Stuck at 4-6 pull-ups for months

[jabba1495]

@heavenlypraises Yeah you’re right I should double down on the protein intake

 

[somethingillusory]

@jabba1495 Weak sauce

 

[anthony112409]

@jabba1495 I trained to be able to do about 23 pull ups at my max. I suggest adding weight after you can do 8 good ones. In the meantime you should aim for 3 sets of 10 but once you can’t do them strictly, jump up and control the way down as slow as possible all the way down. Remember to breathe!

 

[fancypantschick]

@jabba1495 I progressed from 2 half assed pull ups to 9 clean reps very quickly by focusing on negatives and bodyweight rows. Negatives help you to build strength in the top part of the movement especially and rows will help you get strong in ‘pulling’ your bodyweight even though they don’t necessarily work the lats a lot.

 

[popsthebuilder]

@jabba1495 Lots of great advice here. There's certainly more than one way to skin a cat. Another method of increasing reps to an extent is the grease the groove method. It involves just doing a couple pullups periodically throughout the day. Make sure you're never getting close to failure. You end up getting a lot of volume over the day without the same kind of fatigue you get from training to failure over and over again. That helped me break through my plateau when I was at less than 10 rep max. Once I got over that, I switched to weighted pulllups to help get me past my next plateau because greasing the groove stopped being effective for me.

 

[boog400]

@jabba1495 Check out the AthleanX guy on YouTube. He’s awesome for proper instruction on form and has so much truly helpful information.

 

[arrowoftimemindreading]

@jabba1495 Drop your training frequency to once a week of Weighted pull-ups for sets of 3-5 and switch your grip when you struggle to a neutral grip.

You’ll be able to hit rep out 10 easily by the time you get to 45lbs since you’ve trained your CNS and your body will feel light in comparison.

I did this and was able to do muscle ups as a byproduct. (I was bodybuilding at the time)

 

[rbnum1fan]

@jabba1495 Do banded pull ups for reps some days, really helped me

 

[amyjenkinstheone]

@jabba1495 Ngl 6 oullups is pretty good you have to make sure your getting enough protein to make sure your muscles can regenerate i can do 17 but I eat alot of protein and have atleast 3 to 5 minutes rest between sets

 

[susansnook]

@jabba1495 Be patient .

 

[godsrockstar]

@jabba1495 You should follow @fitnessfaq pull up tutorial

 

[smithed64]

@jabba1495 Do negatives

 

[smithed64]

@jabba1495 I can honestly do 30 pull ups rn in one go I done calisthenics last year and that’s all I did and it got to a point where I was t growing until I learned a trick. Negatives. I would do 20-30 before burning out and then I would jump off the floor get my head above the bar and very slowly control myself down and within a month I was able to add +10 pull up. I quit after that month.

 

[tripletiger1200]

@jabba1495 If you can do 6, try the recon ron pullup program. A few friends and I did it. I was already able to do 20, so I added weight and started at week 1 with them. I made it to like week 15 with them, everybody progressed to being able to do 15. Turns out the weight helped me achieve a 1 arm pullup.

 

[hamuda]

@jabba1495 Check out kboges pull up mastery program

 

[olddude]

@jabba1495 If your body can handle it I would suggest doing weighted pull ups for 2-3 reps with long rests

 

[grace01]

@jabba1495 I am also in plateau with pull-ups stuck at 2-3 sets of 8-9 reps. My goal is 3x12 or 4x10

What I think helps in any Plateau: add new stimuli, add changes, surprise the muscles. Less/more frequency, less/more sets, less/more weight, different way of working the muscles, different directions, different focus (negatives, hang on bar to improve grip strength, etc).

For some people Grease the Groove works (less reps but many more sets), for others adding weight (belt) then after a few week(s), remove the weight and it your body weight feels lighter and you can add more reps, etc

Extra Tip: try using pre-workouts for extra strength, and creatine. Also, sometimes eating a bit more helps, extra kcals = build more muscle. I don’t know if this will help with Pull-ups but for me worked well for chest, shoulders, arms, etc

 

[hunter48]

@jabba1495 Along with the other great advice on this post I'd like to add that the Pull Up is a COMPOUND exercise. This means you can strengthen it by also working the individual muscles involved. Like those of the arms namely the biceps and bracioradialis as well as the upper back (traps, rear delts etc..) I'd also like to suggest adding extra negative reps once you hit failure or, band/machine assistance. Keep up the hard work

 

[gilldouglas]

@jabba1495 Honestly just spend a few dollars on a plan from a calisthenics guy who has good pull ups that you like. It'll save you so much time and time is money

A fool proof method is greasing the groove:
Do 5 sets of 50% of your max rep pull ups 5-6 days a week. Each week add 1 rep to the sets you do. After about 3-4 weeks, take a few days off and test your max.