Barbell Shrugged - 99 Problems But A Pull-Up Ain't One - 208

Episode Date: April 27, 2016

Trying to get that first strict pull-up?  Or get stronger at pull-ups in general?  Peep this episode!

How dare you? Here, Kurt, chime in, too. This will be a threefer. Ready? Ooh, threefers. Threefer. Three, two, one. This week on Barbell Shrugged, we talk strictly pull-ups. Why you might stink at pull-ups.

Prerequisites for pull-ups. Static holds. Yeah, that's right, Kurt. We talk about static grip and eccentric strength. The necessary mobility. And maybe should you even lose some weight to get a pull-up? Probably, maybe. And to band or not to band? Word.

That's it. And horizontal pulling. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out. Put them on your keys. For the video version, go to merch barbell shrug calm You guys like hearing what it sounds like the gag Is disgusting You guys like hearing what it sounds like, the gag on mic? Gross. This is disgusting.

Are you going to talk like your mom on this one? Yeah. What is something my mom would say? She wants to use bands, right? Yeah. I can't do one without the bands, Kurt. Do it again. Two more.

That's how my mom is, the same way. She swears by bands. Your mom doesn't sound like that. Well, she doesn't sound like that, but she got really upset. Well, she didn't get upset, but she was blaming the programming of Faxon, the fact that her pull-ups went down. Because they were doing a lot of eccentric work and trying to do a lot of that stuff.

She's like, my pull-ups went down. Maybe it's because you – in her case, she was just doing wads before she came in even to the gym so she was already in a pre-fatigued state so I think a lot of people,

we should probably put that up there. You may just be doing too much shit and you're fatigued and you're not recovered to do that. Word.

All right. With that said, welcome to Barber of a Shrug. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick here with Mike McElroy. What's happening? Curtis Mulliken. Hey, what's up? And Alex Macklin. What's up? Yo. Yeah. So today, a very exciting topic. Man, there's so many cool things. I don't even know how we're going to fit all this in in one short episode, but either way, I'm excited to finally announce that it comes to bring up to us that 83% of

the world is terrible at pull-ups. Terrible. Terrible. Is that a real statistic? I have no idea. No. But in a nutshell, a lot of people are not very good at pull-ups. So today we're going to talk all about how to get better at them, how to figure out exactly where you're at with them, and then how to build a good strength program so you can do more of them. Some common misconceptions, too, about getting a first pull-up

or a pull-up in terms of what you should do for training. Yeah. What are those misconceptions? Oh. Well, bands, came from one. Now I'm on the spot. Yeah. So our bands are good?

I think a huge misconception is that I just got to keep jumping up, doing some pull-ups, kipping on the bands or whatever during the Metcons and I will eventually

get better at pull-ups. Right. It doesn't work that way. Yeah, I think the thing is to understand is that there's a difference between actually training to get better at pull-ups

and then just playing to do pull-ups like like if you're in a workout that has cindy for example and you're you know uh doing pull-ups on a band i can't really necessarily say that that's going to make you stronger doing pull-ups however it's allowing you to like just do the workout get in the game play so with that said if you're someone who's tired of doing that and wants to do more workouts rx with pull-ups um this is the episode because we're going to go really deep into some of the programming give you examples and then talk about exactly how to lay out a good strength plan to actually start improving in that yeah i think when looking at this too we're not just talking about people who maybe don't have a strict pull-up

but for the most part from what i've seen people in crossfit or fitness in general have uh lacking strict upper body pulling strength. So they may be able to do kipping pull-ups. Maybe they'll do 20 or so or more kipping pull-ups. But their relative strict pull-ups is not very good. So whether you can do pull-ups or not, we're going to talk about a lot of stuff in here that can help you with other stuff. Now, why is it necessarily important? I mean, if you're able to do a bunch of kipping pull-ups in CrossFit,

I mean, Metcons, you know, Fran is like 21-15-9 pull-ups. Why do we even need to have a strict one? Bro, come on. Safety first. No, for real, though. Yeah, for real.

