I am currently trying to get my first pull-up. I have been training for the last 3 months with the free program by Kboges which only utilizes inverted rows.
I have read about negative and banded pull-ups and have tried them, but I am quite bad at them. The banded ones don’t help me at the top portion where I am weakest, and I can’t hold the eccentric part of a pull-up longer than like 3 seconds.
Do you agree that negatives and banded pull-ups are skippable, or do you recommend that I include them somehow (please give examples if possible)?
Add dead hangs and active hangs. They both help with grip strength and getting the back and shoulder muscles used to the position. Active hangs work the shoulders as you pull them back and down. Negatives are good if you can do them slowly. Step up to the bar and lower yourself as slowly and controlled as you can. Start pulling up as high as you can so far and hold briefly if you can then lower slowly.
@Laken
I came here to say this! I just did my first pull-up after a 4-year gap (and two babies). Both times when training to get to my first, negatives were essential, and before negatives, just dead hangs.
I actually recommend lock-offs. Get to the top, hold your position with your elbows bent and your chin at the bar, and stay there as long as you can. Maybe a few seconds at first. Then build. It’s basically a dead hang but in that upper position.
Now, I can do a pull-up again, but I train with negatives and locking off during the negative at 45, 90, 45 degrees. I think it helps a lot.
The inverted rows are good too. Keep at it. The bar will come to your chin!!
@Madden
You brought up something I forgot to mention, isometric holds. The lock-offs are an isometric hold also called isometric pull-ups. It can be done anywhere along the pull-up path. The most benefit is within 15° on either side of the angle being held, i.e. held at 90° benefits up to 75° and down to 105°. It will contribute past that to a lesser amount also. It’s best used at the weakest part of an exercise.
I have an example of me doing isometrics long before I ever heard that term.
When I was in elementary school (many decades ago), one year they had us line up at the jungle gym to grade us on hanging in a chin-up. Once in the up position of the chin-up, you had to hold for as long as you could. Most kids that age only did a few seconds. My turn came and I was the same. I was pissed.
So over the following summer, I trained for that on a janky home gym with the cement-filled Weider plastic plates. I used the pulldown attachment location as my chin-up bar. It shook like crazy. I would do as many seconds as I could. The next day I would add a few seconds. By the time summer was over, I was ready lol. I was able to hold more than two minutes without any problem. They did the same hanging grading test. When I was in the up position, the teacher started counting. After 30 seconds, the teacher was like ‘ok enough’. I stayed on there. A little longer and the teacher was like ‘ok down you’re done’. Now it became fun. I just stayed there. She briefly was shocked at how long I was hanging to annoyed at how long I was hanging. She literally called the next kids to pull me down. It was well over a minute just from training with isometric holds.
Negatives are fantastic for building strength but it can be hard to measure your progress. I think jackknife pull-ups are a great combo with negatives. Try doing 3-5 jackknife pull-ups with a foot-supported negative (control the whole motion) and put an unsupported negative at the end of each set. Something like this once per week as a compliment to your rows will help to overload your workouts. Just make sure you’ve got 2-3 months of rows behind you so you know your joints will be ready for the additional stress.
It’s okay to gain strength in the bottom 75% of the pull-up disproportionately as you can always isolate to gain the strength for the top part later.
I personally just did 3x8-10s of banded pull-ups, and when I was at the thinnest band for a while I could bang out 6 reg pull-ups no problem out of nowhere.
After that, I worked on reg pull-ups which let me gain strength a few months later to do high pull-ups.
I was stalled out for a while on my pull-up progression and just doing negatives wasn’t really helping me, so I gave jackknife pull-ups a shot as per this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBsfktQ4_zw and that, along with neutral grip negatives, unlocked pull-ups for me within a month.
With how I hold myself at the top of the jackknife pull-up with a neutral grip on the rings? I absolutely get the top part of the motion, and when I do pull-ups now it’s no problem at all to get my chin over the bar.
Inverted Rows are a great exercise on their own merit. They will help build your back. I don’t think there’s much carryover to Pull-Ups. You need an exercise or program that is closer to the angle of pull, and uses more bodyweight. Jackknife Pull-Ups should help.
I’ve found negatives more helpful tbh because rows are horizontal pulling. They sure help strengthen the back, but if you directly work on your vertical pull, you’ll have better progress.