How to Achieve Insane Pull-Up Numbers (For Advanced Athletes)

You can always get better at pull-ups! Find out how to achieve insane pull-up numbers, even if you are an advanced athlete, with this detailed plan.

Now, in this comprehensive guide, let me take you through an insightful view of advanced periodization techniques to improve your pull-up performance regarding maximal strength and repetition numbers. This is a great outline to follow for success, whether that be more reps or an all-out attempt on that one rep.

Pull-ups are often considered one of the best basic exercises in fitness because they recruit many muscles and provide a full upper-body workout, but turning over a plateau with pull-ups requires some strategy—one which virtually every athlete, particularly one whose sport involves staying power, should be following. This article presents advanced periodization strategies aimed at helping coaches and elite pull-up performers identify and deal with the limiting factors in pull-up performance.

And how do you achieve insane pull-up numbers? That is what Mike Israetel talked about recently in a video he published.

Dr Mike Israetel, PhD in Sport Physiology and co-founder of Renaissance Periodization, is a well-respected professor in the bodybuilding community. He doesn’t only talk about workouts and fitness tips, he often dives deep into health and nutrition.

Best Benefits of Pull-Ups

How to Achieve Insane Pull-Up Numbers (Advanced Athletes)

Advanced levels of the pull-up will require an advanced training plan. On the other hand, if periodization is pushed to an advanced level, your training program will have to be set up in such a way as to be broken up into various phases, each phase targeting a specific piece of the pull-up exercise with the aim of graduating into better pull-up ability. This basically means a deep dive into how you can make your pull-ups exceptional by using a well-laid-out, periodized approach to your training.

1. Identifying Limiting Factors

To master the pull-up, one must start by identifying what the limiting factors are to the individual. These will usually be made up of the latissimus dorsi (lats) and other back muscles, rear deltoids, biceps, brachialis, and forearm flexors. From these areas, you would be able to direct your training to your weaknesses and develop a very good background for subsequent phases.

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2. Hypertrophy Phase

During the hypertrophy phase, the goal should be to improve muscle size in outlined muscles, limiting factors. This should take place when the most limiting component of the modality has sufficiently recovered, but the chosen component to be:

• Volume and Intensity: Train with a higher number of sets and reps (usually in the range of 5 to 30) that predominantly induces muscular size. This should be executed with moderate levels of intensity so that the set volume can be comfortably managed without overtraining.
• Exercise Selection: It includes a wide variety of exercises for comprehensive development of muscles in the back, arms, and shoulder areas. It should include pull-ups as a routine feature, but add in with equal number of sets of rows, lat pull-downs, and bicep curls, modifying these other exercises to avoid overtaxing the muscles which are being used the most in pull-ups.
• Recovery: Take enough rest between the sessions. This is very paramount in regard to muscle repair and growth. Make sure that the muscles are not overworked to the extent that recovery is compromised.

3. Strength or Work Capacity Phase

Once this muscle mass is developed, work towards increasing the strength to improve the one-rep max or work capacity to improve max reps.

• Emphasize Strength: If wanting to work up increased maximal weight for a pull-up, begin moving into lower repetition ranges with added weight. The first of these consists of the possibility of being able to exert more force: something very necessary for lifting heavier loads or for the more complex variants of the dominated that are presented to us.
• Work Capacity Focus: This exercise is more about the max rep count for those looking to increase. The focus will be in higher rep sets where muscular endurance is challenged, meaning the sets should be closer to your actual max rep count and pushed beyond gradually, thereby extending capacity for that given exercise.

4. Peaking Phase

The peaking phase is where you fine-tune your training to achieve optimal performance. This phase involves:

• Volume Reduction: Gradual reduction of training volumes by downscaling towards the reduction of overall fatigue. This strategic tapering will help the muscles to recover and give a peak performance.
• Maintain the Intensity: Keep intensifying the activity, but maintain the volume at the same or lower level than before, better yet, increase it to ensure muscle activity and readiness.
• Specificity: It is in the pull-ups themselves that you would thus focus much more specifically on variations that closely mimic the conditions under which you are to be testing your max reps, max time, or one rep max.

