The Pull Up Challenge, 2011

Flexo · Post by **Flexo** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:43 pm

1RM = 15

Goal = 25

Post by **Jungledoc** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:16 pm

Flexo wrote:1RM = 15

Goal = 25

You're in. Welcome.

Going from 15 to 25 in less than 3 weeks is pretty unrealistic. How about I list your goal for the challenge (which is for the month of February) as 16, or 17?

Who are you? What do you do, training-wise?

Post by **Jungledoc** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:20 pm

stuward wrote:I've been taking the approach of frequent exposures at less than max so I include them in my warmup. I used to do 5 reps/warmup and I stayed there for some time. A couple of months ago I started at 6, then 7, then your challenge started. I've been doing 8 for the last few workouts. It may be a while before I can go to 9 on a regular basis. Once a week, I do pull downs with challenging weight and different grips. I'll do a max attempt at the end of the month anyway and hope to break 10.

How about trying 3 sets of 3, or 4? I'd bet that would be pretty easy right now. Poliquin says to take half your max and do it for 10 sets. I haven't tried that, but it would be about what I'm doing right now for total reps.

Post by **Jungledoc** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:23 pm

Adding one late-coming new-comer.

Proper Knob--PR 14 narrow "semi neutral". Goal=15
robertscott--he's in, but hasn't reported a PR or goal
wilburburns--in, but no PR or goal yet
Jebus--will do weighted pulls, but no PR reported yet
jml--New test, PR12. Goal 13
slashnul--PR 10 pullups. Goal=11
Travis--New test, PR 12. Goal 13.
pdellorto--PR 16 chinups (I believe). Goal=17+. That is now official.
robt-aus--PR 7 pullups, close grip. Goal=8
Ryan A--PR 8, going for 10.
KPj--PR 18. A 10% increase rounds up to 20!
stuward--PR 10. Goal is to be able to do 10 daily for 5 days.
bam--7 wide grip pullups. Goal 8
jungledoc--PR 12 chinups. Goal 13. Maybe 14.
Velcropop--6 neutral grip. Goal 8.
Rikblades--to retest soon
Kab3261--5 close-grip chins. Goal 7.
Nkkip--Counts 15. We'll trust his counting this time!
Hoister--PR BW+50x25. Goal 27 reps!
Jebus--PR 1. Goal 2. Simple, huh?
NightFall--Just got BW+75x3. Goal 6.Got BW+80x5, feels that's equivalent to the goal Going to declare a new goal
Stephen Johnson--I think he's saying that his recent best is 10, so I assume goal is 11?
Higgy--10 going for 12
Griftan PR 8 pronated, 11 supinated. Goals of 10 and 15, respectively.
Flexo--PR15. Says his goal is 25, but I'm hoping that's the goal for the year, and that he (or she) will at least get 16 or 17 before the challenge is over.

Is everyone making progress?

NightFaLL · Post by **NightFaLL** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:52 pm

Today is my first day doing pullups since I posted about it previously - i'll check back in with the results

Velcropop · Post by **Velcropop** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:55 pm

I'm laddering so it's difficult to judge progress. Feeling strong though!

NightFaLL · Post by **NightFaLL** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 5:07 pm

Hoister wrote:My best = 25 reps / 50lb vest / parallel grip / current bwt 185'ish lbs.

I am going to try to add at least 2 reps. I should go for 3, but i think i am at my genetically pre-dispositioned best. ;)

I just saw this and holy cow, you must have wings for lats :O

Post by **stuward** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 5:38 pm

Jungledoc wrote:
stuward wrote:I've been taking the approach of frequent exposures at less than max so I include them in my warmup. I used to do 5 reps/warmup and I stayed there for some time. A couple of months ago I started at 6, then 7, then your challenge started. I've been doing 8 for the last few workouts. It may be a while before I can go to 9 on a regular basis. Once a week, I do pull downs with challenging weight and different grips. I'll do a max attempt at the end of the month anyway and hope to break 10.
How about trying 3 sets of 3, or 4? I'd bet that would be pretty easy right now. Poliquin says to take half your max and do it for 10 sets. I haven't tried that, but it would be about what I'm doing right now for total reps.

