Need someone to help me out here with chinup and pullups

[Viper555]

Ok, I went and got myself a pullup/chinup bar today but I have trouble doing 1 pullup(I know,it's pathetic).What is the best way to do these do gain strength from them?I also can't even do 1 pullup,any suggestions on those?

[IronFist]

How much do you weigh? One method that seems to work for people is to stand on a chair or something so you start at the top of the pullups and just work on doing negatives. But, I would imagine this would work better if you were close do doing 1 pullup normally. How close can you get? As far as I know, you are only about 10-20% stronger in the negative portion of the movement, so if you can't even start a regular pullup, you probably won't be able to do negatives, either. If you can get about half way up from a dead hang, however, then negatives would help you.

IronFist

[rubthebuddha]

get up to chin height, maybe with the help of the chair, hold on, lift your legs up and slowly lower yourself down -- REALLY slowly.

make the lowering your workout -- eventually, you'll get strong enough to lift up (keep trying it until you can -- it won't be long).

[Qi dup]

I'd probably just jump half way up and then pull yourself the rest of the way. Then do what RubtheB said. Pull ups are great. When I first got my bar a feww years back I used to just do pull ups all the time. Like every time I came into or left my room, I would do a pull up. I know that's may not be the best way, but I could do a lot very quickly. It seems like a matter of weeks before I could double my numbers with my arms spread out. These days I'm about 20 pounds heavier and pull ups seem a lot hard. I do 10 sets of 5, 3 times I week, but that is kind of an emphasis on size. Ironfist set that plan out for me and it's working pretty well.

[inic]

i'm really tired and dont want to write, but oh well. its for a good cause. anyhoo, my friend was in the same boat you are a month ago. he wanted me to get him to be able to do lots of pullups (like me =P). he couldnt even do 1, i couldnt stop laughing. but what i had him do is grab the bar while standing, jump a little, pull himself up and SLOW AS YOU CAN, lower yourself down. rest 30 sec, do it again and again. my friend now can do 4 real pullups. ( i say real cause he goes all the way down like i taught him to) and he does 5 sets of 4 like 3x a week...
i havent doen pullups in like a month, hell i havent worked out in a month! with school starting and a brand new job, i barely have time to take a ****, nevermind work out.
but i just tested myself on the pullup on my door. just did 14.... blah! i gotta start on those again, my #'s are going down.

[vingtsunstudent]

i had the same trouble, seeing as though i was weighing in at approx 115kg with $hitty grip strength and here is what i did.
go to the hardware shop and get yourself about 4 metre of bugee cord(i call it ocky strap, you know the stuff used to hold things to the roof of your car), you want to double it up and somehow attach it to/over your bar(don't know what sort of bar you have but i had a friend weld some hooks to the outer of mine so i could easily connect it). it should be of just enough length to help you and get you past the sticking pionts.
now go to www.dragondoor.com look in the articles section and read up on gease the groove training.
the best part of using this cord is that it slowly stretches and offers less resistence as you get better.
you'll be doin' body weight ones in no time.
good luck
vts

[fa_jing]

When one does pullups, is one supposed to look up at the bar, or straight ahead? Also, at the very bottom of the movement, do you guys relax the shoulders completely, like you are doing a hanging stretch? It seems to make it a lot harder.

[Kempo Guy]

You want to start/end the pullup from a dead hang (relaxed at the bottom). As you have observed, it's much tougher... guys that say they can do 10+ pull ups will only be able to do a few if they never have done it from a dead hang.

As for looking at the bar, personally I don't. I also try to touch the top of my chest to the bar as I pull myself up.

KG

[popsider]

Yeah the further down you go the harder it is - but a lot of it is down to how much you weigh. I weigh 83kilos and can do sets of 15 pretty comfortably - if I weighed VTSs 115k then I couldn't. There are some pretty strong people in our gym that can't do any because of their size - for that reason I like doing them, plus dips which are another one that some people struggle with.

[Cyborg]

If you're able to get about halfway up before you stick, then flex your stomach and squeeze with your hands right there. Or right before you get there. I find that a slight grunt sometimes helps mentally.

As they pointed out smaller people can always do more than larger. If they both train...

[Aramus]

Have you tried doing lat pulldowns? It is a similar motion to one of them (pull ups or chins ups). Hell I don't remember which is which. Pulls ups the one with the palms away from you?

Any way try warming up on lat pulldowns and then put a bench under the bar to get up to the bar and lower your self down after one rep (if that is all you can do right now).

Or work on your lat pulldowns a few days then a warmup to a pullup/chin up.

Good luck.

[Ka]

Start a weight program to increase strength of other major and minor muscle groups that are required

practise dead hangs, work the time,and practise lock off (top of the excercise) to time

have a spotter assist (one arm under your bent knee other in lower back)

Start with hands facing pull ups

If its not to personal could I ask your bodyweight?
other then that just take up rockclimbing

:D

[Mr. Bao]

Viper

I can recommend two great books on how to increase chins and pull ups. Before "the Evil Russian" Pavel was introduced to maintream America, a man named Charles Poliquin, an elite strength coach known for his german high volume method told body builders and strength students to go do chins and pull ups. So, pls get his book called "Poliquin Principles". I don't agree with building muscles for looks, but some of his principles are highly effective for strength tho.

Then get "Power to the People" by Pavel "the evil Russian". He is probably the best leading strength guru out there. Go to www.dragondoor.com for more free information on chin up and pull up condition.

Best of luck,

bao

[abobo]

Here's a funny story - I overheard a buddy of mine talking about working on his triceps because he wanted to get better at rock climbing. I said he'd be better off trying towel chinups and besides, triceps are involved in extension, and biceps are for flexion. I said this while extending and curling my arm. Then he said something like - when you grip the bar like this (palms facing away), it's a tricep pullup. He said this incredibly confidently. I explained that regardless of the difference in perceived intensity between grips, it's never a tricep pullup. He said, what about on the way down - the arm is extending. I had him grab a rail and pull with one arm while feeling his bicep. He finally relented and agreed that the biceps are involved with a palms away grip.

This is a guy who only works the muscles he can see. I wonder if he'll believe me when I tell him that pullups work the lats too...

[IronFist]

abobo, I'm sure you know already, but that's called concentric contraction and eccentric contraction. You might want to tell your buddy those terms to help him understand.

The muscle that is working against gravity is the one that activates. That's why pushups work the triceps and pullups work the biceps :)

It's possible to activate the triceps during a pullup and it's possible to activate the biceps during a pushup, but it takes conscious effort to do this, and at no time will the antagonist muscle relax.

The other way to do it is to not apply a resisting force against the motion. For example, if you throw a punch slowly with every muscle tightened, both your triceps and biceps will be contracted for both the extension and the retraction. The two muscles contract against each other; that's what provides the resistence.

Haha, that's probably way more than you wanted to know, but hopefully someone benefitted from it.

IronFist