Muscle asymmetry / imbalance in pull up

There are already posts here   and here about this but I have a slightly different spin.  

My imbalance is in my pullup.  Right side is significantly stronger in the dead hang to 45 degrees range.  Right and left are well balanced once the full bicep kicks in at the upper range of motion.  

This shows up for me in practice when I am upside down on a trapeze bar, arms outstretched overhead fully extended and shoulders open, and I have to lift my 135lb partner up to me.  I yank them to my right, dominant side as I lift, which messes up their movement.   I need to be more even.

In training pull ups, I'm sure I compensate pretty hard on the right side, even if it's imperceptible.    I am going to go back and make sure I'm doing perfect dead hang bilateral pullups as a beginning, and progresively build up my capacity there.  

But much of the advice in those threads suggested unilateral work would also help.   

But how would one do unilateral work in a pull-up?  With an assist band one-handed?  Upside down with a dumbbell?  

And if anyone can suggest programming, that would be awesome.  I'm thinking of Grease the groove techniques, mixed format pull-ups already but not sure what my plan should be. I also have to watch total strain on my shoulders so I don't overtrain.   

I don't really understand you: 

David Creekmore said:

My imbalance is in my pullup....

I am going to go back and make sure I'm doing perfect dead hang bilateral pullups as a beginning, and progresively build up my capacity there.    

Do you need help on how to get a symmetrical pullup? It sounds like you already have a plan. Sorry if I'm not fully understanding you. 

Sometimes mobility and strength in one shoulder exceeds mobility in the other and hence leads to favouring of one side during the beginning stage of the pullups. I would recommend doing some mobility exercises in both shoulders to make sure that neither one's mobility is the limiting factor here. Also, to strengthen the shoulders you should do some scapula pullups. 

If you have a solid dead hang, you 'can' do a deadhang with one arm (hold for longer on the weaker arm). Though personally, I would not really recommend unilateral exercises as a form of balancing out because you can end up just creating another imbalance.

Rather, I would go back to an easier variation of a pullup, like horizontal rows or just isometric hold at the 90degree position of a pullup, and work on there, focusing on symmetry and perfect form and then work my way back up to regular pullups. Because if you are doing it with bad form, it might be a sign that your muscles aren't ready for it yet (too much stress = bad form). 

If you really don't want to go back to easier pullup variations, you *could* just do pullups while focusing mainly on flexing the muscles on your left (weaker) side as you do it. It will make sure that those muscles are being used.

To minimize the difference in strength between the arms, you *can* give more reps/sets to one arm than another, but that's hard to do. I would just recommend doing the same amount of work (aka bilateral) to each arm, as they will adapt to the identical stress and hence over time the disparity will be reduced - this will only work if you make sure you it's always perfect form, so stop when imperfect form comes with the fatigue. 

Yes, sorry wasn't clear.  

I'm definitely going to do some bilateral training, going back to simpler and trying my hardest to keep form balanced.  But I've been doing that for a while already and I'm not making that much progress.  I suspect it's because I'm still favoring my strong side.  It's very hard not to do that in a pull up.

So I want to do some unilateral training because the differences are significant.   And I was looking for suggestions about what do to both in terms of mechanics, quantity, weight etc.. 

I can do 3 sets of 5 from a dead hang now, bilaterally.  I might, say, try to get one more per week bilaterally with as balanced for as possible. 

My thought was to add another set or two of some kind of unilateral movement.  Should it be high-rep, low weight (assisted somehow)?  Or is there another suggestions. 

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions.

Hmm, to begin training bodyweight Unilateral training, you'd have to be pretty strong already, doing something like 3 or 4 sets of 10 pullups. You could then do archer or typewriter pullups, or assisted one arm pullups, by hanging a towel over the bar and grabbing it with the free hand next to the elbow of the working arm.

At your level, perhaps One armed ring rows would be beneficial, but I'm inclined to agree with TheColin.

Ravn said:

Hmm, to begin training bodyweight Unilateral training, you'd have to be pretty strong already, doing something like 3 or 4 sets of 10 pullups. You could then do archer or typewriter pullups, or assisted one arm pullups, by hanging a towel over the bar and grabbing it with the free hand next to the elbow of the working arm.

At your level, perhaps One armed ring rows would be beneficial, but I'm inclined to agree with TheColin.

Right, this is why I'm asking for alternatives.  Unilateral pull up work is hard to do.  I can't just switch to dumbells.  

Archer pull-ups are good, but I'll have to build my strength.  I might be better than i reported but definitely not up to 4 sets of 10 really good pullups.  

I have occasional access to the gym, where I can use the machine.  I guess I could buy a resistance band too.  

Does anyone know if it shoudl be higher-rep-lower-weight or the opposite?  The recommendations in the threads above point to both.

Did I miss a response from TheColin?