If I wanted to do that I would have stuck with sets of 5 but I wasn't making any progress, I was just getting better at doing the same thing.

NightFaLL · Post by **NightFaLL** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:24 pm

So today I got:

BW (205) + 90 x 4

BW + 80 x 5

BW + 45 x 9

So, I'm thinking fresh I could probably do BW + 75 x 6 now, which means I might need to update my goal since I reached it so quickly, lol.

Danomite · Post by **Danomite** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:39 am

Hope it's not too late to jump in on this.

Looking at my log from the end of January I could do 5 mid-grip overhand (hands about two hand widths from shoulder) with BW + 30#. Tonight got 3 sets of 5 with 35#.

Aiming for 5 of BW + 45#.

Nevage · Post by **Nevage** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:51 am

Wow I haven't been around for a while! I was unable to train properly due to my messed up elbow but it's about better now except locking my arm out is still painful.

Gonna do back tomorrow after a few weeks off, really not looking forward to it. I always start with wide grip pullups and have been stuck on reps of 8,7,5,4 forever! Think the most I ever did was 8,8,6,2.. always aiming for 24. But as I've had a few weeks off and plateaued for ages before, I think I'm going to start tomorrow with parallel grip pullups as I've never done them.

Hope it's not too late to join the challenge, I'm guessing that if I can do 8 wide grip ones, then 10 parallel ones should be fine. I'll see what my PR is tomorrow and what I hope to achieve, I'm thinking maybe 3 sets of 10. I don't have a belt so I'm just gonna go to failure on all 3 sets and see what happens.

robt-aus · Post by **robt-aus** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:32 am

observations from week 1:

sets using singles and short rest have produced higher volume than i expected
these sets are really time consuming
experienced some lovely bicep soreness for possibly the first time ever - this is good
some hand soreness from having to improvise bars in poorly equipped gyms - this is also good
quitting before reps become a grind is a relief - this is great.

Post by **Jungledoc** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:34 am

Danomite and Nevage--It's never too late. Well, not quite true, but jump on in.

Rik-Blades · Post by **Rik-Blades** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:27 am

stuward wrote:Jungledoc wrote:
stuward wrote:
I've been taking the approach of frequent exposures at less than max so I include them in my warmup. I used to do 5 reps/warmup and I stayed there for some time. A couple of months ago I started at 6, then 7, then your challenge started. I've been doing 8 for the last few workouts. It may be a while before I can go to 9 on a regular basis. Once a week, I do pull downs with challenging weight and different grips. I'll do a max attempt at the end of the month anyway and hope to break 10.
How about trying 3 sets of 3, or 4? I'd bet that would be pretty easy right now. Poliquin says to take half your max and do it for 10 sets. I haven't tried that, but it would be about what I'm doing right now for total reps.

If I wanted to do that I would have stuck with sets of 5 but I wasn't making any progress, I was just getting better at doing the same thing.

Thats always been my experience too. Max reps never seems to go up, but anything sub-max gets easier. Strange!

Anyway....

Jungledoc, you need to update my record, it still says 'retest soon'. You must have missed my post. I did retest, it's still 10 with a goal of 11.

Anyway, i'm trying ladders followed by a max effort set. Never tried that before, see what happens.

At the moment I cant dedicate a day for this, so it's kinda thrown in on my deadlift day. So far I supersetted deadlifts/push press/pull ups...it went 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 then I got 5.

Post by **stuward** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:39 am

Rik-Blades wrote:Thats always been my experience too. Max reps never seems to go up, but anything sub-max gets easier. Strange!

Exactly Rik. I actually have a little auto regulation built in. If it gets harder towards the end of the week, then I'm doing a little too much and I'll either cut it back a rep or leave it there for another week. If I get a consistant week where it seems a little easier at the end of the week, I'll look at adding a rep for the next week. I'm in no hurry. I know this will get me where I want, my only concern is if I will hit my stated goal by the end of Feb or not.