Pullup Program Need Help/Advice

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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[quote]Respeezy wrote:
Question, as i know my body and i recover pretty bad between sets, lets say i start and the 3d set i can only do 5 reps instead of 8 how do i go from there? Keep taking 1 minute rests and do as much whole reps as i can till i complete the same number of total reps i was about to do? (40 in this case)[/quote]

That’s one way to do it. Work up to a solid number of reps – so if you can only do 5, do 5, but work up to 8 over time before increasing weight. Try to beat your numbers next session, or at least by next week. If you go 8,6,4, try to get at least 8,7,4 next time.

[quote]I have no idea why, with squats and other exercises i am able to do the same amount of reps after 5 min breaks, but with pullups i suddenly crash from 10 to sometimes 5 reps, usually just -2 per set after 5 min though.

I’m guessing its either my overworked forearms and or i dont respond well to doing maximum reps in my first set, maybe its that… pullups are the only thing where i do more than 5 reps, so it might be that i have really bad endurance and the higher reps just tire out my muscles.[/quote]

You can speculate as to why, but at the very core, your body just hasn’t adapted to it yet. If you do it more, feed yourself, recover properly, then your body will adapt to the workload. IF it’s your forearms, they’ll get stronger by doing that. If it’s something else… it’ll get stronger doing that.

At some point, sure, you’ll probably need to figure out exactly what the problem is and take a more targeted approach, but no need to start there.

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Thanks.

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You could use Pavel’s Ladder program. Easy on the forearms and you’ll work with reps from 30 (starting) and finishing with up to 60.
It is designed over 13 workouts. If you do one workout a week this will give you 13 weeks (approx) of workouts.

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[quote]wilson1 wrote:
You could use Pavel’s Ladder program. Easy on the forearms and you’ll work with reps from 30 (starting) and finishing with up to 60.
It is designed over 13 workouts. If you do one workout a week this will give you 13 weeks (approx) of workouts.[/quote]

Hi,
I Just looked up the program and it does look interesting, i am going to start with the pogram Grippit suggested and i’ll keep this in mind, this looks like something i might try in the future on vacation for example.
Thanks.

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You can rest longer if you go with 5x8, working up to 5x10. The 60 sec rest referred to a study where they compared 4x10 and 120 sec rest with 8x5 and 60 sec rest (so 8 sets of 5). Total time was the same but 8x5 surprisingly came out the winner. 8x5 might be a bit milder on your elbows to start with, which is why I mentioned it. I can link to the study but I’m not sure if the mod will allow it:

If you go with 5x8, working up to 5x10 it might help to first do 1x5-6 at bodyweight/workset with a little longer rest, before you go to 5x8, just to ease into it a bit better. If you can’t make 8 in all 5 sets just slowly keep adding reps over time (which is what you’ll be doing anyway if you’re working up to 5x10).

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I will definitely need a little longer rest between sets, i tried it yesterday wanted to do 5x8 and some more till i hit around 50 reps.
Big dissapointment! I did 1 min rests, and got 8,7,4,4,3,3,3,4,3,4,4,4 reps. I expected to be able to do at least a couple of sets of 8.

Anyway i have something to work on now!