistance decreases as you reach the top. At least this way you’ll be able to take your body through the movement several times. Grease the groove.
Use every tool in the box.
Good luck.
TNT
Jillybop,
Yea, surprised someone hadn’t posted this before…
You can use bungees, machines, etc., but you may simply prefer to recruit the help of a spotter…
TNT is right… grease the groove… visualize the real lift… get a spot… and in a few weeks, you’ll crank the chin over the bar!
[quote]TNT-CDN wrote:
Go to your local hardware store and buy about 10 feet of bungee cord. 1/4" cord costs about 20 cents a foot. Fasten it to the bar and stand in it. The bungee will assist by lifting some of your weight. The assistance decreases as you reach the top. At least this way you’ll be able to take your body through the movement several times. Grease the groove.
Use every tool in the box.
Good luck.
TNT[/quote]
[quote]ZEB wrote:
What is a “Pull-up?” Is that anything like a Pulldown on a machine?
I love machines :)[/quote]
I did not like the machines in the Terminator movies. They were evil.
I would agree with a lot of the other posters and say do negatives. All the other complimentary exercises you are doing sound good and I think if you incorporate negatives you will be surprised at how they will help you get firstly that one pull up but not stop there. In time you can keep using them to help you hit the rep ranges you want.
Had an awesome workout this morning! Third squat day of ABBH (5x10 @ 80%) - killer, but I did them all.
And then, at the end of my workout, I did 3 consecutive neutral-grip chinups! THREE! Then I beat my chest and roared for the whole gym to hear, “Bwahahaha, I am an Iron Goddess!” OK, I didn’t yell anything, but I wanted to 
Anyway, thanks for all the tips - I’ve been doing a few just about every day at the swingset or at the playground, and after each of my regular workouts I do a few real slow negatives.
Progress is fun! 
Congratulations and keep up the good work.
TNT
AWESOME form none to three in no time.
Damn fine work.
Keep it up, you are an inspiration.
[quote]Jillybop wrote:
Had an awesome workout this morning! Third squat day of ABBH (5x10 @ 80%) - killer, but I did them all.
And then, at the end of my workout, I did 3 consecutive neutral-grip chinups! THREE! Then I beat my chest and roared for the whole gym to hear, “Bwahahaha, I am an Iron Goddess!” OK, I didn’t yell anything, but I wanted to
Anyway, thanks for all the tips - I’ve been doing a few just about every day at the swingset or at the playground, and after each of my regular workouts I do a few real slow negatives.
Progress is fun!
[/quote]
You are testimony to what working hard and working smart can do for someone!
i didnt take the time to read all the post on here but all the pull-up gurus agree doing small sets of 5 all thru out the day with added weight. and buy doing static holds in the top middle and bottom postion.
Just a quick bump since I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this lately. I’ve made good progress using the advice in this thread, so thanks everyone!
Greasing the groove and static holds seem to work really well for me, and for the few people that i’ve trained. Just started my girlfriend on static holds on the bar, she’s got a long way to go, but she’s into it.
Start fresh, try not to fail and use the strongest position, which is usually chin ups. When you can pump out 5, then try neutral and pull up position.
Jump ups to get you up there are fine as long as you control the decent. I usually do an extra long eccentric for my last rep.
What an AWESOME thread. It’s just what I’ve been looking for. Thanks for all the advice.
I’ve been working on full pull ups for two weeks, and still cant do one. SOOO close, though. I can do 2 sets of flexed arm chins,and they were hard at first too!
Just a question, do you all agree to try to do a few of these spread out throughout the day? Ive been working to failure (and soreness!) maybe twice a week. What’s best?
Also, what’s “greasing the groove”? (yes, I’m new). You guys are great.
[quote]bjalifts wrote:
Just a question, do you all agree to try to do a few of these spread out throughout the day? Ive been working to failure (and soreness!) maybe twice a week. What’s best?[/quote]
Grab a coffee, sit down, get comfortable, long boring life story coming up:
When I was 15 (a long long time ago) I thought I was pretty fit. I played basketball every day, could jump quite high (I’m a small dude) and run fast, but also long. So, when our highschool gym teacher decided to check how in shape we all were I thought “piece of cake.”
There were a number of exercises to perform: how far you could run in 12 mins, how many situps in 60 secs, etc. The last test was how many pullups you could do. I’d done pretty well in all the rest, so when he called out my name I swaggered over to the bar (in front of all my class), jumped up, and performed…2 pullups. :-s
Needles to say I was very ashamed of myself.
Now here’s what I did–and hopefully this might answer your question (see, there was a point to my rambling story!). I bought a chinup bar and fitted it in my sister’s bedroom (mine didn’t have a proper space to put it up in), whenever I walked by her room I would do as many pullups as I could.
OK, so I started with 2 pullups and 0 chinups. After 3 weeks or so I was up to 5-8 pullups, and maybe 3 chinups–but never performed one after the other, always separately. This means I was probably performing 3-7 sets of either chinups or pullups every day.
After about 3 months I was bored! I could do 45-50 pullups and 20-25 chinups. Needless to say, at the next fitness test our gym teacher conducted I smoked the competition. I think after I got to 30 and was still going strong, he said “OK, OK, just get down, you’ve got the A.”
There’s a recent article (can’t remember by whom) talking about training a particular body part 4-5 times a week at low intensity to get it to grow (there’s talk of mechanics and soccer players in it). It’s more or less the same principal. Of course, being a girl your results might come more slowly, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t reap the same benefits.
Epilogue:
I still have a chinup bar, even though I’m living away from home now. I do chinups whenever I feel like blowing a bit of steam, and once a year I try to go up to the 25 region over 4-6 weeks. For old times sake.