ok, I haven’t been able to catch another full pull up since finally getting one a week or so ago. close, but no cigar.
so, which is a better way to train pullups:
A - assisted so you can get the full ROM
B - unassisted, pulling up as far as you can, holding for 2 seconds and then down on a slow 1.
I’m doing B and it seems to have been working but was wondering…
You can also do negatives. Use a box or a chair or just jump up into the full pull up position and then lower yourself as slowly as possible. Try to make the lowering last like 10 seconds if you can.
Try it out.
I did a set like that last week. i wasn’t as sore as other times.
maybe I shouldn’t be associating soreness w/ effectiveness but I do.
Negatives are the way to go.
As for soreness, negatives (or the eccentric/lengthening portion of the lift) actually cause the majority of muscle soreness.
Yeah, I heard negatives work well if you can’t do a full rep.
Would that apply to other exercises as well? Say I can’t squat 350 but I could do a negative with it. Could you just use negatives with that weight until you can do a real rep? A muscle is a muscle so why would pullups be any different from squats?
Do you have the use of a gym???
I dont know what negatives are, but if u cant do a pull up, try the latural pull down machine so u can set the weight you want.
Sure it will. It’s just hard doing negatives for the convential lifts. Also, like anything results will dwindle with time and you need to be able to control the decent. You can’t just throw 500 lbs on the bar and contonuously collapse under it to eventually be able to lift it. I think Thibadeau wrote an extended article for T-Mag about eccentrics and isometrics with a 4-8 week program for busting through plateau’s.
What tune have you tabbed on ur footer Oso???
Just played it and the last note is in a diffrent key to the rest of the riff.
Do you have any aversion to doing both?
When I was trying for the one handed pull ups I’d do both assisted & unassisted. I’d do 5x5’s of assisted with an additional 10sec effort of unassisted after each assisted. Rest was at 60sec between each set.
At my peak I could do 8 one handeds on my right arm and 5 one handeds on my left. Tho’ my right handed did pull up further than my left - I really need to focus on the left side of my body more…
ok, I’ll give negative 3 workouts in a row then and see. I don’t have an aversion to either.
I’ve gotten success w/ what I’ve been doing:
the first time I could barely pull myself up a couple of inches going for ‘1’ and now, 5 weeks and about 8 or 9 workouts later, I can clear my nose but not my chin.
I can easily put mats just out from under the bar and step off.
manofkent:
It’s the primary riff from “Flashlight” by Parliament w/ Bootsy Collins on bass.
I think it’s supposed to be like that…FTR, I just picked bass up about 2 months ago so I don’t really know squat.
Pull up as high as you can and hold, and once you can no longer do that, just do the nagatives. That’s what I’m doing to work on a one handed pull up.
Originally posted by IronFist
Would that apply to other exercises as well? Say I can’t squat 350 but I could do a negative with it. Could you just use negatives with that weight until you can do a real rep?
Sure, but how are you gunna stop being crushed by it at the bottom? That’s the problem with negatives on a lot of exercises. Benchpress the same. Deadlift? You could do the eccentric part, but that’s the part you’re not supposed to do. For most exercises you’d need a couple of spotters to do effective sets of negatives.
Oso, IIRC you can lift 130-140% of your concentric max on the eccentric portion. So maybe do negatives but push it. Unweighted negatives might be easy, so start hanging weights off. E.g. if you can do negatives with say 10lb, you should be able to do the full ROM unweighted. I reckon the full ROM is important because when I approach failure I can still pull up the bottom 1/2 ROM - it’s the top 1/2 getting your chin over that I find the hardest part of the lfit.
Y’know, for things like squats and benchpresses, have any of you guys tried using those heavy chains that you drape over the bar and onto the floor? The point is that you’re pushing less weight where you’re weakest (at the bottom of the lift) and more weight at the top of the lift.
I’ve used them a few times before, but not enough to really tell if they help much or are an alternative to negatives on those kinds of excercises.
Yeah, I got some chains. Posted about it here too. I used them for several cycles with good success. I dunno if it carried over to my regular lifts but I was using them on squats and bench and lifting near my unchained maxes at the bottom of the lift and quite a bit more near the top. The only problem is you need a calculator or piece of paper and pencil to work out your weights before you start a program. I stopped using them because I train early morning in my backyard and they clank like hell on my power rack. I meant to wrap cardboard around the power rack frame and start up again but I keep forgetting to do it.
Originally posted by Toby
Sure, but how are you gunna stop being crushed by it at the bottom?
Dude, it’s called spotter bars. They’re in the squat rack. And yes, it would be a pain in the ass to take the weight off and re-rack the bar up high again after each rep.
Oso, IIRC you can lift 130-140% of your concentric max on the eccentric portion.
Holy sh.it is it that high? I thought it was like 120%. Is it still considered “lifting” if it’s eccentric? Haha.
Originally posted by IronFist
… it would be a pain in the ass to take the weight off and re-rack the bar up high again after each rep.
That’s what weight releasers are for… 
It’s a lot easier than re-racking a heavy weight.
ok, need some more education:
would someone define ‘eccentric’ as it relates to this topic?
TIA
Concentric = the part of the contraction where the muscle shortens, like curling the weight up during biceps curls.
Eccentric = the part of the contraction where the muscle lengthens, like lowering the weight during biceps curls.
ok, thanks…so check me on this
Oso, IIRC you can lift 130-140% of your concentric max on the eccentric portion. So maybe do negatives but push it. Unweighted negatives might be easy, so start hanging weights off. E.g. if you can do negatives with say 10lb, you should be able to do the full ROM unweighted. I reckon the full ROM is important because when I approach failure I can still pull up the bottom 1/2 ROM - it’s the top 1/2 getting your chin over that I find the hardest part of the lfit.
so, I should be able to do 305+ (235x1.3) on the negative/eccentric portion of the pull up???
hehe, I could get one of my kids to hang on my back while I do negatives.