Why couldn’t I do a single pull-up?

@pablob What are you doing to train them? You talk about your weight in your post, but nothing about your progress in pull-up progressions or what you’ve been working on. I taught someone (who was tiny) who couldn’t even hang on a bar in the beginning to be able to do their first pull-up. Just like everything else, there are a set of progressions to go through, and we can help you identify an easier/harder/next/concurrent progressions/training to work through!

The above is true. Losing weight won’t magically make pull-up strong. But will it help? Absolutely, so long as you’re losing fat in a healthy way. Weighted pull-ups, even with just 5lbs, are significantly harder. Work on both.
 
@pablob I can sort of relate to your situation, I'm 5'9 and have always been around 100 kgs, 102 at my heaviest, and I'd dropped to 88kgs about 2 years ago and I did negative pull ups and also grease the groove to learn how to do a pullup, and I could do 3 but even then my chin would never go above the bar but it was progress. This time around I got a resistance band with 45 kg resistance and started doing pull ups twice a week, I would do a set of 10 pull-ups, then 10 holds at the top because that is where I was weak in the movement and and one set to failure and then 10 scapular pulls. I've recently started going to the gym and do heavy deadlifts and lat pulldowns and to my surprise I hit my first clean pull up without any assistance with strict form, and I've progressed to doing 2 now. I don't know if the heavy back movements were directly responsible for the progress but I'd like to think so, now I try a set of unassisted pull ups followed by the same sets as mentioned above. Hope this helps, good luck.
 
@pablob Losing that amount of weight is impressive, but that doesn't make you any stronger if you've not been strength training, and 80kg is still a lot of weight to pull up.

I'd recommend using the progression on the Recommended Routine and working up to it slowly.

A year ago I couldn't manage one, now I do sets of 10. It's very possible, work slow and steady.
 
@pablob Doing a pull up requires use of muscles that are extremely difficult to work with weightlifting. Don't feel too bad, back in the day, in the gymnastics gym, football players would come in, and we'd challenge them with one task:

We had a set of rings that were low enough that one could jump up into a support hold. Mist every time, they would shake like crazy for about two seconds, then come down. Gymnastics works muscles football dies not.
Of course, I would hate to get hit constantly by another team of giants, and I likely could not push that sled thing near as well as a football player.

Throw a resistance band or two over the pull-up bar, but stay on the ground and pull down to simulate a pull up.
Repeat.
Repeat...and a thousand more and you should make headway..er chin way. That or have a buddy spot you and literally lift you so your muscles perform the desired motion.
 
@pablob Pull-up is the exercise in which we need to weigh whole body weight on our arms. For people weighing higher it is always difficult to do pull-ups. This is primarily because of the body weight. So I would recommend you to loose body weight first, Try to maintain your weight in the range which can be ideal for you. Then I would recommend you to work on your arms and increase your arm strength. Once you strengthen arms keeping body weight in limit, definitely you would be able to do more pull-ups.
 
@pablob I would recommend doing horizontal pulls such as bodyweight rows first, just as the RR in the sidebar says. Why? Well, first off, it trains your grip strength. 2) it allows you to use core tension so when you eventually do the pullup, you do not swing. 3) It helps raise body awareness and positioning since you have to keep core tension.

From there, you could try chin up and pullup negatives. If you have trouble holding the top, don't do this, and maybe try an isometric hold at the top with over or underhand grip because your biceps may need to be built more.

Got the isometric? Try negatives again. Are you swinging? Find a plyo box or large, stable base to get into position, and if the pullup station has vertical support bars close enough, hook your toe around it and slowly bring your legs back to center using your core muscles while in the lockoff you practiced.

Is your core not doing its work to stabilize bringing your legs back together? Supplement with a few core exercises. I like dead bugs or other functional core work.

Okay. Now. Looks like we can go back to negatives for the third time. Jump up or use the base, stabilize, and slowly lower. Keep videos or use a mirror for form check as well as progression.

Alongside negatives, you may also practice scapular pulls. The lowest part of the pullup may be the hardest because you are using the scapulae to pull, but they're not exactly the biggest muscles.

From there, you can try chin ups or pullups. If you can do 1 by now, try not to get super stoked an immediately move onto them and continue your progressions if you want to do more of them. You can even do your pullups and then negatives in the same set if you get too tired to finish the total reps you wanted.

