Weighted Dip / Chin Up Progression

[inspiringmedia]

Hello all. First time poster, long time lurker here.

Quick background, I workout M/W/F with a using a variant of Mark Wildman's Tetris Style (A days - C&P, TGU, Weighted Dip, B days - Swing, Squat, Weighted Chins).

I've been using 5 set ladders for the dips and chins and am essentially up to 6,7,8,9,10 reps but I'm starting to worry that I may be putting too much strain on my joints.

So, should I add weight, and then start back at something like 5X5, and progressively increase the ladders again?

The novice in me thinks that the joint strain will be identical between (more weight + lower reps) and (lower weight + more reps), but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[jackier293]

@inspiringmedia I use step loading progression for these.

Workout 1 = 3 reps, 3 reps, 3 reps

WO 2 = 3, 3, 4

WO 3 = 3, 4, 4

WO 4 = 4, 4, 4

Then I repeat until 5, 5, 5. Then I go up in weight and drop back to 3, 3, 3.

Depending on how I'm feeling, I might fail to get the extra rep that workout, so I'll try it again the next time. I found this to be a joint friendly way to progress.

 

[lookingforlight]

@jackier293 Very good method here. It’s very similar to something I did back when I was training for the PRMC for the Royal Marines. I will outlay my exact session (did this prior to every workout as a sort of warm up I guess)

Set 1; 5 reps
Set 2; 3 reps
Set 3; 2 reps
Set 4; 3 reps
Set 5; 5 rep
Just regular pull ups with the best form you can manage. The idea is to wait 60 seconds after each set. When you can complete all sets with just 60 seconds rest, you simply add 1kg. I got you to about 15kg before going into recruit training. If you’re interested I went from 5 very shaken half reps to getting 10 super strict chest to bar pull ups to a beeps on my prmc (after 3 mile run, bleep test, press up max and sit up max).

It’s also very joint friendly - never caused any pain or issuers.

 

[inspiringmedia]

@lookingforlight Seems great too, but I regrettably am only using KBs in increments of 4K, so I don't think I'd be able to pull this off.

 

[inspiringmedia]

@jackier293 I like this idea a lot. Any reason for doing 3 sets instead of 5?

 

[jackier293]

@inspiringmedia No real reason. I found that if I was stuck and wasn't progressing, I could add more sets to build volume that way, but usually 3 was just about right. Plus with warm up sets and other lifts it didn't take super long.

 

[anniekins13]

@inspiringmedia How old are you? Dan John talks about MAPS, Middle Age Pullup Syndrome, i.e. developing elbow tendonitis from doing too many pullups. He says once you can do more than 10, it makes more sense to add load than to increase reps. Nice problem to have; I can do three!

 

[inspiringmedia]

@anniekins13 I'd never heard of MAPS. Seems to make sense.

I'm 31, so I'd like to think I'm not quite middle age, so maybe I'm at Almost-MAPS? I trust Dan John, so I'll know that 10 is the number to stop at moving forward.

 

[okliw1]

@inspiringmedia Honestly not sure about joint strain, but I would still advise going the weighted route. I found that building up my weighted chins and dips made unweighted ones feel substantially easier - I recently took a set of the former to failure, and was able to hit 15. As for how to structure it, I’ve been doing this method and can vouch for it:

(Hypothetical weights)

Day 1: 5X5 @ +10 pounds

Day 2: 6X4 @ +12.5 pounds

Day 3: 8X3 @ +15 pounds

Day 4: Light volume day (a bit more free-form. Maybe set a total Rep goal and hit it in as few sets as possible)

Day 5: Start over, but add 2.5 Lbs to each weighted day.

 

[dawn16]

@inspiringmedia I like a bit of both. Weighted one day for low reps, unweighted to bang out volume another day. One of my favourite programs this year was 100 pull ups on Monday and 5x5 Weighted on Friday.