Pull-Up | Unlocking Series

Workouts 1 - 3:

Workout 1 - tailored for those with minimal pulling strength, this basic pull workout will help you build sufficient strength and muscle mass for the pull-ups. Just make sure your technique is geared towards biasing the lats more than the traps - tucked elbows and pull until the side of the lats, not past it.

Workout 2 - this one is for those who can already handle their own very well on Australian Pull-Ups. When it comes to exercise selection, you might as well lean towards doing a chin up (supinated grip) first since it is generally easier than the pronated grip pull-up with the additional engagement of biceps and pecs.

Workout 3 - as you can see with the exercise selection, this is for those who have access to a gym or lat pulldown and rowing machines. Since they are of similar movement patterns and pretty much the same in terms of muscle engagement, they will greatly help you achieve your first pull-up with the additional benefits of easier intensity manipulation. You can even do so with only lat pulldowns, especially if you're not heavier than the whole lat pulldown weight stack.

Warm-Up:

To properly warm up for the pull-up, you simply need to warm up the muscles around the scapula, shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints by moving them around with intent or doing some named mobility movements. Then, do some warm-up sets for the main exercise. For example:

Light Mobility Drill: Shoulder Circles -> Shoulder Corkscrews -> Elbow Circles -> Wrist Rotations for a round or two with enough reps for you to feel them working.

Warm-Up Set/s: You can either do a modified variation of your main exercise, like modifying your body positioning to make the exercise easier in the case of Australian Pull-Ups, or do an easier pulling exercise for some reps far from failure to use and warm up the same muscle groups.

Just make sure that whatever you do is just enough to work and warm up your muscles, not tire them, so you can perform your best in your working sets.

Pull-Up Variation Selection:

Depending on how strong you are currently, you can choose whatever pulling exercise you like as long as it uses the same muscle groups as the traditional pull-ups to a good degree with emphasis on the latissimus dorsi.

Alternatively, you can use free weights and machines, especially machines like lat pulldowns because you can easily adjust the intensity. In some cases, it may even be more efficient to do so compared to purely relying on bodyweight exercises. There won't be much issue in terms of muscle development since they pretty much use the same muscle groups.

You simply have to choose or modify an exercise for you to be able to do that within the specified rep range to build both strength and muscle mass on the main muscle groups involved.

Accessories:

Determine what your limiting factors are in your pull-up training, then choose exercises for those. These typically include shoulder mobility, scapular control (depression and retraction), forearms and grip strength, and other lagging muscle groups/.

Proximity to Failure:

This routine is strength-specific for achieving your first pull-ups, so managing fatigue is highly important to get a reasonably high frequency of training for it. While limiting your proximity to failure in like 1 - 2 RIR is better, it's still good to go until task failure (0 RIR), considering you likely won't know what that feels like just yet, to avoid undertraining.

With this, you should compensate for it by ensuring other training variables are optimized for recovery, like nutrition, sleep, stress management, and overall training volume. But then, after getting the hang of the feeling of going until failure, it's better to stay in 1 - 2 RIR and use going until failure sparingly.

Training Frequency:

For strength training, it's best to limit fatigue as much as possible so you can get a relatively high training frequency. It can be every other day or 2-3 times a week. This makes it possible for you to get in as much practice as possible to maximize neural and physiological (structural) adaptations.

Progression:

Over time, you should notice an increase in strength, and your main pull-up exercise becomes easier. At this point, consider trying a more challenging variation of the pull-up progression you are currently doing. For example, if you've been working on Australian Pull-Ups and can already do it with 8 reps, experiment with adjusting your body positioning to be more horizontally aligned or with exercises like chin-ups or partial pull-ups. Stick with the new variation for some time, and repeat the process whenever you achieve increased strength.