It's for safety, right? So a lot of people do have the kipping, you know, gymnastics ability to sometimes get their chin over the bar, but they don't really have the strength to support themselves coming back down. So obviously when you're up above the bar, when you come back down,

you've got a lot of momentum that puts stresses on the shoulders, and we want to be able to avoid that so you don't do any damage to yourself. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it could if you don't have the support and the balance to help yourself control on the way down. Yeah, it's just longevity in the sport too, you know, to help yourself control on the way down. Yeah, it's just longevity in the sport, too, or longevity doing workouts. You know, it doesn't have to be the sport, but just doing it in general, the stronger you are and the stronger your tendons are and the stronger your joints are,

the longer they're going to last doing those kipping and dynamic things. I have a lot of people that can do or used to kind of change the process, but who could do a bunch of kipping pull-ups but no strict pull-ups. And not only is it going to directly correlate with pull-ups, but it relates to other things. Like you were talking about snatching earlier, learning to snatch that helped you learn to do pull-ups. There's another way around too.

If you're stronger at your pull-up, you're going to be able to hold the bar in closer. Oh, yeah. So it's not just about the pull-up. It's about being stronger for everything. I think the problem is that there's not a world championship of tendon strength. There should be. There should be. How strong is strong enough before you start kipping, I guess?

And the biggest misconception, again, is that kipping is dangerous. But if you have good coach or good programming, if you're a smart athlete, you're going to have some kind of a baseline set before you start doing that. So what are some numbers generally that you would want to test? Yeah, I mean, I like to have somebody do a strict pull-up before they start kipping. Just one? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, at least before they start. Now, if they have mobility issues or if they have maybe different limitations, then we may go a little bit deeper. But all things good, mobility is good, their positions are good when they're doing kipping pull-ups or whatever. As long as they can do one one they can at least get started now we're always going to be continually working on that strict and uh strength but as long as they have one i usually can let them go forward but before that we don't let them do uh kipping pull-ups anymore so what do they do during a workout so for strength work we will mostly do eccentric pull-ups or just static holds, either the chin over the bar. So with our pull-up program that we have in the overtime, that program starts the whole first mezzo is all static work.

So static work is isometric work, so you're not moving at all. So you're just either holding chin over the bar or just holding at the bottom position, but holding these different positions and getting strong in those positions and then building into eccentric strength, which is where we're lowering down through the range of motion. So you can lower more weight than you can raise, basically. So being able to control yourself, you know, getting a box put under you or your clamps on the rig or something

and control yourself down in that pull-up, you'll be able to do that with even added weight before you'll be able to do your strict pull pull-up so is there is there like an order so you do you'd say let's say you don't have a strict pull-up and you want to get better at it like what's the first step do you work on the static isometric holding that you're saying and then let's say like you're let's say like what you're at this point where you're like holding for a minute now do you do loaded isometric holds yep yep. You experiment with that? Yeah, so we do in the gym, as far as the group class,

now the program in overtime is kind of structured out. But with the group class where it's just kind of varied, everything's a little bit different, the strength session is different, we do both. So we just work on both depending on the day. So we'll do, like you said, adding weight to it. So you can hold a dumbbell between your legs or something and just hold heavier weight in that static position and do that eccentric but we do both at the same time also doing ring rows and things like that yeah so

like what would be an example progression of like like let's say you know i'm no pull-up having ass like what do i like how would you progress me from not getting from not being strong enough to get a pull-up and then getting one or getting close to one? Yeah. I mean, just keeping going on what we're talking about. We would start with static holds as long as you can get that, and we would work eccentrics, adding weight to your eccentric, and test you. So how long would I hold, like I'd do a static hold? Yeah, so usually I do like three to five sets of like 10 to 20 seconds.

