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Progressing to Unassisted Pull-Ups
1. Do jump negatives. Jump negatives work on the eccentric or negative part of the pull-up exercise, when you lower your body after having performed the pull-up. This builds strength in your arms and will improve the quality of your pull-up technique and performance.
To do a jump negative, start by standing on a stool and gripping the bar with an overhand grip.
Rather than pull yourself up, you're going to jump up so your chin is level with the bar. Be careful you don't hit your face on the bar — you're not trying to hook your chin over it. You just want it to be level with the bar.
Then, lower yourself slowly, focusing on controlling your movement and resisting gravity as much as you can.
Try to go slowly enough that you can count to 10 before your feet touch the ground.
2. Work on your grip. Grip strength can be a key factor in many pulling exercises, including pull-ups. Improving your grip strength will make it easier for you to do unassisted pull-ups, and also make you feel more secure when doing pull-ups – whether assisted or not.
A variation of an exercise called the farmer's walk is one way to work on your grip strength.
To do this exercise, carry a pair of heavy dumbbells or another heavy object and walk a considerable distance – 50 yards or so can be one set. After that distance, rest for a minute before doing it again.
If you do two or three sets several times a week, over time your grip strength will increase.
And before we continue, let’s take a commercial break.
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3. Strengthen your back with rowing exercises. Doing rowing exercises or using a rowing machine can strengthen your back and shoulders as well as your arms. These are some of the same muscles you use when you perform pull-ups.
Dumbbell and barbell rows can also help you build your back muscles.
Pick several exercises that you like and incorporate them in your regular strength-training sessions so you can work towards performing unassisted pull-ups.
4. Gradually decrease the weight you add to machine-assisted pull-ups. Assisted pull-up machines can be used to progress to unassisted pull-ups, provided you regularly decrease the weight that you add to the machine to assist you.
For example, if you started doing machine-assisted pull-ups, putting the same amount of weight on the machine as your own weight, consider decreasing this amount by 5 percent each week so that you're regularly decreasing the assistance you get.
You could also try doing one or two pull-ups with significantly less weight on the machine, then add weight to do additional reps.
You could even customize your weight level by adjusting the machine weights while also wearing a weighted workout belt (a 5–10 lb (2.3–4.5 kg) belt is good for beginners).
Reader Poll: We asked 448 wikiHow readers, and 51% of them agreed that the best exercise for building arm strength is weighted pull-ups.
5. Perform an advanced modification of band-assisted pull-ups. If you want to transition from assisted pull-ups to unassisted pull-ups, you can do a variation that gives you less assistance lowering your body than a normal band-assisted pull-up does.
To do this modification, you'll have to loop the band around your feet rather than around your knees.
When you pull yourself up, lift your legs and tuck them towards your chest. Now you're out of the band, so as you lower yourself, you won't get any assistance from the band.
See you in the next article. This is the final article of the block on how to learn to pull up. I hope you were interested in learning new ones.😎
Artemus Vazhui
