3 simple tricks I used in the gym to hit my first set of 10 strict pull-ups

I've been a regular runner for years, but an intermittent lifter at best. I've always been more comfortable lacing up my best running shoes than I have shifting heavy weights, but I've recently been trying hard to bulk up a little. I've had a few strength goals to aim for, but my number one goal is a set of 10 strict form pull-ups.

'Strict' in this sense means gripping the bar overhand rather than underhanded, pulling my chin up above the bar, and straightening my arms at the end of each rep (referred to as a 'dead hang' in the lifting community). While I'm not particularly strong, pull-ups are a good representation of relative strength, and as a smaller guy, I've got less body weight to pull, so a few years ago, I deemed it a realistic goal to aim for.

Unfortunately, life gets in the way. Two years on the bounce, I trained for and ran marathons, neglecting strength training almost entirely for months at a time and resetting my progress. It was always the same: I would get to six or seven reps, hit a plateau, change my goal, and lose all my progress.

This time was different: without a major endurance goal like a marathon, I stuck to my guns, hit the creatine shakes, adhered to some research-based tips, and pushed past my plateau to get to my hallowed 10 reps. I actually yelled and punched the air the first time I hit the magic 10 after years of failure – startling the person on the squat rack opposite me.

It's hard to measure physical strength gains automatically on even the best smartwatches. Some fitness apps do a good job at programming, but much of this automated guidance is locked behind some sort of paywall. I spent a long time scouring strength research and bodybuilding forums like it was 2005 to bust my plateau – here are the three science-backed tricks that worked for me.

1. Lower reps, more sets

Perhaps the biggest way I changed my approach to doing pull-ups was treating the movement less like a bodybuilder and more like a powerlifter – even though I'm a long way from being either of those things.

Research led by the City University of New York's Lehman College found that low repetitions of an exercise (1-5) emphasized strength gains, while higher repetitions encouraged hypertrophy and endurance. Since I wanted to get stronger, not bigger, I started doing five sets of four reps.

For most of my gym life, I had been doing sets of eight to ten reps, but breaking that down allowed me more time to rest the muscles, which meant more overall high-quality pull-ups accomplished during each session. I'd soon increase that four reps to five and eventually six, doing 30 reps during a gym session.

2. Elastic bands

Unlike using weights, pull-ups use your body, which means you're always hefting a set amount of weight. That's part of what makes them so difficult to practice: you can't just magically make yourself lighter until you build up the strength to do them at your normal weight.

What you can do is loop a resistance band around the bar and place your feet into it, to take the emphasis of some of your body weight off. As discussed in the previous point, I would do five sets of five or six reps, and once I was unable to complete the exercise, I would use a band to allow myself to finish the program I had set out to do that day.

It's not perfect, unfortunately: there's no stretch at the top of the lift – the point of the pull-up in which your chin is above the bar – as the band contracts back into its regular shape. However, when it comes to strength gains, this approach should be just as effective as the assisted pull-up machine you'll find in some gyms: researchers from Brazilian universities found elastic resistance training generally offers similar benefits to conventional resistance training.

3. Longer rest time

As well as lower rep counts, powerlifters are also notorious in the gym community for their long rest times. This is to help them perform the few reps they do complete with as much strength and power as possible.

Pull-ups use a lot of different muscles in your arms, back, and core, and if one muscle group is weaker than the others, it can become a lot more difficult to finish a set. As researchers from Rio de Janeiro (again) found that longer rest periods allowed for greater repetitions between multiple sets, I increased my rest time from one minute to two-and-a-half, and saw my results skyrocket.

Of course, this does have its drawbacks – five sets with over two minutes between each one means you end up spending around 20 minutes on the pull-up bar – but I wasn't complaining. Because pull-ups use so many different muscle groups, I was still getting a great upper-body workout in.

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