First Pull Ups and Beyond

First Pull Ups and Beyond is a workout format designed to help you:

  • Achieve your very first Pull Up.
  • Improve your max rep count.

This workout format employs different training principles to help you reach your Pull Up goals. For more details about performing a Pull Up with perfect form, you can check out our Pull Up exercise page. The only equipment necessary to perform this workout is a Pull Up Bar.

First Pull Ups

This workout focuses on the various Pull Up regressions. Pull Up regressions are exercises that work the same muscles as the Pull Ups but are less challenging. These exercises include:

  • The Negative Pull Up
  • Ring Rows/Inverted Rows
  • Scapular Pulls

Once the Pull Up is marked as complete in your Skill Tree, we will start generating the Beyond First Pull Ups workout.

Beyond First Pull Ups

The Beyond First Pull Ups workout focuses on helping you improve your max rep count. The workout uses various workout techniques to achieve this. These techniques include:

  • Regressions
  • Pyramid sets
  • Supersets
  • Training to failure

A pyramid set is a technique used to increase the number of Pull Ups performed without reaching failure. For someone whose max reps for a Pull Up is 6, a pyramid set will look like this:

1 rep → rest → 2 reps → rest → ... → 5 reps → rest → 4 reps → rest → ... → 1 rep.

The number of Pull Ups performed increments but never reaches your maximum. Halfway through the pyramid set, the number of reps starts decreasing back down to 1. As a comparison, performing 3 sets of 5 reps will mean completing 15 Pull Ups. But performing the above pyramid set means you'll have completed 25 Pull Ups. A lot of programs aimed at improving Pull Up rep count focus on gradually increasing the number of reps.

A superset is a technique used to work a muscle after training to failure. This means performing as many reps for a given exercise, then perform a regression immediately after without resting. When you can no longer perform an exercise with good form, move on to the regression. If your max rep count for Pull Ups is 3, a superset might look like the following:

3 Pull Ups → 4 Negative Pull Ups → rest → repeat 2 more times.

Training to failure is recognised as a great way for improving muscle size and endurance.