Where to begin with pull-ups? page

[afsjesse]

I'm sure that this has been covered before, however, how would you suggest starting with pullups? I can't do a full one by any means, but i'm interested in making that a goal to fulfill!

[Grumpycakes]

Put a chair under the bar and put one foot on the chair to assist as much as you need.

[lcme]

What GC said. Also doing negatives, where you lower from above the bar.

[Jokaman70]

Same goal here...to be able to do one pull-up, with proper form (i.e., static), by New Years. I started with some jump negatives, 3 sets of 10, but by the 7th or 8th rep I'm barely able to slow my decent at all...I'm sure being 300 pounds doesn't help. I've also tried assisting myself with my legs and that seems to be the ticket, although I only seem to make time for them after heavy deadlifts so by that point my forearms give out before anything else.

Good luck!

[Al_Kavadlo]

I wrote an article about how to learn to do pull-ups on my blog that you might find helpful.

[Annika]

I love my resistance bands! They are JumpStretch brand, and I got them from Amazon. I like using them so much better than trying to support part of my weight on a chair, and when I started I couldn't do negative pullups (major weakling here). I never thought I would be able to do a "real" pullup, but after a few months with the resistance band, I was able to do *two* dead hang pullups!

[NourishedEm]

I wrote an article about how to learn to do pull-ups on my blog that you might find helpful.

Read that a few weeks ago, followed it, am getting way better. Being an Aussie, the Australian pull-up appealed to me and I was actually able to do one. As I'm a pretty heavy gal, assisted chair pull-ups were more like squats for me and weren't improving my strength.

Since starting the Aussie pull-ups, I've gone from being about 15 degrees off vertical to now being able to be about 45. A huge improvement I think!

[Al_Kavadlo]

Read that a few weeks ago, followed it, am getting way better. Being an Aussie, the Australian pull-up appealed to me and I was actually able to do one. As I'm a pretty heavy gal, assisted chair pull-ups were more like squats for me and weren't improving my strength.

Since starting the Aussie pull-ups, I've gone from being about 15 degrees off vertical to now being able to be about 45. A huge improvement I think!

Glad to hear you found the article helpful and that you are making progress! Keep training hard!

[Kyle C.]

All of the techniques mentioned are good. You can also work in some bent-elbow hangs with your negatives. Just pull yourself up as far as you can and hold that position, maintaining the bend in your elbows for as long as possible. In the USMC PFT, female Marines don't have to do pull-ups, but they have to be able to perform the bent elbow hang for 15 seconds to pass.

[tfarny]

Seriously - a Marine, of whatever gender, doesn't have to be able to perform a single pullup? That's crazy, as lots of women can do pullups. Wow.