Ground rows v's pullups

There is an interesting topic on the forum about pull ups and it is mentioned by the coaches that ''rows'' (i'm assuming it's ground rows) will help with pull up reps. I know pull ups is not part of the F1 course but i'm finding it hard to give them up because i remember the struggle to get even 3 reps. I can do maybe 10 reps max (no sure how good the form is though)

I was just wondering if the coaches recommend to keep on with the pull ups as well as ground rows or to stop doing pullups and concentrate more on the ground rows?  If this would improve the form/reps in the long run than I am willing to give them up. 

My priority is F1 progression so i will do what it takes. 

Any advise is appreciated.

Hi Garry,

Good question. By refining and master the basics the quality of your pull-ups will definitely improve and also the reps as you're focusing on building your work capacity in F1. 

First things first, I'd reccomend to focus on your Foundation training and mastering all the RC progressions. In the end of your workout you can 'play around' with some pull-ups or other exercises  

Hi Garry,

I suggest focusing on your F1 RC progressions and putting pull-ups aside for now. Don't worry, you will get PLENTY of pull-up work in later and I am sure that once your F1 RC progressions are mastered, your pull-up form and capabilities will be greatly improved. I have seen this over and over and experienced it myself. If you want to work on preparing for the pull-up work that is soon to come, you can put some extra tie into some of the later RC iM's. 

That's a good question, I was wondering the same. I use to do lots of pullups and dips, and last week when I did couple of sets of dips after my upper body F1 workout, my chest was very sore for a few days. Do you suggest I back of from dips as well? I am on HBP PE2.

Hi Affan,

Yes. Take the same approach as we suggested to Garry for his rows and pull-ups. If you have extra energy, you can work on extra mobility and play a small amount with dips/pull-ups. Your mobility and basic strength progressions are most important right now. 

Thanks Pauline and Everett

I will stop with the pull ups as advised

I guess I was expecting that pull ups would be later in the foundation courses so was continuing with them with the belief the progression would be quicker mastered when I eventually get there but in reality I guess i would probably arrive there with bad form and maybe take longer to get there anyway. 

I have logged my pullup progression since starting F1 so it will be interesting to see the difference in progression with a more conditioned body so looking forward to it! 

Hey Garry, as a data point, prior to starting Foundations my personal best for pull-ups was 8. 

After working on RC1 for several months and not training pull-ups at all, I just did a new PR of 11 pull-ups the other day. And I haven't even mastered RC1 yet.

Hi Josh 3 reps is a good improvement with no training! I'm looking forward to reaching the pullup stage in F1 and feeling the difference.

Do you have a noticeable difference in the quality of your pullups after only several months on RC1?

40 minutes ago, Garry Barker said:

Hi Josh 3 reps is a good improvement with no training! I'm looking forward to reaching the pullup stage in F1 and feeling the difference.

Do you have a noticeable difference in the quality of your pullups after only several months on RC1?

 

 

Definitely. The first 5-8 reps are really smooth and controlled. I was impressed how easy it felt. 

That's good to hear. 

Thanks for the input Josh

Another (subjective) n=1 from me: I never could do a lot of pull ups (8 good ones in the first set max) and since I began Foundation, I dropped them altogether except for some playing around here and there, never maxing out. I'm still on (new) RC/PE1 after spending some time on Hinge rows.
What I have noticed is that my ROM has increased a good bit, that my pullups feel a lot better form-wise and that I feel much stronger on the individual one - it's like I'm shooting upwards.

I guess starting on 1 pullup then increasing the reps is no different to starting on a tuck plance/ft lever then trying to increase the hold time. They are all to advanced for starting points. 

I have tried these and failed so it makes it easy to drop the pullups now and build up to them in the proper way.

Use Pavel's 'grease the groove' method.... just throw them in randomly throughout the day... maybe 4-6 sets of 5 or whatever would be about 50-60% of your max. This wont interfere with your workouts and will give you pull up gains at the same time.

I tried grease the groove technique and even though it worked initially, it seemed to stop working after a while. I am stuck on RC PE2 step 4 for a long time. Today while going through one of Coachs podcast interviews (Robb Wolf episode 230), coach said how he lets his athletes only advance when the body has adapted to the exercise and it gets very easy. Looking back I feel have been advancing too fast and getting stuck. So with this new mindset I decided to start from beginning again for most of my foundation elements Back to RC PE1

4 hours ago, Affan Osman said:

coach said how he lets his athletes only advance when the body has adapted to the exercise and it gets very easy. Looking back I feel have been advancing too fast and getting stuck. So with this new mindset I decided to start from beginning again for most of my foundation elements Back to RC PE1

So therefore if F1 RC is not mastered then we are far from ready for pullups.

