<p>Does anyone have suggestions for improving pullups. It seems like I can never improve my max. Right now I cannot do that many. How can I improve my pullups to where they need to be in time for basic?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>wmfalcon, S had the same problem. In fact, his first attempt at the CFA, his pull-up score was terrible. Went to the local sporting goods store and brought him a pull-up bar that he installed in his bedroom. We challenged him that every time he entered or exited his bedroom, he had to "give us some", and kept increasing the amount as he improved. He got to 9 pull-ups by the time he re-took the test a few weeks later, and is now up to 15 (we hope to get him up to the max (18 I believe?) before the summer, which I feel he should easily reach if he keeps it up).</p>
<p>Bottom Line: practice, practice, practice. and the best way to practice and develop the muscles required for a pull-up (shoulders, triceps, pecs, etc.) is to do the actual exercise. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Now, GIVE ME SOME!!!!!</p>
<p>wmfalcon12 you might check out this recent thread on pullups and other PT related stuff <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/air-force-academy-colorado-springs/469889-candidate-fitness-exam.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/air-force-academy-colorado-springs/469889-candidate-fitness-exam.html</a></p>
<p>Couldn't agree more. Practice is the only thing that is going to make you better at pullups. Also swimming, lifting, and doing lots of pushups will help develop your upper body strength to give you a few more. Just keep working at it! I think Bullet's advice is the best you can get. At the Academy, I will do a pullup in my room every so often during ACQ (you can hang from the shelf in the closet :)) and that kind of repetition will help more than anything!</p>
<p>bench press, dumbell curls, lat pull downs, and situps believe or not will help with pullups. Also, doing maxout sets of pushups will ease the upwards stroke as well.</p>
<p>Swimming is an excellent way to develop your upper body strength. and doing butterfly will really help with your pull-ups and endurance.</p>
<p>This might not apply to the original poster, but this is a very big problem for some women. The whole upper body strength thing. </p>
<p>I concur with the practice, practice, practice thing. But, if you can't even do one pullup getting that first one is a leap.</p>
<p>We belong to our local YMCA and they have a machine which is really neat for working up to pullups. You kneel on a plate that is counter-balanced by an adjustable amount of weight. You can start out with 100 lbs and work down until you are lifting your complete weight.</p>
<p>An alternative to this is the really big rubber strips (rubber bands?) that you can buy at fitness equipment stores. Get about 6 feet, tie each end to your bar, step on it and it will counteract some of your weight.</p>
<p>And take heart. Once you get past the first one, the second, third etc. get easier.</p>
<p>Practice, practice, practice.</p>
<p>Good luck...</p>
<p>In case you haven't heard it enough...practice, practice, practice! :) yup, and check that other thread SemperExcelsius linked</p>
<p>Lifting daily was the best thing for me. I went from 12 pullups max to being able to do 30 now. Before doing a back workout, I always do 3 sets of pullups and try to maintain the same amount or more each time. I think I started out at around 7 pullups per set, and eventually have gotten it up to around 15 per set. </p>
<p>I recommend doing this twice a week, among other exercises (lat pulldowns and rows) if you want to significantly improve. Then when you want to see how many you can do total, just take a week off and try it next time.</p>
<p>um I did alot cause I do alot of pullups anyways because I like the way it makes my back look.
But for beginners I recoomend</p>
<p>3 sets of (wide pullups) no weights on a SMALL bar. </p>
<p>7 sets of pull downs (wide also) should work your up the weights as u go up. Do a weight you can do 8x , 6x, 4x, MAX, 4x, 6x, burnout (do as many as u can. </p>
<p>7 sets of pull downs where you have your fists together and knuckles facing out.</p>
<p>my np-mother sent this to me and i thought i'd pass it on 5</a> Exercises You Should Never Do</p>
<p>Haha! Basically... never go to a training session if you want to follow that advice. :)</p>
<p>No, I'm just kidding. But seriously.</p>
<p>Do lat-pull downs at the gym. I max the pft here at usafa.</p>
<p>I would recommend doing a great amount of "super-setting", for those of you who are avid weightlifters. Ex. After bench you work the opposite muscle - pull ups. That way you work the whole muscle. Don't isolate yourself to one kind of pull up either, do wide/narrow/regular grips, and should always keep your palms away from you (if you do them facing towards you, then you're using your bicep muscles and really aren't "pull-ups"). Make sure you always max out on what you can do - do them to failure all the time. I've taken two weight training courses, and theres much more detail depending on your body type for specific workouts you could do, but for the most part put out maximum effort and persist in your workouts.</p>
<p>I'd like to add what I've been doing. My bud and I have been doing full body work-outs 3x a week now. After each one we do pyramids of pull-ups (for example: 1,2,3,4,3,2,1). I started doing pyramids up to 4, and he was doing up to 3. He is now up to 5 (his best PFT max was 7 I think, so this is quite an accomplishment) and I'm up to 7 (which is 49 total in a 5 min period). They have helped our pull-ups remarkably!</p>