slizzardman pull-ups routine question

I don't know if only slizzardman knows the answer to this question.

I just wanted to ask how is it that you go about increasing the reps in this pull-ups routine (which by the way i don't remember where it was posted but i remember how it went): when do you increase them? And when you do, do you increase only 1 per set at a time or 1 rep on all sets at once?

I started Slizz's pull-up routine when it became clear that I lacked strength in the full ROM...I could get my chin over the bar, but not my chest. So keep in mind that while I had decent strength in most of the ROM, I had practically no strength for those last 4 inches of movement.

That area was so weak that I couldn't even do 1 pull-up bringing chest-to-bar, so I scaled down to doing negative reps, starting with jumping up to a 3 second hold at the top of each rep and then descending over 5 seconds.

For the first month I'generally increased one rep every session. However, I could feel myself starting to dread each workout, and that's my alarm bell for overwork. So after a month, I stayed at 2 reps per set x 10 sets, and I am essentially going to stay here for 4-6 weeks and let my muscles really adapt. Basically, I will run it like an SSC. Remember, going from 1 rep x 10 to 2 rep x 10 is essentially doubling your volume. So, I might even stay here for 8 weeks.

Then I'll start adding another rep to each set and when I'm at 3 x 10, then I'll decide how long to to stay at an "underload" phase before moving on.

That''s what I'm doing. Would love to hear how others incorporate.

JmanDetroit said:

I started Slizz's pull-up routine when it became clear that I lacked strength in the full ROM...I could get my chin over the bar, but not my chest. So keep in mind that while I had decent strength in most of the ROM, I had practically no strength for those last 4 inches of movement.

That area was so weak that I couldn't even do 1 pull-up bringing chest-to-bar, so I scaled down to doing negative reps, starting with jumping up to a 3 second hold at the top of each rep and then descending over 5 seconds.

Chest over the bar huh, i haven't really noticed where my chest is when i do them. Does this go for every type of pull/chin?

JmanDetroit said:

For the first month I'generally increased one rep every session. However, I could feel myself starting to dread each workout, and that's my alarm bell for overwork.

Yeah that sounds like way too much, and it is.

Well after much time-wasting and dilapidation i decided to do this routine again, i started yesterday with 5 reps and 1min rest between sets and surprisingly i could do all 12 sets with 5 reps. I didn't separate them like "round 1" and "round 2", i just did 12 sets resting the same.

How many times a week should one do this routine though?

Slizz's program takes some cues from the renowned Armstrong Pull Up Program. I certainly found it effective, and its also interesting to experiment with different grips. Last time i did pull up grip, chin up grip, wide grip, rope, and half fl pulls (flat tuck).

The armstrong program is a multi day program, i've never tried it, but think i will my next pulling cycle.

http://www.chicagomarineofficer.com/Downloads/PT/thearmstrongworkout.pdf

Where can I find this routine?

Warrior said:

Chest over the bar huh, i haven't really noticed where my chest is when i do them. Does this go for every type of pull/chin?

Pretty much. You'll really need that strength at the top of the ROM if you ever want to do a slow, controlled muscle-up. Without getting your bar to the chest, your triceps would essentially have to do a 180-degree russian dip from the least leveraged position possible.

JmanDetroit said:

For the first month I'generally increased one rep every session. However, I could feel myself starting to dread each workout, and that's my alarm bell for overwork.

Yeah that sounds like way too much, and it is.

I think you're on the right track listening to your body. Increasing one rep per session is a lot when you're starting at 1 or 2 and moving to 2 or 3. When you're already at 6-7 reps per set, adding one per session isn't really that much. Either way, though, I still stress doing it as an SSC, with a period of overload, load, underload. I'll probably be at this 2 reps per set level for awhile, which is fine. In the last 2 sessions I could feel the session feeling easier than it was before.

How many times a week should one do this routine though?

Mr Brady said:

Slizz's program takes some cues from the renowned Armstrong Pull Up Program. I certainly found it effective, and its also interesting to experiment with different grips. Last time i did pull up grip, chin up grip, wide grip, rope, and half fl pulls (flat tuck).

The armstrong program is a multi day program, i've never tried it, but think i will my next pulling cycle.

http://www.chicagomarineofficer.com/Downloads/PT/thearmstrongworkout.pdf

Yeah, but that program is a lot more different (Armstrong). Definitely sounds interesting though.

I just get up have my breakfast, energy drink and protein shake etc then do pull ups to failure and then get on with my day, wait a few hours if your doing your routine and then do the same at night, I did that and Increased my pulls up from 15 to 29 in a month or two can't remember.

JmanDetroit said:

I do it 2x per week.

The way im working out right now i do all that i do 1x a week but im doing 8 exercises. Will it still be ok 1x a week?

Are you saying that you work out once a week but do 8 exercises? I'm not a real good person to ask about programming...I'm not really familiar with the concepts with the exception that you should start with a program and listen to your body. Slizzardman originally suggested doing the pull-up routine 2x per week and increasing by one rep total (not one rep per set) every workout or every other workout.

I'll let the other experts jump in other than to say that I'm a HUGE believer in SSC concept to give your muscles a chance to go through overload/load/underload before increasing intensity.

J

305pelusa said:

Where can I find this routine?

Have a look here :

http://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6872

JmanDetroit said:

Are you saying that you work out once a week but do 8 exercises?

No.

I do 8 exercises total plus the FSP's and HS; I workout T,W Sa,Su and on each day i do 2 exercises back to back (not superset), 1 pull then 1 push, so i do each exercise once a week. A little while ago i was doing 4 exercises 2x a week but i decided to do more exercises instead of the same 2x a week, dont know if its better or not. Thought it might. And for example one workout is the pullups routine and then right after i do weighted declined pushups.