So I usually don't go past 20 seconds or so and try to add weight to that. So once you get to where you can hold it for 20 seconds, then we'll start adding weight to it and keep going. Same thing with the eccentric. I usually with the eccentric, I go five to 10 seconds. Don't go out more. So lowering down for as much as 10 seconds on the eccentric. Once you have control there.

Once you have control there, add weight and keep going like that like that yeah just start testing so i don't know if you ever done oh sorry no i said 20 second isometric hole is a good starting point that's when you know like all right i'm probably ready to start loading this now yeah all right cool yeah i don't know if you ever guys ever done but a bunch of eccentric pull-ups will light you up man they will that will make you sore more sore than anything yeah rookie mistake don't do that in a metcon and the person came back the next day like i can't move anything yeah rookie mistake don't do that in a metcon and the person came back the next day like i can't move my arms yeah yeah don't yeah that is not something you want to do for a bunch of like cindy years ago but i think it was cindy but anyway yeah i don't do

that anymore um and you have some good questions like exactly how much i think a lot of it depends too is like that starting point so again if you're someone who is like very close to getting your first one versus someone who might be 50 pounds of pulling strength away, good. It could depend on body weight, like your actual relative strength. So that's something that you need to figure out too. So, um, we've made a joke earlier. I was like, I have a 400 pound lat pull down, but I weigh 405 pounds and I can't do a strict pull up. Right. You know, so maybe change the ratio a little bit too is one option. Yeah. I mean,

losing weight is a huge, is a huge factor. I mean, sometimes, I mean, people don't like to say that, but I mean, if you are,

if you are a big person, uh, that's all that weight that you actually have to pull yourself up over that bar. If you lose weight, but like fat and your strength stays the same well now your relative strength has an increase has increased and so you're more likely to be able to actually get above the bar yeah and again this this could even go on the other end of the spectrum of higher level athletes

if you're a maybe you're a borderline regionals level athlete and you're on the bigger end of the spectrum but maybe worth you to lose a little bit of weight so that you're better the bigger end of the spectrum, it may be worth you to lose a little bit of weight so that you're better at the gymnastics stuff than it is worth it for you to keep that weight on to move a barbell. I'm not pointing to anybody. I'm just saying. McG, how much do you weigh? I weigh 210 pounds. How much do you weigh when you wear the games?

190. Okay, so you're 20 pounds lighter. I've gotten a lot stronger, but I was gymnastics were way easier. Yeah. Gymn so you're 20 pounds lighter. I've gotten a lot stronger, but gymnastics were way easier. Yeah. Well, gymnastics are harder now. Yeah. It's not just for the person who can't do strict pull-ups.

It's for all ends of the spectrum, and body weight may be something to consider regardless. As far as progressing towards the pull-up, using things that aren't just the pull-up, so pin lay rows, single arm bent rows, weighted movements too, carries, things we talked about like that, working on grip strength. Translates. I think it's pretty common to know that, like,

mobility is going to be an issue for kipping pull-ups. Do you see that as a huge issue for strict pull-ups? I don't see it as much unless we're talking about, like, a chest-to-bar. Gotcha, like a strict chest-to-bar. So, like, that in-range of motion we're at the top trying to get the last little bit in the shoulder back and yeah yeah so um i wanted to talk about that a little bit too so i know it's mostly on strict pull-ups but i like talking about mobility for kipping as well so you know give me some like starting points or tests that you could say like that would be a

good way to know like right away all right i probably shouldn't be doing any kipping yet even though i can do strict pull-ups i don't have the mobility yet to start kipping yeah so i mean a couple of tests if you're if you can't hold a barbell overhead in a in a static position with your rib cage locked down or if you do wall slides where your back's up against the wall forearms are up against the wall and sliding all the way up which i can't do that either but right those are some things that you know when you're going into that forward position, you're either going to compensate with shoulder mobility. Maybe you've probably seen it before where people go forward on the kip

