It's an old school exercise, but it's still one of the best around
There's a reason that the humble pull up bar still holds pride of place in any gym worth its salt. Whether you're doing functional training, strength training, trying to lose weight or gain muscle, the pull up is an exercise that you simply can't leave out.
However, a lot of people find difficulty in doing them (there's no way around the fact that they are hard to do) and struggle to get through more than a few reps. Fear not, JOE is here with a few sure fire techniques to boost your reps on the push up, meaning you have no excuse left to ignore them.
Do negative reps
Despite this sounding like you don't have to do any work, it's actually much more unpleasant than that. However, the results are pretty amazing, and it will all be worth it when people stand in admiration as you fire through twenty reps.
Negative reps involve concentrating on the part of the movement when you lower yourself, rather than on the lift. The lift should be explosive (you can give yourself a bit of a swing from the hips if you need to cheat a bit here) but on the way back down, make sure that you count out 3-5 seconds as you lower yourself. Go back up and start again. If you need to take a break to get through the reps feel free, but try to do three sets of three to four reps, and it won't be long before you see results.
Superset them with other exercises
One of the best tips we can offer is to do a small number of pull ups in between each set of reps on your other exercises. You can do this every day or a few times a week, and can start with as little as two pull ups. What you want to do is to aim for about half of your absolute maximum of reps, so if you know you can do ten, then do five in between each set.
It breaks up the reps and also means that, depending on how many sets you do in the rest of the workout, you can get through an impressive amount of pull ups. If we were to say to you get through 60 pull ups in your gym session, you'd say no way, but break them up into sets of four or five across an hour, and that becomes a lot easier.
Use resistance bands
Resistance bands are a pretty great invention and an essential piece of kit for anyone heading to the gym. Wrap them around the bar and underneath your feet and work away on doing your pull ups.
They take a little bit of your bodyweight away by counterbalancing it, and even if you're already able to do a good few, you can benefit from using the bands to get that extra one or two reps that you though you couldn't.
One of the key factors with any workout program is nutrition, and you need to make sure you get some protein to help maintain and grow muscle mass. For something that’s delicious, try Mooju chocolate milk. With over 10g of protein in a 250ml container, as well as carbohydrate, Mooju is a great choice for your workout.
