Stuck at 4-6 pull-ups for months

[helasomething]

@jabba1495 I plateaued at various stages for different amounts of time, but always ended up progressing further.

I was stuck at 7 for ages, then it got to 10, then 12, then 14, then 17, now I can do 20-21.

What I noticed helped me to speed things up was having a weighted pull day and non-weighted day. Weighted may not be for you yet, but even fixing any weak points would make a difference. Grip strength and your form should be looked into first.

 

[nehem]

@jabba1495 I think I know which program you're running. I have used something similar before when I came back from an injury. Your first day, what I'm seeing you going to complete failure in my humble opinion is limiting you. Especially for trying to get volume you need to do sub max sets. Since you're stuck at 6 reps in my humble opinion you should probably get bands, and also work on your bodyweight rows on the side. You really wanna get to at least 8 reps or a spot where you can start doing 3 sets of 5 reps. With this wall you got entirely I recommend just scratching this for now and doing something else.

My general recommendation is to lower the progression or just make sure you also focus on your lat pull downs , and arm isolations as well bicep curls and so on. Next, the recommendation is training pull 2x a week to give more rest time. In my humble opinion Emom won't work here in this case cuz you need more reps for it to be super effective.( You do not have enough pullups for hypertrophy it will be an absolute strength for you).

Mind you I also get stuck in pull quite easily, so you generally need to get more volume with reps through easier progressions.

 

[jabba1495]

@nehem I already have bands, I will definitely incorporate them, Thanks!

 

[nehem]

@jabba1495 Your welcome bro, just make sure the band can get you to sets of 4-8 reps, and make sure to have a 1-2 bodyweight reps fresh as a way to see if you got more reps. Make to sure to hit a 3-4 sets of 8 reps and lower the resistance bands.

Hope I helped

 

[seekinglightandcurious]

@jabba1495 It really seems like you need to eat more - protein, carbs, and fat. You can allow yourself to put on a little fat if your goal is to get stronger. You really need your be in a balanced surplus, and maybe don’t worry about eating too clean. Have more beers, have some fun, get stronger, then lean out later. Maybe make a 6-9 month plan to gain weight and strength for 3-6 months, then lean out for 2-3 months, then repeat. Or just get as big and strong as you want, then lean out when you want to.

 

[sarangapani]

@jabba1495 Your form looks great. I think maybe your form, speed and ROM improved (i.e. got harder) and that’s why you don’t see as much improvement in your number of repetitions as you’d expect?

 

[jabba1495]

@sarangapani Well yeah it improved but still progress is very slow and I can't even get my chest to the bar

 

[tulipgirl11]

@jabba1495 I also recommend Russian fighter pull-up program. Got me from 7 reps to 16 reps quick.

 

[jabba1495]

@tulipgirl11 I will start it as of tmr Thanks!

 

[dawn16]

@jabba1495 This is an 8 week program? How long have you been running it? Worst case you should be able to do 9 pull-ups once done (+50%)

 

[iamnotmyown]

@jabba1495 One thing you can try is to go even slower on the way down.

Generally, eccentric contraction is better for muscle growth.

 

[verde_sonno]

@jabba1495 I was told by my trainer, to increase pull-up capacity, on the descend be as slow as possible, apparently that helps a lot.

 

[xiaokuan]

@verde_sonno Time under tension naturally leads to muscle growth.

 

[lostandfoundproverbs31]

@jabba1495 You're 17 and doing fine... More isn't always better...

 

[willm]

@jabba1495 Apart from adding weight and such, try doing 5 x 5 for a month or two then, test your total reps

 

[ma37icws]

@jabba1495 I started a 100push ups a day for a month, first day took me more than an hour with sets of 5 then 3.it was painful for about a week. Keep ptoper form. Gains were great and i got to somewhere close to 20 minutes to finish.

 

[ander535]

@jabba1495 Russian fighter got me out of my lurch. Older dude with a sedentary life stuck in his old fat ass overeating ways. So if I can do it, any human can. I just took more days off to recover if I felt I needed it. Listen to your body and get out of your head. Took extra care of my scap and elbows. Determination was the biggest factor. “I failed today but I’m not giving up till I reach this tangible goal.” Then I would make a new goal after notating the last. This got me to double digits. Then I moved onto something more sustainable, kboges pull up mastery 3x days week took up my pulling and backed off of the single arm rows. My only difference is for “max” day, I do 40lbs weighted chins at 4 sets of 5+ reps, but keep the sub max and ladder days on point with his program. While I do strict :30/:60 seconds rest now, during fighter program, I was taking 10-15 min rests and that worked well. Good luck and don’t compare yourself to others, I found that to be destroyer of linear progress and just made me depressed.

Edit: hang like you’re a monkey. After every workout session and whenever you think about it. Get that grip strength up and it helps for pull up endurance. Grease the groove till you can do two min and then start single arm hanging and work up to 30 seconds. Worked for me so I can only speak to that.

 

[kemada]

@jabba1495 First off, those are some mighty fine looking pullups. You shouldn't, but if you slopped them up a bit to most people's standards you could probably get 10-15.

Plateaus and maxes can be mental too. If you can do sets across of 5 odds are 5 isn't your true max. You can just have it in your head that 5 is your limit, and lo and behold you fail at 5.

5/3/1 was a eureka program for me for that. It's a "plus set" model. Where in a given workout you just have one real true set, taken until absolute gun-to-your-head-cant-get-another-rep failure. I found, since I knew I just had the one set and could leave it all on the table, I could exceed what I thought the limit was by upwards of 50%. Like I figured 7, and could grind until 11.

That might be worth experimenting with. If you find your true max is 11, sets of 5 might get easier because youve removed the mental block.

 

[krestina]

@jabba1495 Negatives once a week, sets of three, start wide, work narrower as you run out of gas. Same routine with regular pull ups once a week too

 

[morsepam619]

@jabba1495 Start bouldering and you’ll be doing pull-ups for breakfast