I added pullups to my workout and I have discovered that I am not very good at them. My gym has one of those weight assist machines for pullups so my question is..
Would it be better to use the machine or to do negatives on the regular pullup bar?
Thanks in advance.
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Do both. Also include static hangs, just hang with your chin above the bar as long as possible.
And in case you were wondering, don't bother with lat pulldowns. The assisted pullup is much better.
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Caffer, I would always prefer to do assisted pullups over negatives. There's just something more satifsying about it, even if I know I'm not doing my full body weight.
Jason B, why do you say not to bother with lat pulldowns?
Before i started doing pull-ups i built my strength up by doing both assisted pull-ups and chin-ups, i may be wrong in saying this...but i don't think the lat pull downs recruit as much muscle as compared to the assisted pull-ups and the tendancy to lean back to far is too great..at least for most people at my gym haha
Jason B, why do you say not to bother with lat pulldowns?
General short answer: Because they suck.
Relevant answer: Because they have pretty much no carryover to pull-ups, making them a waste of time.
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I do not workout. I TRAIN.
I do not eat. I FEED.
I do not sleep. I RECHARGE.
My greatest fear in this life is the fear of being ordinary.
Jason, It is definetly not the same, in fact don't like to use machines if possible. I have never been able to do a pull up and to me they are really a show of true strength. Also I have never heard anyone say, man it would be so cool if I could do lat pull downs.
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Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
-Henry Ford
Something else to maybe try is to work in chin ups (palms facing you) and neutral grip (palms facing each other) and work your way up to doing pullups.
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Personally, I don't like assist machines. The best assist machine would be the standing one (not the kneeling type). There is little translation (IMO) from the machine to an actual pullup. It takes the body out of its natural range (generally speaking) and stabilizes your body (taking away from muscle recruitment later).
I like the idea of static holds for a set time. I like negatives even more. In my experience the negative pullup/chinup helps to increase co-contraction in motor learning. Also, I would not go to failure for any of these types.
Also, a good strong band can be placed on the bars and looped under one knee or foot for more "translatable" assisted training.
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I like negatives even more. In my experience the negative pullup/chinup helps to increase co-contraction in motor learning. Also, I would not go to failure for any of these types.
Also, a good strong band can be placed on the bars and looped under one knee or foot for more "translatable" assisted training.
Do the negatives for that reason. One of the biggest problem people have with doing pull ups is they haven't built the proper motor function for it so they cheat with their triceps,s winging their body a lot, or not executing the full range of motion (doing the 45 degree arm drops instead of fully extending the arms down). Negatives because they move over a static hold will help ease your body into the motions. Same goes for the idea of an assistance band over a machine (although in that one is more or less the same).
Keep in mind two things though:
1) By changing the hold (pull ups/chin ups/neutral) you are going to work different areas of the back muscles and the best routine will have a variety of hand holds to make sure everything is hit properly.
2) Once you do a full pull-up lower yourself down under control (ie, a negative rep). Double the impact as well as preventing you from getting an injury from the sudden jerk at the bottom of the drop.
- Everytime I walked past something to do a pullup on, I did.
- Static holds at the end of the set wherever you get stuck, (i only did it on the last set)
- Something I havent done much of is change the grips throughout the set
if your doing 3x8,
Pullup x 2, chinups x 3, neutral grip x 3 to finish the set,
Get Alwyn's bodyweight training DVD. If nothing else, it will put a fire under your ass after seeing his wife Rachel effortlessly repping out a dozen variations of the pull-up.
Just for information purposes these pullups are part of HGM Advanced phase 1. For those of you not familiar with this workout the routine is set up as two circuits each containing 4 exercises with 90 sec rest after each set.
Squat
Incline Bench
Deadlifts
Pullups
Dips
Lunge
Cable Seated Row
Hanging Leg raise
__________________
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
-Henry Ford
Well, I changed my pullup grip from palms facing away to palms facing me. Big difference!! I was even able to take a plate off the stack on the assist machine.
I think I will stay on the weight assist machine a until I can drop a few more plates then switch to negatives..
Thanks for all the input guys!!
__________________
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
-Henry Ford
This whole discussion reminded me of my working up to chin-ups for reps a year or so ago, so this past Friday, I went through a negative-only round of pull-ups as the start of an upper body session. Ouch (still)
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Negatives are good too, but they're really hard. I'd suggest going ahead and getting off the assist machine, move to the bench assist, and add in a few negatives too.
I know you're already in the middle of a particular program and I'm not suggesting that you change it, but reading through this article, Keep Your Chin Up, might give you some ideas of how to improve your pull-up/chin-up within your existing program.
I find cheating helped me get mine up. I could only do so many strict ones then I started jumping to start them and coming down slow. Eventually I was able to get the numbers I needed then added weight to them. I did the same for pullups too.
i'm actually able to perform more chinups after focusing on strengthening my entire back the last few months. I've only been doing chinups once every 2 weeks. So, just my 2 cents that you can get better at chins by improving your back strength if it's your weak point.
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