and their elbow bends. That's them compensating to get some more range of motion instead of being able to go with a straight arm back. So that's usually where I start is just watching the kip on the bar, just kipping back and forth, and seeing what their arm and elbow does at the top. And obviously that would take a coach's eye looking at you doing that gotcha yeah so um i'm gonna ask you this like so when you see that we know it's like messed up and funky looking but why is it bad

necessarily just because it looks bad do we know that it's really bad yeah because it's going into an internally rotated position as opposed to staying in that good externally rotated position when we know anytime we're in this externally rotate or internally rotated position then it's putting the shoulder at a compensated position and it's eventually gonna you know wear down some tissues it's not supposed to be done that's how that's how i heard so that's actually right i mean it's the same it's analogous to if you caught a snatch and you started to internally rotate and then walk forward because i've done that before and my shoulder got fucked up. So, yeah, it's the same exact thing. So if I'm an athlete and I've been going to –

If you were an athlete. Well, let's say I'm an athlete. I play one on TV. You're a pretend. I play one on the internet. But say I'm an athlete. I've been going to the gym for a little while, and my coach just throws me on bands every time there is a Metcon with pull-ups.

Like, what do I do or what can I say to my coach or ask or get better at pull-ups in the Metcon environment? Let's say we don't have a lot of time to work on stuff. Yeah, so what we do at my gym, we don't use bands at all for pull-ups. Oh, my goodness. Slow clap. Sorry. Why? So, as far as building strength towards the pull-up, the band helps you the most at the bottom position,

which is when you're kind of the strongest, and it helps you the least at the top position. What are you saying? What are you trying to say about bands? So, if you've been on the Red Rogue band for the last two years, then that's probably why. How dare you? So, wait.

Go explain that one more time so at the bottom position the band is stretched out the most it's under your feet or under your knees it's going to help you the most when you're at that strongest position most people can at least get a little bit of movement here um and then once they get to you know here or here they can't get past that so so they get stuck in the middle yeah they get stuck in the middle and the band's helping you if it's under your knee it's hardly even helping you when you're at this 90-degree point. So at that point, when you need the most assistance, it's not helping you at all, which is why we like the E-Centrics better.

Or even partner-assisted, where you're holding your feet or somebody's putting their feet behind you, and they're holding your feet. I'm a big fan of that, and pressing on the back as well. If you're tall enough to support someone on their back, you can kind of push up and help them finish at the top. And even you can put your feet on a box. So you're determining how much you're giving. You're obviously trying to pull your arms as much as possible,

your legs as little as possible. But as you get fatigued, you adjust that ratio. I have to do that with chest-to-bar holds. I'm really tight here. So doing like a strict chest-to-bar hold is almost impossible for me. And when I do that sometimes, I have to actually start with that. We do that a lot in the Get Your First Pull-Up program. We have a lot of the box set up with the feet behind you.

And I feel it's the best if you don't have a partner, for sure. So these would be things that you would do during a Metcon. Strength work. Oh, these are the – okay. Yeah, so same thing we were talking about earlier with the eccentrics and not doing a ton of volume. The reason we don't want to do that, which we didn't explain that, the reason we don't want to do that, the eccentric is where most of the muscle tissue is broken down. It causes the most damage, which makes you extremely sore.

So if we do like 50 of those in a day, you're going to come back that day without your elbows being able to extend. So when a Metcon comes up, we just change the movement completely to either ring rows or inverted bar rows or something like that that they can do higher volume of. Right. And so we just separate it out to where, like, if you're doing – this is what we do for strength work. This is what we do for conditioning. Because, again, the point of the conditioning is not to get stronger at pull-ups. The point of conditioning is conditioning.

So we just change the movement to ring rows or bar rows, and strength work is strength work. I love bar rows, man. Bar rows. They're terrible. I love bar rows, man. Bar rows. They're terrible. If you do them right, they're hard. Yeah, and if you don't have a set of rings, then that's what you got. But I love them. There's nothing that gets your lats sore.

