What Happened to My Pullups?

Pullups are among the toughest exercises in calisthenics, and as with any strength-endurance exercise, hitting a plateau is a challenge.

Pullups require the strength to lift your entire body weight with your arms. Obviously, the heavier you are, the harder this exercise becomes. For those seeking to maximize pullup fitness, the first pullup is often the biggest challenge, as it requires greater strength. The next challenge is adding more repetitions, which requires building muscle endurance to reach 10 or more. Hitting a plateau is the next challenge, especially if you have a goal of 20 or more pullups. Here is a question relating to that frustration:

Stew, why have my pullups stopped progressing after hitting a 15-rep max? What I usually do in the gym is go for my max, hit it, and then every set seems to get halved from here on out. Thanks, Nolan

Nolan, plateaus in training happen, especially if you don’t evolve your training volume as you make these progressions. Typically, the quick answer to pushing off the plateau and seeing improvements again requires change. Change something up in your routine. This could be total volume/reps per workout, adding a weight vest, or mixing in a circuit of pulling exercises following your pullup reps.

But there is no need to do daily pullups. You need to recover from higher-volume pullup workouts just as you would from heavier lifting workouts. We usually do pullups three times a week, at most, but with additional reps each workout to add total volume.

Your problem sounds like a need to improve muscle stamina and more volume with a mix of weighted pullups. Multiple sets of pullups are challenging, especially with minimal rest. My advice is to add more rest between sets and see if you can get closer to matching your first rest reps. Shoot for 3 minutes of rest each set. If rest isn’t the culprit, try some of the following workout additions for more pulling volume:

Weight Vest Pullups/Pulldowns

Try adding a 20-pound weight vest to your first set of pullups. After hitting fatigue or failing on the last rep, take the weight vest off and see if you can do more pullups. This is a drop-set with pullups. Then, after the pullup combo, resort to heavy pulldowns with a weight at which you can do only 5 reps. If you really want to top it off, do a burnout set of bicep curls for 10-15 reps.

Pyramids, Supersets and Max Rep Sets

If you can do 15 pullups, then you are capable of handling pullup workouts with 100 reps of total volume in them. These three are a classic combination that fits perfectly into the week of training like this:

Monday: PT Pyramid 1-10-1

This 19-set workout yields 100 total pullups. You can mix in pushups and situps, as well as running, for 1-2 minutes each set for active rest periods if you also need to practice the other exercises. See the classic PT Pyramid to add to the start of the week. The pyramid works like this:

• Set 1: 1 pullup
• Set 2: 2 pullups
• Set 3: 3 pullups … Keep going up to 10 pullups, then repeat in reverse order for 19 total sets.

This equals 100 pullups in a workout.

Wednesday: PT Superset

This 10-set workout is full of tested exercises such as pullups, pushups and situps (or planks). It looks easy but is challenging:

Repeat 10 times:

• Pullups, 10
• Pushups, 20
• Situps, 30, or 30-second plank
• Run or bike, 2 minutes

Once again, the 100-rep pullup volume is a good place for you right now.

Friday or Saturday: The Max Reps Set Workout

This workout requires you to complete 100 pullup reps in as few sets as possible. Think of workouts like the Murph, but done in as few sets as possible:

• 100 pullups
• 200 pushups
• 300 squats
• Run or bike 2 minutes each set until reps complete

This is the best workout for when you’re stuck at 15 reps. It has produced 20-plus pullups in a month of doing it just once a week, along with the pyramid and superset. Seriously, 4-6 sets of doing three pullup workouts a week, with one being the max reps set workout, will push you off the plateau and build the muscle stamina that enables you to not see your pullup reps drop off when doing multiple sets.

Read More: It’s Almost Spring: Let’s Get Ready for the Murph!

Keep it up and be patient. For more ideas on training pullups, check out the Military.com Fitness Section. There are hundreds of articles and workouts to help you meet and exceed the standards of any military testing event.

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