Recovery, pullups and situps

[KenDowns]

Every so often I read an article that says to do pullups through the day if you want to get better at them. The usual recommendation is to do a smaller set than you would in an all-out workout, and to do this every day.

This is appealing to me largely because doing it this way can systematic (not random or whenever-i-feel-like-it) but outside of the main program days.

Question 1: What about recovery? I've seen this recommendation quite a bit in the past 3 years and recovery is never mentioned. Let's say you can do 10 pullups, so the suggestion is 3 or 4 sets of 5 through the day, possibly on off days. Is it as simple as staying well fed and well rested and you don't really have to worry about recovery?

Question 2: If it is that simple, can you do the same thing for sit-ups and planks?

PS: Due to changes in my living circumstances I now have to get in my car and travel to the gym a ways, and I usually have somewhere to be afterward, so anything I can do at home on off days would relieve some time pressure and let me give proper attention to the moves I can only do in the gym.

[Proper Knob]

I would say it's fine. Just bang out a few reps here and there and monitor how sore you are, if your start to feel really sore, dial it back. As for planks and sit-ups, why not? The same process would apply I reckon, if you feel sore dial it back.

[stuward]

Recovery is a factor of the product of Volume, intensity and frequency. Starting out learning a new skill, Intensity will be low. You can go ahead and do the exercise often as long as you stay at warmup intensities. As you get better at it, the intensity should increase, through added weight, grip changes, one armed, etc, you'll need more time to recover.

[KenDowns]

@Stu,

For pullups so far I've only done 2-3 sets of 5 and it's still on the whenever-I-happen-to-do-it program. I did this yesterday on bench day and had a great workout later in the day (set a 95% rep PR). That's only one data point but at least it was a good one.

It did occur to me to keep the weighted pullups in the gym as a programmed move. This gives me a formal measure of progress (or regress lol).

But of course time will tell. I'll report some results after some time has passed.

[jlmoss]

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