It's just doing some bar rows. And you can weight yourself too. I love them, man. They're like one of the best exercises that I don't see a lot of people doing. You get excited. That horizontal pulling strength that we're talking about is a huge missing link in CrossFit. Why is it so important to have horizontal pulling strength

instead of just doing pull-ups all the time? It just works all the muscles a little bit differently and keeps everything balanced with each other. We tend to have a major weakness in the lower – Balance, right? Turn around. Uh-oh. Lower upper back. So the rhomboids

are pulling the shoulders down if we just do upper if we just do uh vertical pulling then it's going to balance yeah one more time big nope that's great well one of the things that you said earlier now i was completely shocked about is like okay like let's have the scenario of a person who can do maybe 20 strict pull-ups, but they can't do a chest-to-bar. I was like, does that make any sense? But if they can't get that last little pull that comes from the lats, then they can't get high enough to get that chest-to-bar pull-up.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I remember you telling me that you couldn't get a strict chest-to to bar for a long time. It's very difficult for me to do that. I can do almost 20 strict pull ups but it's very hard for me to do like a single chest to bar. I can get like way up there and I can get like to here but this actually touching it's very tough for me. So it's just a different movement and it's a different strength

that debatably needs to be worked. I mean it's all up for what your goals are and stuff like that. Well for me specifically it's going to be an issue because i want to be able to do more kipping chest to bar right so if i don't have the ability to like actively move here very easily it's gonna make it harder yeah so and it does is that more of a mobility thing or is that more of a strength it's a little bit of both like i have some pretty tight shoulders and i'm not super strong uh retracting.

So what's the best way to work on that? Tell me. I like doing things like hinging ring rows, barbell rows like you guys had, isometric holds. I think it's a really good way to get stronger at it. Varying the grips, too, is super important. And this doesn't mean just with this horizontal pulling. It means with all of this.

So the thing about strength training your upper body is that you can do a lot of it and but it needs a lot of variance you need to change things up a lot because you will start to see like a lot of plateaus if you're just doing uh pronated grip meaning pronated meaning palms out and then supinated meaning uh palms towards you best way to remember that i think doug larson showed me this a bowl of soup all right so everyone remember that now um so if you only have like those think Doug Larson showed me this in a bowl of soup. So everyone remember that now. So if you only have like those two grips, right, you don't really have a lot of variance. So doing things like having mixed grip, neutral grip, like the more

you can change it up. Wide grip. Yeah. Wide grip, I mean, and close grip, like everything. Every time you do it, change it up. You know, keep it varied and you will less likely hit those plateaus as often. I really like for that missing, when that strength at the end range of motion is missing, I like dumbbell rows and things like that where you can really get that good retraction

and even kind of torso rotation to get that end range of motion. Because, again, if we're on the bar and we can't get that end range of motion, then it's going to be hard to develop that strength because we can't get there. So if we do dumbbells, we can get that end range of motion, then it's going to be hard to develop that strength because we can't get there. So if we do dumbbells, we can get that in range of motion and develop that strength in those positions. But you probably have to keep it light enough so that you can get to that full range of motion. I see some folks doing dumbbell rows that are just like this. They're trying to load it up.

You're trying to be macho and do a dumbbell row with 80 pounds. Starting a lawnmower. Right, right, right. So, yeah, it's got to be light enough so you can actually get to that full range. Well, speaking of dumbbells, is there room for something maybe like bicep curls? Yes. How dare you? How dare you?