JmanDetroit said:

I'm not a real good person to ask about programming...I'm not really familiar with the concepts with the exception that you should start with a program and listen to your body. Slizzardman originally suggested doing the pull-up routine 2x per week and increasing by one rep total (not one rep per set) every workout or every other workout.

I'll let the other experts jump in other than to say that I'm a HUGE believer in SSC concept to give your muscles a chance to go through overload/load/underload before increasing intensity.

J

Ok.

This is really new to me because i always wanted to do a lot of exercise and several workouts a day even but i learned you overtrain and burnout that way, the hard way. Plus its not practical and i found out this exercising fever was only in the first days because i would get lazy later and not want to exercise.

Now however im concerned i might be undertraining doing each exercise 1x a week lol.

You think doing each exercise 1x a week would be too little to progress? Im doing them like im doing the pullups, that is 10 sets, 1 min rest between sets, and half the number of my max reps on every set (although the pullups are 12 sets because they are 6 kinds). This is how i started this monday. Its a lot harder than what i was doing!

For example last night i did rows (feet same height as the rings or an inch higher) and diamond pushups, my max on rows was 10 (but i do every exercise at a 3/0/2/0 tempo right now so its a lot harder than fast/regular reps) so i did 10 sets 5 reps each. By the 6th set it was getting very hard! I thought i wouldn't finish with 5 reps but i did.

?

You can do what I recommend 2-3x per week. I don't recommend going up in reps until you only need 30-40s of rest between sets, but that's really up to you individually, this is simply my personal preference.

slizzardman said:

You can do what I recommend 2-3x per week. I don't recommend going up in reps until you only need 30-40s of rest between sets, but that's really up to you individually, this is simply my personal preference.

Ok. I'm doing 8 exercises so it seems ill have to drop 4 to do them all 2x a week. I seem to remeber reading a post of yours in which you said one should only be working 4 exercises max at the same time, i dont remember if it was only for beginners though or always.

Yeah i got the when you up the reps part.

What if you train other exercises the same way too? That's what im doing right now. Resting 1min though since im starting. It seems to work but im only doing it 1x a week for each exercise which is why i asked if it would be ok. But it seems 1x a week is too low to make progress fast at least thats how i feel.

1x per week is not enough to make optimal progress on this routine. 3x is optimal, 2x will work.

slizzardman said:

1x per week is not enough to make optimal progress on this routine. 3x is optimal, 2x will work.

Got it. Thanks a lot!

Hi, everybody!

I was wondering if it is possible do this routine together with the WODs and still get good results (im worried about overtraining), and maybe substituting some of the sets for rope climbing one day a week?

Thanks, Andreas/andull

Looking forward to be posting on this forum . i have been lurking around here for a awhile, and now i finally got around to making myself an account.

Yes, just do the pulling WODS instead of the pull up routine, or just do a few sets of the pull ups after the pulling WODS or perhaps a separate session in the same day as a pulling WOD.

The best way to do this would be to run a week or two behind on the WODs so you can see what is happening and schedule your pull up workings so that they don't interfere with the WODs.

Finally, you could also just do 2 rounds of the pulling WODs and then do the pull up workout. It's up to you, I mean as long as you aren't wrecking your body you should be fine no matter which route you take.

Ok, thanks .

I think i read on the forum here that weighted pull-ups was a good supplement for Front lever training, and i was planning to use your routine for that (and maybe build up enough bicep and lat strength to start OAC training in the future). I still have to ask, what do personally recommend for building the back strength required, pulling exercises from the book like FL Rows, Yewkis, FL Pulls or just straight up weighted pull-ups, or a combination maybe.

- Andull

Combination. Yewkis and reverse yewkis are the best pulling exercises in my opinion, as I find they cover pretty much everything. To fill in what they miss I would do front pulls as well (pulling up to front lever and then inverted hang with straight arms) and weighted pull ups. That is a pretty complete back routine if everything is done with good form.

Inverted hang curls and shrugs are also a good idea. You should play around with FL rows every now and then but I am finding that yewkis pretty much take care of them. I do throw them in occasionally, often 1 set in warm up, but they aren't a big part of my work right now.

Eventually OAC and OAPullup will be in there too, but that's a while from now.

Hey slizzardman, i just wanted to clarify something about this routine: i saw in some other thread that you mentioned 5 types of pullups but then the last time you talked about them (i think) you said they are 6 types of pullups. I dont know if that really was the last time but this is where you talked about them: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5853&start=45

Im REALLY gonna do this routine exactly as you say this time, for real.

And one more thing was, should i rest between the rounds, or not?

You can omit close grip chins if you like. I would rest between rounds, probably 60-90 seconds. Remember, you shouldn't be hitting failure on any of the sets unless it's the last set of the round and even then it is best to not hit failure.

Be meticulous with your form: make each rep perfect! 20-30s rest between sets should be plenty eventually, but don't go over 45s. Working your way down to that 20-30s range before you try and add more reps tends to work well for most people.

slizzardman said:

You can omit close grip chins if you like.

Why?

slizzardman said:

I would rest between rounds, probably 60-90 seconds.

Should you eventually not rest between the rounds, or will you always rest?

slizzardman said:

Remember, you shouldn't be hitting failure on any of the sets unless it's the last set of the round and even then it is best to not hit failure.

Ok. I think 3 reps for each will be ok for me; i was doing 2 rounds of the 6 pullups without rest, i only rested 1min between each one and i was doing 5 reps each with a 2s up 3s down tempo. The last 4 sets were hard as hell though.

slizzardman said:

Be meticulous with your form: make each rep perfect! 20-30s rest between sets should be plenty eventually, but don't go over 45s. Working your way down to that 20-30s range before you try and add more reps tends to work well for most people.

Ok, thanks a lot