Stalling on Pullups

[cheeky]

Hi all

I started the Stronglifts program about 2 months ago. Before I started, I could do pullups of 10, 9 ,7 reps.

Then I started the 5 x5 program. About a month ago, I also started the GOMAD program and pushed my weight from 68Kg up to my current weight of 75.5Kg.

When I have a pullup day, I seem to be able to do less pullups than I normally could.
I currently only manage about 9,6,5

I thought this might be due to the fact that I am only doing pullups once a week on average, whereas before i would do it twice or three times a week. So I added pullups and chinups to every 5x5 day (alternating pullups / chinups / pullups / chinups etc) to try and improve. But still have not seen much improvement over a month.

Logically I would attribute this to the weight gains?
It could also be that I am now doing pullups at the end of the workout as opposed to doing them at the beginning previously and perhaps this causes me to be a little more tired when doing them?

Is there any other area I could focus on? Should I just persist and as the strength gains continue, so will the gains on my pullups?
Should I continue doing them 3 times a week or go back to once?

Thanks
Cheeky

[holvoetn]

As long as your recovery is not impacted, there is no problem doing them 3 times a week.
I would advise against going to failure though for at least 2 of those sessions (the ones you added). It takes longer to recover when working to failure so make sure to keep 1 or 2 reps in the tank each set.

Going from 10 to 9 on the first set when your BW-weight has increased from 68 to 75.5kg is not really a decrease nor stall in my view.
You are handling the same weight (reps x BW) on the first set (we are not going to discuss over 0.5kg, are we ? ).
And yes, the fact you do them after a SL5x5 session will be responsible as well for not noticeably adding reps to the total.

Just keep working them, things will move on given time. Make sure to rest and eat plenty and healthy.
Remember: weightlifting (and so is doing BW exercises) is a marathon, not a sprint.

[jpez]

Have you tried weighted sets of 5? You should be ready for them.

[cheeky]

Thanks for the feedback.

@jpez: Do you think its wise to move to weighted reps if I can't do at least 3 x 10 of bodyweight first?

[holvoetn]

@jpez: Do you think its wise to move to weighted reps if I can't do at least 3 x 10 of bodyweight first?

SL5x5 even suggest not moving before being able to do 15 reps on the first set
You could start weighted already now but expect to stall sooner then.

Look at it from another angle:
you are currently hovering around 10 or 9 reps for the first set and have been for some time. So adding weight will probably already cause a stall quite soon.

If you can do 15 reps in the first set, you would be able to go a bit further without stall.

[jpez]

Thanks for the feedback.

@jpez: Do you think its wise to move to weighted reps if I can't do at least 3 x 10 of bodyweight first?

To be honest I don't have any experience with weighted pull ups yet, I'm currently stuck at 6 for my pull ups and 7 for chin ups. I've just ordered a dipping belt and I'm going to go weighted for the chins at least because I don't like doing more than 5 reps for any exercise so I'd rather be stuck at 5 with a bit of added weight then at 7. Do you do chin ups? If you do your reps must be higher there, maybe you can try and go weighted just for the chins and build up some strength and that would most likely help with your pull ups as well.

[lomohart]

I feel the same here. I do not like doing pull ups that much but I still go through with it.I just hope that I can proceed with the next levels. I am stuck at 5.

[Portillo]

Have you tried weighted sets of 5? You should be ready for them.

Yeah, try 3x5 weighted.

[atypical1]

One suggestion for you would be to not do "3 * F" but do 30 total reps per session. If it takes you three sets to do that then maybe add more reps. If it takes more than three sets then keep at that level until you can get to 3 * 10. Then go to 35 reps per session.

Frankly, "3 * F" never made any sense to me because it doesn't seem like you're doing anything to make progress with that scheme.

james

[jfh26]

I think you have a good point, james. I haven't had much progress on pull-ups/chinups while doing 5x5 for the past few months. I've been doing a slightly modified Russian Fighter pull-up program, but I feel like I will stall with that soon. I think I may take your suggestion into consideration. Do you do that with dips also? I think I remember you mentioning it somewhere.

[atypical1]

I do that for all of my BW exercises (currently dips and pull ups).

james

[holvoetn]

I do that for all of my BW exercises (currently dips and pull ups).

james

30 ?
I thought it was more like 50

[atypical1]

LOL...it is 50 but not for pull ups yet. Dips are 50 though.

james

[Van]

LOL...it is 50 but not for pull ups yet. Dips are 50 though.

james

Your love for high volume is slightly disturbing james

OP: I've had the same problem with my pullups. BW increased but repitions did not. And as the deadlifting got heavier, pullup numbers decreased. I even tried james volume approach, tried for 30 and that went something like 5-4-3-1-1-0. I accepted after a while that getting stronger at the big lifts was more important than bodyweight exercises and stopped stressing out over the pullup numbers. After SL i'm planning to do something like Armstrong to get the pullup numbers up, but right now, any additional work is too much for me to recover from. I prefer to be fresh and strong for SL every time I get under the bar.

[jww38]

This won't help your first set numbers, but you could try not going to failure on the first set, try stop 1 rep before failure and I think you will find your subsequent sets will benefit, rather than going 9,6,5 you might get 8,8,7 for example.