Essentially, with this episode, we take the bands off and start doing curls. Wait. What? Oh, it's a joke. No, it's not a joke no but it's serious so yeah so curls uh especially i mean grip strength that plays a factor bicep strength plays a factor um so yeah there's definitely room for curls there's curls in our in the strict pull-up program well you know in in a lot of gyms that don't have a lot of equipment there's not a lot of options right like like if you need like more bicep strength like you only have so many options with bars and pulling and dumbbells especially

if like you don't have a lot of dumbbells um to do like heavy rows like you need to get the biceps stronger somehow and just doing isometrics all the time might not just do it so let's mostly focus on the back too you know i wish gyms like as many people need help with doing pull-ups and gyms those gravitron machines yeah those things are great. It's just a full range of motion that has the same resistance all the way through. It's like basically a banded pull-up, but it's consistent, right? I'm a big fan of those, and it's like you can knock off like only five pounds on that. So those are really great, but, you know, not every gym has that.

Just like any other strength movement. Yeah, there's hardly any CrossFit gyms that have that. To strengthen, I mean, you can just still just change the grip. I mean, if you do supinated, supinated pull, supinated holds, or supinated barbell rows, I do those in my programming. And, I mean, they'll get a good – you'll get a good work on the biceps. Pump. You catch a pump.

Yeah, supinated, it's the same thing as a bent over row. You just have, you know, the underhand grip and you pull into it. And really, that helps work that little last range bit of motion too. Yeah. Do you find that one grip is important to train as much as another? So do you feel like there needs to be a balance between pronated pulling, like pull-ups versus supinated? Is there any benefit to doing more than one or the other

no i mean i think with with with what we mostly deal with uh i mean pronated is is the thing that has to be the strongest relatively because that's how you're going to do kipping pull-ups so if you only get strong and supinated grip and then all your kipping are pronated then it's just going to be a little bit different so keeping it similar so you're similar, so you're trying to strengthen a big piece of wire strength in the strict pull-up is to have more longevity and durability during kipping pull-ups. So training that same grip is important. Gotcha.

Yeah, I like being creative with it too, doing a lot of things with ropes as well. Get off the bar. Yeah, like if you need a good combination of supinated pulling and good grip strength, get on a rope and climb up with your legs and then do slow eccentrics lowering down. That's really good strength work as well. Towel pulls?

Towel pull-ups. That kind of brings up a different reason we talk about dumbbells, rope climbs and single arm strength. So if we're only doing strict pull ups or only doing eccentrics then we may have somewhat of an imbalance there so like uneven ring pull-ups or uh towel pull-ups where you shift the towel where you're doing pull-ups like that um and then dumbbells things like that making sure side to side we're balanced you're not just doing

all your pulling on one side yeah same reason we do single leg work instead of just squatting. Right. Well, going back to the grip thing, I know you said that, well, I think it was McElroy, I think you said that, like grip strength is not really a factor in just doing strict. But I don't know, I kind of feel that, you know, you still should work getting a strong grip. No, I think it definitely is. I mean, yeah, you are going to, I mean i mean yeah you are going to i mean in in workouts

you are going to kip um so i think having a very very strong grip is important still so i i like to do a lot of from what what has helped me is to do a lot of heavy farmers carries i did i did fran the other day and people asked me well did your grip blow up i'm like no my grip is fine because i sit there and heavy i carry heavy farmer carries walks all the time yeah and so my grip is is very strong and it doesn't it doesn't bother me yep i agree yeah i'm the opposite like i have a very powerful grip but the endurance is a different thing yeah so like i can i think we were messing around in the garage a few weeks ago oh dude we have cannonballs yeah which are basically like little steel balls with a hook on them. Yeah, we'll have to show some of that footage.

But we were doing one-arm max deadlifts with it, and it's like a pinch grip, so you don't really squeeze around like this. You actually just grab it like this. You're grabbing like a door handle in a funky way. And we were seeing who could pick up the most. I could pick up, I don't remember how much, like over 100 pounds. It was ridiculous. Over 100 pounds.