12 Best Pull-Up Variations for Muscle Growth

Practical Example: Maximising Pull-Up Repetitions

So, to illustrate with a practical example, from a present situation when your best is 11 pull-ups, here on in, we are going to set an objective with you of substantially increasing this number by using a periodized training approach. The design of your training phases in the quest to get the most effective repetitions in pull-ups should resemble the following.

Initial Assessment and Goal Setting:

First, evaluate your present strength and endurance level in the pull-up. For example, if you can do only 11 reps, set a realistic but challenging target for such an increase to 20 reps over, say, a 3-month period. This goal will direct the intensity, volume, and progression of the training.

Hypertrophy Phase:

• Weeks 1-6: Focus on muscle growth in the back, arms, and shoulders.

Monday (Heavy Day): The day designed for heavy exercises; Engage in weighted pull-ups in 5-10 reps for 4-5 sets, adding up the weight every week to keep challenging your muscles but not losing the proper form.

Wednesday (Moderate Day): Do bodyweight pull-ups with a rep range of 8-12 for 4-5 sets. Increase the rep range weekly, heading closer to muscle fatigue but ensure form is not compromised.

Friday (Light Day): Complete between 10 and 15 assisted pull-ups, or use the assisted pull-up machine, for approximately 4 to 5 sets. The assistance is always progressive and should decrease with time to make it harder.

With this phase, you would add some supplemental exercises such as rows, lat pulldowns, and bicep curls to develop good basic strength and to avoid any imbalances.

Work Capacity Phases

• Weeks 7-12 and Weeks 13-18: Focus on building work capacity after a good muscular base by using two consecutive blocks.

Heavy Day (Monday): Weighted pull-ups – increase an amount of weight that is slightly more than hypertrophy. The sets should be between 6-8 reps. Increase the reps or weight progressively weekly.

Body Weight Day (Wednesday): Today, perform some more sets of bodyweight pull-ups but add a couple more repetitions—maybe something in the order of 12-15 per set. You can add one or more repetitions every week as you try to challenge and reach your limits with this component of your endurance.

Assisted Day (Friday): Continue with the assisted pull-ups, reducing the assistance so you can get something between 15 to 20 reps per set. Next, let’s work at getting that assistance down or possibly even trying to get the reps up.

Both these phases serve a purpose for creating enough endurance in order to do the higher number of pull-ups while training the muscles for making a sustained effort for longer periods.

The 8 Week Pull-Up Challenge to Build Impressive Muscle, Skill and Strength

Peaking Phase

• weeks 19-22: Max Pull-up Phase, which sees your ability to perform pull-ups at the highest level possible from the strength and endurance gains seen in the previous phases.

Week 19-20: Start with a small decrease in volume but maintain intensity. For example, cut down the number of sets but maintain the weight (for weighted days), aiming for high reps (on bodyweight days).

Weeks 21-22: Recovery and sharpness. At this stage, only 2-3 sets of pull-ups are to be done, twice in one week. It is quality, not quantity. The overall effort must go toward feeling fresh and strong for the final attempt.

Testing and Evaluation

• Week 23: Retest the maximum pull-up reps after completing the peak phase. Retest should follow a good warm-up, then go back to back to failure on the pull-ups, being sure to complete each with good form.

Compare the results with your initial assessment to evaluate your progress and set new goals for further improvement.

This present study clearly summarises that, with such a detailed periodized plan, you would consistently get better at doing pull-ups, moving the ceiling higher, and finding new personal records.

Through this advanced periodization approach, you can systematically enhance your pull-up strength and endurance. Carefully structured with attention alternately given to hypertrophy, strength, or work capacity in the training phases and the peaking period, you will be all set to launch yourself even beyond what you felt would be limiting levels to a new height in your pull-up performances. From seasoned athletes to overzealous novices, this guide shows how to lay the groundwork for upper-body strength and endurance excellence in the pull-up.

For a better understanding on how to achieve insane pull-up numbers, even for advanced athletes, you can watch Mike Israetel’s explanation in the video below.

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