On a few side notes, I do not prefer resistance bands. They have too much variable resistance and can slip and cause injury. Then comes assisted pullup machines. They don't put you in a similar enough position by pushing from the knees since now you don't need core tension. HOWEVER, they still help build strength if used correctly. Use them how you want, but be mindful, especially of your form.

Last but not least, if you swing when doing the pullup, keep your toes pointed and in front of you because legs crossed behind arches instead of hollows the body. Use abdominal muscles to keep feet in front to avoid kipping, which may equal swinging.

All the above is just how I have gone about showing others or climbing buddies how to get to a pullup. It is one of many ways you can progress. Thanks for posting here. We love this sort of stuff, and it may be what a bunch of other people wanted to ask.

TLDR;
Start with horizotal pulls such as rows (RR in sidebar), then isometric lockoffs, core, negatives, and scapular pulls. "Debug" your problem areas, and good luck!!!
 
@pablob First things first respect for being able to lose and put on weight like that. Idk if was your intention to gain more weight but that’s also more muscle right there. Using my knowledge I’d say that you just need more practice. Practice hanging from the pull up bar, then practice while lifting yourself 6 inches, then a little more and a little more, and you could also jump up into a pull up then slowly descend down while holding your weight. This will activate your muscles and work them. Just don’t be lazy with it and put some serious effort into it and you’ll have it in a week or two. The key is to PUT IN WORK. There’s no shortcut just work it baby work it.
 
@pablob Yeah no problem. I hope you get to do your pull up soon. My younger brother is around your same weight and is doing the same kind training with the dead hangs. So I hope this helped
 
@pablob Here is my bit analysis of what I learned from personal experience.

I worked out a little bit from my late teens to early twenties and generally could always do one or two pullups, weighed anywhere around 140-170 or so.

Your biceps and grip strength are a limiting factor and also as someone else pointed out, you need to have decent shoulder and rotator cuff muscle stabilizer development.

Currently Im in my mid 40s and weigh around 170--175. I can perform 7-10 super strict pullups with good form (upper chest touches pullup bar).
  1. Your bodyweight relative to your arm, back and shoulder strength is paramount. When I was a sickly lean 130lbs with FAR less muscle I could do 20 or 30 pullups with minimal effort. It was just a very light load for my arms and back/shoulder to carry. If your priority is pullups then lose weight/fat and maybe 40-50lbs of it if healthy. Even today, doing nothing else, if I lose10 lbs of fat I can easily perform 5 more reps
  2. Practice on a lat pulldown machine. Its important to work the muscle completely through a full range of motion with sufficient reps, Close grip, wide grip, underhand, overhand etc.
  3. Strengthen your rotator cuff and smaller muscles around your shoulder and upper back. The first muscles to give out and hold you back could be a smaller overlooked untrained muscle. Nobody can bench press for shit without properly developed triceps so dont ignore the supporting and ancillary muscles that assist with pullups.
  4. Pullups are a skill and training the movement will improve results. As soon as you can complete one or two keep practicing even performing one or two.
Again, drop weight (safely) and a lot of it. My friends who can perform the most reps with seemingly no effort are the lightest and leanest guys I know. Carrying excess weigh really makes it hard to perform pullups with proper productive form. I know if I approach 190lbs bodyweight my shoulders really limit my ability to complete the last 15-20% of a rep.

If my #1 goal was to go from 10 reps to 20 reps I would just focus on dropping 20 pounds. I can say with 99% probability based on MY experience and what worked for ME. good luck - I think your goal is very reasonable and achievable.
 
@heikki This is how I feel. I'm a skinny guy in my mid twenties I weigh maybe 145 lb and I can do 10 pull-ups no problem.

I'm also fairly active I bike ride a lo, paddle board, go fishing go on hikes all that kind of stuff.

But I'm nothing to look at in a mirror lol
 
@pablob Hey, I'm not an expert but I feel like my situation is so similar I should share my pull up story, in case it helps.

I'm 6'4", bad posture, used to be an unhealthy 250 lbs. I counted calories and lifted weights for a year or so and got down to 200 lbs. then I decided doing a single pull up was my main arbitrary fitness goal.