I could do a pull-up. More than anybody else than anybody else yeah yeah I won no that's kind of the point that's not the point no the point is is that um like I'm plenty powerful there with that but when it comes to like high volume uh sessions with like pull-ups toes bar things like that my grip blows up really fast so the endurance is a little bit different um and training those I think is a little bit different that's true yeah so how would you train i guess uh endurance for for grip well i think i think or let me say a power first so like uh heavy deadlifts heavy pulls things like that where it's just like an abrupt like you just need like you only need it for like a quick couple of seconds right but the endurance yeah i mean just more volume with it. Man, I'm going blank on creative ways.

I feel like it's fairly specific to the pull-up bar. So maybe you do strict pull-ups into a static hang where you're just hanging on there. Because I feel like there's some people who, and some of it depends on the size of the kettlebell, I mean, or the farmer's handles. But grip strength is relative to the position so if you're you may be strong in the farmer's carry position but you may not be strong

in the overhead position which may be a shoulder dysfunction but that's well that's different well why is it so different yeah uh i mean it could be a bunch of different things but that's why i think that if you're training if you notice that your grip gives out on toes to bar and pull-ups then you need to train it in that area so do strict pull--to-bar and pull-ups, then you need to train it in that area. So do strict pull-ups or even kipping pull-ups, and then when you're finished with that set, hang on the bar. Continue to hang on the bar so you're in that same position training that grip strength in that same position.

I like things that pre-fatigue it as well, like maybe doing some deadlifts going into the pull-ups because that's the kind of stuff that really blows me up. So like something really heavy, high-powerful. Kettlebell swings for endurance. Kettlebell swings in the pull-ups. Yeah, kettle of stuff that really blows me up so like something really heavy powerful for endurance kettlebell swings yeah yeah kettlebell swings blow up my grip more than anything go do like a max set and see how your forearms feel after that me too yeah would you hang would you hang like straight arm hang after you do the pull-ups like how long would you max hang max like yeah it's a failure because you're not going to hurt anything at that point so it would be like a like an inactive hang or an active hang?

I think that would depend on the person. So if there's mobility issues, it would be a passive hang where they're getting stretched. And if strength is an issue in the shoulders, then it would be an active hang where you're staying in that engaged position. So it depends on the person. But, yeah, it would be a set amount of pull-ups. And that could be strength work or endurance work so it could be kipping or strength work with weight and then finish with hanging their max hold and then rest a little bit

do whatever you're doing and do the same thing again let's talk about what this might look like in a week so we talked about a bunch of different ways like like variance grip variance where to start in terms of isometric holds eccentric loading and then concentric uh how often should you do this to see results and like how hard should it be yeah like how difficult should it be i think one of the things and you said it earlier is variance is is important in upper body strength training more so than lower body strength training so whereas strength training with lower body you can you can probably maybe get away with doing really heavy sessions maybe twice a week for a squat or whatever.

With this, I think the variance and the volume is a little bit more important. So, some kind of upper body pulling, if it's a weakness, at least three days a week, I would say. We have our strict pull-up program is three days a week. So, I would say at least three days a week that that should be in there in some form. And like I said, the variance is important, so you're not just doing heavy weighted pull-up three days a week.

What about the intensity? So do you need to go to failure every day? Should it be like a heavy day, a light day, like you would with a squat? In my experience, it's always been go to failure because the upper body, again, that's why you can do more volume of it. Yeah, it's going to recover a lot faster. It's not as taxing. So, yeah, again, that's why you can do more volume of it. Yeah, it's going to recover a lot faster. It's not as taxing. So, yeah, like, keep it super intense.

