I can't even do one pull up page

[Dudley86]

Hi peeps,

Been looking around at these exercise routines, a lot of the primal exercises suggest pull ups. I cant even do one of these.

I can do push ups in abundance, but pull ups i just cant manage it. Does anybody have a workout plan that can help me 'build up to a pull up'

thanks

[Edje Noh]

Pull-ups require more strength from your back muscles, while push-ups require chest muscles.
Do assisted pull-ups first (on a machine) and just keep trying to do normal ones as far as you can. Eventually you'll get them.

[iniQuity]

jump up to bar and try to "catch" yourself on the way down, the slower the better, this is called a "negative" and will help a lot. You can also just jump up and hold on for dear life (with your chin above the bar) for as long as you can, this is called a "static hold" and will also build a lot of strength.

see also:
-australian pull-ups
-chair assisted
-band assisted

but concentrate on getting stronger overall, more muscle = more better.

[Abu Reena]

What iniquity said. don't ever, ever, ever use the assisted pullup machines.

check out alkavadlo.com. He's got some great progressions and advice on how to work up to pullups. I used to not be able to do a single one. I can rip off 10 or so dead hang pullups now at around 200 lbs.

[GaretJax]

I started doing Simplefit last August. At that time I couldn't do a pull up either. I couldn't even pull myself up an inch. I didn't have access to a gym for assisted pull-ups. So I used some bands for doing pull downs until I was strong enough to do a pull up. I would substitute 3 pull downs for each pull-up I was supposed to do. Worked great. I can now do about 15 slow good form pull-ups in a row.

[Mike Gager]

primal blueprint fitness guide has the progressions you are looking for why not simply follow it? its free

[Leida]

I started with not being able to do more than hanging on the bar. Now I can do 5-6 chin-ups and 2-3 pull-ups on fresh muscules. It took ~ 1 year to get there.

Here is what I did, based on the research.

-first, you need to be realistic about your body weight vs your ability to do a pull-up.
-if you are a female, chin-ups will come easier for you than pull-ups, and both will be difficult, since upper body strength is normally not a woman's forter. You will also have a better luck doing pull-ups with a narower, shoulder length grip, rather than the wide grip as you will be relying more on the bicep that way.
-start with isometric hangs. Just hang there for as long as you can or try to start doing bent legs or straight legs raises while keeping yourself from swinging. It will help pass the time and you will be building your core strength at the same time
-The next step is doing negatives. Assistance machines are not really a good idea, as the motion is different. Go good old bar!
-to do a negative, jump up, get the chin over the bar, hands in the chin-up grip. Lower yourself SLOWLY on a count of 30. Do as many of those as you can.
-Once you can go 10 chin-up negatives, start building up to:
5 negative chin-up grip with 5 lbs weight strapped to your belly + 5 negative pull-ups
Increase weight to 10 lbs on the chin-up, add 5 lbs on the pul-up till you build up to 10 reps each. Test to see if you can do a full chin-up or pull-up from a full hang
Keep going adding weight on negatives, and testing to see if you yet achieved the full one, until you do. It's easier from there!

Good luck!!!

[Al_Kavadlo]

Here's the link to my article on learning to do a pull-up.

[Monty]

Simplefit is a great way to increase your pull-ups. I went from being able to do about 5 to 10-12. But it takes time.

[demuralist]

Pullup Progression - Primal Blueprint Fitness - YouTube

Mark has a series of youtube videos that show a progression for each of his 5 essential moves.