It took almost 2 years, AFTER I was already 200 lbs. I started doing the Recommended routine 3 times a week. but I'll focus here on the stuff that applies to pullups.
  • First I did a lot of inverted rows. I hung rings from my garage ceiling. To make it harder you can lower the rings and raise your feet(like on a chair). I pretty quickly (3 months maybe?) got to fully horizontal doing 3 sets of 12 reps. but I didn't know where to go from there. and seemed no closer to a pull up.
  • I tried building a pull down bar . I attached a bar to a rope going through a pulley and added weight to the other side. I progressed on this for awhile, but eventually got to 150lbs on the weight and then it started feeling exactly like trying to do a pull up and failing except even more awkward than a normal bar. I think the friction of the pulley might have made it weirder... In any case I wouldn't recommend doing this step.
  • Negative pull ups: I had been doing the above for about a year and a half, also trying and failing to do pull ups and trying negative pull ups occasionally but they always felt like I was just "dropping like a rock" . I eventually decided to just do them anyway. I would do 3 sets of negatives during my workout 3 times a week . each set would be between 4-10 reps , basically as many times as I could. at first it felt completely useless like I was dropping as fast as gravity, but I would fight it as hard as I could. Within a week or so I noticed a slight improvement, maybe dropping a little slower. So I stuck with it and and was pleasantly surprised at my steady progress, slower every week. Within 3 months I got to my first pull up.
  • I could still only do the one at first but from then on I mixed it up doing as many pull ups as I could and then doing the negative sets. within 3-4 months I got to 5 pull ups. which felt amazingly fast after years of no progress.
  • After that it took a year or so to get to 10 pull ups max, and really only 7-8 reps for most work outs. and I've plateaued there for the past year. mostly cause I'm happy just maintaining at this point.
Overall If I had to do it again I would just go straight to negatives. Its probable the other stuff helped as well, but its hard to know for sure. I would maybe do the inverted rows along with the negatives. I think there is some overlap but its not all the same muscles.

edit: the other comments reminded me, I did do those "scap pull ups" where you just go from dead hang to 1 or 2 inches up using just your shoulders. I think I would do 1 set of those per workout, around the same time I started negatives. there is a good chance they helped as well.
 
@beebert thanks a lot man, this seems to be kinda the general consensus that negatives are just the best. good to know that its possible. I think im gonna do some basic strengthening and rows etc for a few weeks cos im weak af rn and to prevent injury etc and then go for the negatives hard
 
@pablob This post is missing a ton of information. You say you've been on a fitness journey for 3 years now. What and how have you trained in these 3 years? Everyone is different, but if you have nothing to show for after such a long time, you've definitely made some mistakes along the way.

Did you follow a routine, or did you just do some exercises maybe 1-2 times per week, except that one time you went 3 times, so you convince yourself you're training 3x/week? If you followed a routine, which one was it and how closely did you follow it?

Without any of those answers, there's no way for us to answer your question.
 
@dawn16 yh im kinda realising this now and its my bad, didn't really expect anyone to respond to be honest hahaha but so much help! love it here now.

I started with bodybuilding/powerlifitng gym stuff then stopped that and did basically no real exercise for like a year or so (so maybe a 2 year fitness journey is more accurate).

Then started cycling to work and kinda fell in love and cycled quite a lot, which is definitely when I was at my fittest and lightest but wasn't rlly eating enough.

Towards end of my cycling peak I started to do some very minor calisthenics stuff, negatives, rows, pushups etc. this was like a year ago now and since that ive basically been doing light boxing training on and off and riding my bike a bit.

at the moment im very unfit and weak and thought a pull-up would be a good goal to get back into it all. hope that sheds some light haha
 
@pablob So you never followed a workout program and you wonder why you're not strong? There is a term for doing 'some very minor calisthenics stuff, negatives, rows, pushups etc.' in fitness circles. It's called 'fuckarounditis', and it's considered a disease. Nothing will cripple your progress as much as a bad/non-existent workout program.

I started my own fitness journey about 3 years ago as well. Corona set me back quite a bit, due to lack of facilities, but I'm regaining my former level. I started out following programs from the start and following them well. I was benching 100kg, squatting 160kg and deadlifting 180kg in less than a year, being 1m70 and just shy of 70kg. I got even stronger after that. I learned to do muscle ups, back lever, almost got to front lever pre-pandemic, one arm chinup, ... all in less than 2 years.

If you want to stick to calisthenics, look for the Recommended Routine in the sidebar, run it and stick with it. You'll never see progress unless you follow a proper program.
 
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