Pull-ups are one of the best exercises you can do, period.

They stimulate muscle growth so much that they are probably the best exercise for the upper body. In fact, doing pull-ups can have the following effects on your body:

• wider back
• broader shoulders
• bigger arms
• stronger forearms
• Greater grip strength

They are one of the best exercises I’ve ever used, and they offer very fast results, especially if you haven’t done pull-ups before. You will see changes in your body in less than 2 weeks, if you do them every day.

However, pull-ups are not easy. In fact, most people can get started with push-ups pretty easily, but pull-ups take some practice; most people don’t really have the strength to do even one.

So how do you build the strength to do pull-ups and then take advantage of this fantastic all-around muscle builder?

That is how.

Building strength to do pull-ups

The only way to become strong enough to do pull-ups is to actively train for it. You need patience, but if you can invest in this for a few weeks, you will easily master this exercise.

Phase 1: only eccentrics

• To start, you want to focus on the eccentric part of the movement, which is when you lower yourself to the bottom. This is also called ‘negative’ and is where you start to develop a lot of the strength needed for pull-ups.
• Simply jump up and grab the bar and using the momentum of your jump or with a chair, come to the top of the movement with your chin on the bar.
• Then release your legs from the chair (if you’re using one) and lower yourself to the bottom AS SLOWLY AS POSSIBLE.
• This is a single rep exercise, and you want to try it no more than 4 times, thus 4 sets during a session.
• Your goal is to work on stretching your negative up and down for as close to 20 seconds as possible. That is, it should take 20 seconds to get from top to bottom. Once you can do this on all four sets, you’re ready for the next phase.

Phase 2: Eccentrics with pauses

• As in Phase 1, go up to the top of the bar, but this time as you go down, pause halfway down.
• Hold your pause for 8-10 seconds.
• Then lower two-thirds down.
• Hold for another 8-10 seconds.
• Then go down to the bottom.
• Rinse and repeat, 4 sets in the same way.
• Once you can do this, move on to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Spotter + 2-ankle grab

• By now, you should be ready to start doing supported full-range pull-ups. This is where having a friend or a spotter really helps.
• Grab the bar, assume the bottom pull-up position and lock your ankles together, and ask a friend/partner to grab your ankles with a firm grip.
• This way, when you push your ankles down into his hands, you’ll push yourself up.
• Do this and work your way up to 12 reps in one set. When you can do that, move on to Phase 4.

Stage 4: Spotter + 1 ankle hold

• This phase is the same as the previous one, but now your observer will only grab 1 ankle to support you.
• This forces you to use more of your stabilizer muscles to generate power for the lift.
• Do this version until you can get 12 reps in one set.
• Then it goes to the next phase.

Phase 5: Spotter + waist support

• Final Phase: The spotter will now support you by holding your waist, as you push yourself towards the bar.
• Once you can do 12 reps like this, you’re good to go.

Test

Now, you should try to perform a strict pull-up without support. If you followed the program, you should already be able to do about 4-5 clean reps without any help.

From here on, it’s all a matter of practice and practice. Keep it up and watch your numbers grow!

Last words

If you can only do 4 pull-ups, keep doing sets of 4 as often as you can, you’ll progress very quickly to 5, then 6 and so on.

The other way to do it is to set a numerical goal, so let’s say you decide to do 25 pull-ups in one go, but you can only do 4 at a time. Do all 4 pull-ups. Take a short break, maybe 30 to 60 seconds. Then do 4 more. Then take another break. Now try again – you can only get 3 reps, and that’s fine. Do all 3, take a break, do one more. Keep going until you get 25. You’ll need to polish them and you may end up with a series that looks like this:

4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1,1

And that’s perfectly fine. The next time you try it, it may look like this:

4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1.

Keep going – eventually you’ll need fewer sets to get to 25, which means your maximum pull-ups per set has automatically increased from 4 to 5 to 6 to 7 and so on.

Once you can do more than 10 reps in a set, it’s time to add weight. You can do this with a dumbbell between your legs or by wearing a weighted vest.

That’s it. This is how you get better at pull-ups. This is a great move for building muscles, so be sure to add it to your routine.