Pass me another bitter pill

58 minutes ago, Garry Barker said:

So therefore if F1 RC is not mastered then we are far from ready for pullups.

Pass me another bitter pill

 

 

 

Well, since I've done 28 pullups before and a single at 215 pounds bodyweight with a 125 pound vest.... as well as a rope climb with a 55 pound vest and an effortless L-sit bodyweight rope climb but RCPE2 is hard as hell for me I have to disagree with that assumption....

5 hours ago, Affan Osman said:

I tried grease the groove technique and even though it worked initially, it seemed to stop working after a while. I am stuck on RC PE2 step 4 for a long time. Today while going through one of Coachs podcast interviews (Robb Wolf episode 230), coach said how he lets his athletes only advance when the body has adapted to the exercise and it gets very easy. Looking back I feel have been advancing too fast and getting stuck. So with this new mindset I decided to start from beginning again for most of my foundation elements Back to RC PE1

It's not meant to a long term thing and progress you forever.... nothing is. But if you are not incorporating pullups into your workouts this will at least help you maintain what you already have.

20 minutes ago, Andy Desak 36466 said:

It's not meant to a long term thing and progress you forever.... nothing is. But if you are not incorporating pullups into your workouts this will at least help you maintain what you already have.

Would the body be conditioned in a different way from dropping them completely to adding them in during RC until that level is reached? would this effect the pullup in anyway? is that not the same as training tuck planche while still working on scap shrugs? 

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just find it really interesting.

I'm able to do 8-10 pull-ups with 92kg bodyweight, but I understood recently that I'm not doing them correctly - I'm not pulling so much with lats and scapular muscles, but lot's of work is being done by biceps. RC progressions is definitely my weakest link in F1 and I'm still stuck on RC PE1 already for half year. Therefore I think that F1 RC is not a prerequisite for doing pull-ups, but more of a re-learning on how to do this movement correctly so that you can progress further later on.

Well for starters even though they are both pulling movements they are not the same. Rows are a horizontal pulling movement and pullups are a vertical pulling movement. They are both going to work the back, biceps, and core but they are working the muscles to different degrees and at different angles. One important thing is scapular retraction for both moves or you will be using the arms/shoulders too much and this isn't going to cut it. The rows are going to get your back prepared for pullups but they aren't going to make you be able to do pullups... you're still going to have to train pullups for them and there is no real reason you can't work both at once because chances are its going to take a long time for most people to get through RC in F1... not necessarily because the exercises are that difficult but because of the high reps in a short time on some progressions. RCPE2 has 75 reps that will be completed in under 10 minutes following the guidelines.... that's a lot and more endurance than strength training at that point which is going to be harder for most people... that is why you see so many stuck on PE2... PE3 is actually easier. Even though the exercise is harder because of the angle but you are only required to do a much more manageable 5 sets of 10 and that makes  big difference.

Out of all 6 PE's I'd have to say PE2 is the hardest.

I'm not always the best at explaining things... found this for ya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ieAsddo4A

On 3/23/2017 at 5:23 AM, Garry Barker said:

Would the body be conditioned in a different way from dropping them completely to adding them in during RC until that level is reached? would this effect the pullup in anyway?

 

Dropping pull-ups until you have progressed to them is going to protect your joints from injury and free up your time to focus on other areas of your training that are more important. Consider them unnecessary for now until you attend to more pressing components of your training like preparing the connective tissue in your elbows. A little play is okay, but be wary of getting carried away. You want to give your elbows the recovery they need after your UB workouts. 

37 minutes ago, Everett Carroll said:

Dropping pull-ups until you have progressed to them is going to protect your joints from injury and free up your time to focus on other areas of your training that are more important. Consider them unnecessary for now until you attend to more pressing components of your training like preparing the connective tissue in your elbows. A little play is okay, but be wary of getting carried away. You want to give your elbows the recovery they need after your UB workouts. 

For some fun reading, Google for "PPL workout" and read the threads on Reddit about it.

It's a program where you do Pushups, Pullups and Lunges every day. You start with 10 reps of each, and every day you add one more rep for 60 days or something.

The threads start off with a bunch of gung-ho participants. By day 30 or so, everyone's complaining about tendonitis in their elbows.

I started the program right around the time I heard Coach on the Tim Ferriss podcast, so when I recognized the first twinges in my elbows I yanked the eject lever. 

Josh...ain't that the truth! Three years ago I foolishly did a burpee challenge. It was 100 per day for 30 days. Since then I have suffered from golfer's elbow. I started GST in mid-2016 and it even hampered my UB workouts in GST. Happy to report it is almost gone now and can train virtually pain-free. Amazing how we can so easily do long-term damage to the weakest link in the chain!

That's not because pullups are bad for you early on, Josh... its because that's a stupid workout. Doing that much of just about anything will get you injured.