pull-up plateau

[coffeetime]

So, it looks like I will not hit my goal of 10 pull-ups by mid-June. ARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH.

I've been following Stumptuous's "Mistressing the Pull-Up."
In January, I could do 0.
In March, I was suddenly able to do 3. By the end of the month, I managed 4.
In April, I made it, barely, to 5. That's really hard. The last one has highly imperfect form. I'm either kipping slightly or, if I'm in the assisted pull-up station with the pad disengaged, I'm giving myself a tiny boost with one toe to finish that fifth one. I can barely do it.
For the second set, I can usually do 3. I can never do more than 3. Sometimes it's only 2.

So, I asked some friends for opinions. One guy said do all my 5, then jump down and do 10 push-ups. Then for the second set, do 3 pull-ups and 10 more push-ups. Another guy said do them with weight. (I had to tie a 10-lb plate to myself with a yoga strap, because there are no belts that fit me.) With the push-ups, I can do my usual sets; with the weight I can only manage 3 the first time, 2 the second time. Yesterday I did the pull-up/push-up combo and then did a couple of sets of negatives.

I talked to a trainer at the gym and asked what am I doing wrong here, what am I missing? He asked if I'm doing other exercises (yes, close-grip pull-downs or one-handed pull-downs, one-armed rows, overhead press, bench, back flyes, all those negatives). He said, "You're doing everything right. It's just hard to do. It's really hard for a woman. You're making good progress."

This does not feel like progress, to get stuck at 5 and stay there. I'm tired of hearing how I'm a woman and all. No kidding.

Comments

[weirdquark]

I've been at a similar plateau. I went from one to five in six weeks, probably in part because I lost about five pounds in that same time, and then stopped there for a while; after doing things like weighted pullups and greasing the grove and such things I managed to get up to six, but it's taken me a while. I haven't been concentrating on them for a while though, so lately my arms have been too tired to do more than a few at a time, but one of the things that I think has been helping is based on an exercise in NRoLfW stage 6, where you do ten sets of two lat pulldowns with decreasing amounts of rest in between the sets.

I opted to try increasing reps instead of decreasing the time, and started out doing two pullups on the minute for ten minutes, and did the same thing with weighted pullups, though I couldn't manage to get two on all of my sets on the weighted pullups at first. I couldn't get more than two reps on all of the sets of unweighted pullups either, but I did three reps on as many sets as I could before switching to two. I should start doing this again, and when I can do ten sets of three pull-ups on the minute for ten minutes I can switch to sets of four.

Anyway, I was only doing this once a week or so because I was working on other things so it didn't help a huge amount, but it did get me over that 5 hump, and would probably have improved more had I been doing pullup practice more often. So that might be something new for you to try, but it does sound like you're doing everything right, which doesn't make it not be frustrating that it's slow.

...

::goes off to practice pullups::

[coffeetime]

There's an idea, and I haven't cracked the book in ages. Sometimes I find the book frustrating because my knees HURT and I can't even do the unweighted leg work at the very beginning. But I could just pick out things that help me get to this goal. Good idea, thanks.

[smackshack]

Earlier this year I was working on pull-ups (chin-ups, really, I hadn't graduated to doing overhand pull-ups yet), and before I broke my hand (by being stupid in a totally unrelated context) I'd managed in the course of three months to work my way up to a single set of six...and then couldn't seem to repeat the achievement. I just sort of plateau'd there and started blacksliding. And I'm a guy. I was also doing lots of other pulling-type exercises to assist in the larger goal.

So it's really, really hard. But don't give up. Stuff I've read suggests that variety might be key...you acclimatize over time, so progress becomes more difficult. One idea I ran across recently suggested doing ladders. If you're accustomed to doing your big set first, and then sets of decreasing volume after, then it might be a nice change. So do sets of 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. When you reach your limit, start over at one. Give yourself time to rest between sets. It might be a way to increase overall volume and throw your muscles and your brain the curve ball they need.

[coffeetime]

Cool, I can try that. Tomorrow!

I'm doing them with a neutral (parallel) grip. I have chronic, long-term problems with one shoulder that make doing them overhand a bad idea. I sometimes do my pull-downs overhand, but I just don't want to torque my shoulder that hard to do pull-ups that way. Even doing chins underhand makes my shoulder complain, so I do it rarely.

Sucks about your hand. I hope you have good physical therapy to rehab it. My friend is still trying to get mobility in a wrist she broke last winter.

[smackshack]

Gotta take care of those joints!

[abyssinia]

Have you tried kipping pull-ups? We do them at my cross-fit gym, for when you want to do lots of pull-ups in a row. It lest you use the momentum from lowering yourself into the momentum for the next pullup.

I mean, if you're goal is complete dead-hang 10 pull-ups, that won't help, but maybe working on kipping ones can help you with that goal also?

[coffeetime]

I want to do dead-hang pullups. I'll get there. I took the weekend off in favor of preparing my garden with a shovel and an axe, and I'll be focusing on different rows in the gym for a while.