We're not saying, like we said earlier, like, start with 100 eccentric pull-ups for time. You're going to be like, ah. Yeah, but, yeah, go to failure every day. That's super important. Yeah, I wouldn't go to failure every day. I would go – I would treat it somewhat like a West um, like a West side style thing. Um, but like have a day where you do really heavy work. So maybe that's the eccentric day. Uh, you're doing

weighted eccentrics, then have a, uh, uh, more dynamic day where you're doing, you know, good reps, good quality reps or a bunch of sets, or that could be a volume day where you're doing a bunch of volume on that. And then the third day could be like a horizontal a volume day where you're doing a bunch of volume on that and then the third day could be like a horizontal pulling day so you're working on that horizontal strength what would you do on that on that speed day like any particular any particular exercises it depends on where they are really fast no i mean it kind of depends on where they are and that's why i said it could be a volume day too so if they don't have strength if they don't have a strict pull-up then I probably wouldn't have that speed day in there that would be more for somebody that does have pull-ups so maybe it's somebody like him who

needs to build volume and capacity so it may be like nine sets of three strict pull-ups on the minute adding weight but it's a it's capital weight that he can do fast so just like you would do with a bench press nine sets of three or something like that. If it's somebody that doesn't have a strict pull-up, then I would probably do more sets of ring rows or concentric pull-ups where you have assistants and you're assisting yourself up and down, doing that kind of thing. But if there's somebody that doesn't have pull-ups yet,

I probably wouldn't do the speed, I would do more of a volume. Very nice. Cool, let's talk about some of the takeaways. So first thing we need to do is figure out where exactly you are in it. Like how far are you from getting that first pull up? Are you maybe a few pounds of pulling strength away or you, you know, you need to lose 20 pounds, like just get a, you know, run through an assessment, make sure mobility is good, figure out exactly how strong you are. Well, hold up. Oh, sorry. How do you know

how far off you are? Well, I don't think you can know exactly, but what you can do is test things like an isometric hold. Yeah. Right? A good standard, we said, is making sure you can hold for like 20 seconds. Then you know you can progress. So if you can't hold for 20 seconds,

maybe you need to start working a lot more of the isometric holds, more of the assistance work. Like, again again lots of variance but that'll just give you an idea right yep does that does that help yeah yeah perfect cool so uh following that you know now you know where you are you want to start training for it um start with the isometric holds uh going into eccentric strength training uh loaded eccentric work then the concentric what am i missing uh i don't think you're missing anything in that weighted concentric yeah i think the important thing to note is that's obviously you can get a pull never uh too strong or too good for static work um like you were doing that same day we're

doing those carries you were doing those static holds in that 90 90 position yeah um there's never a point where this is where you're strong enough to take out static work. You know, especially for upper body pulling, when it comes to pressing, we're all, it seems like as a general pop, like we are all much better at pressing than we are at pulling. Like I feel like a lot more people can bench press well over, I don't know what a good percentage would be, but versus just getting a couple of strict pull-ups. Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Well, that's a great point you brought up. I can't remember who brought that up, but you're never too good. It was a great point. It was probably me. You're never too good for static holds. Yeah, I feel definitely people are like,

well, I don't need to do that because I'm already a baller. They're not sexy. Yeah. Well, no, they're not. And they kind of – you do them, they hurt. I hate them, man. They wear me out. Yeah, they're not fun at all. Yeah. Well, no, they're not. And they kind of, if you do them, they hurt. I hate them, man. They wear me out. Yeah, they're not fun at all.

No. So, assessment, where to start, you know, and then you've got the isometric holds, eccentric loading, concentric, lots of variance, super high intensity, a couple days a week, you know, two or three days a week. What else? what else could we take away from this carry as we talked

about farmers carry grip strength relates to it cool so lots of good ideas to get better at them if you have absolutely no idea

where to start check out our pull up program in overtime.barbellstroke.com three days a week pretty cool workouts it's a lot of fun yeah

thanks for listening anything else you guys want to add drop the bands Overtime.barbellstroke.com. Three days a week. Pretty cool workouts. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Thanks for listening. Anything else you guys want to add? Drop the bands. Oh, yeah. Drop the bands. Drop the bands. Yeah.

Bands only make her dance. Bands don't make you get a pull-up. Is that what they say? Bands make her dance? Bands make her dance. Bands make her dance. That's Memphis. That's Juicy J. Word.

Thanks, guys.