Are negative pullups the best place to start?

emmab0902

Hi all
I'm a 45yo female who despite being a competitive swimmer, has never ever been able to do a single pullup.

I've been using the assisted pullup machine at the gym for the last four weeks, but don't think it's transferring to the real thing.

Currently I can do a dead hang for about 90 seconds, but can't move vertically lol.

Today I tried some negatives, with someone helping me up to the top, then doing a 5+ second descent. I only did 5 as am also being cautious following some rotator cuff tears after an accident two years ago.

I've watched Scooby's progression and wondered if people think starting with negatives is the way to go. I don't have a pullup bar so will be going to a school and using the bars in the playground, with someone to lift me up to the start position.

Keen to hear of people who have succeeded with this method, particularly females.

For the record, I am 164cm and 50kg so excess weight isn't the problem, just lack of strength!

jlynnschroyer

Well I just recently started doing it myself at my gym so well see together!

troytroy11

Negatives are better than the assisted machine for a number if reasons one being your core is more likely to be engaged which will come in handy later to prevent you from swinging.
If you are already doing 5 with a 5 second decent and have a 90 second dead hang you are well on your way to your first successful pull up.
As you are descending with one of your first reps, try pulling yourself back up when you feel you are at your strongest point in the descent. And then try that at different points with other reps. That way you will know where you are weak and where you are strong. You may end up surprising yourself and find out you are closer to that first pull up than you think.

LazSommer

Scooby has a good video for doing pull-ups. nice program, look him up on YouTube or scoobys workshop

sgt1372

Takes time to develop the strength to lift your full body weight doing pull ups or chin ups. Chin ups are easier because they activate your biceps. So, you might try to achieve chin ups 1st.

I don't think negatives alone will ever build up the strength necessary to do a chin or pullup because it's much easier to just let your weight drop than it is to lift it up.

The assistance exercises that should help are those that work your arms, shoulder girdle, pecs and lats, which would include (but are not limited to, in no particular order) : lat pulldowns, bent over rows, pushups, dips, bench presses and the overhead press. Throw in curls if you are going for chin ups 1st.

Difficult for men to do them and even more difficult for women because the upper body is one of the weakest parts of a woman's body. It's achievable for everyone regardless of gender but it does takes time, diligence and consistently increasing effort to acquire the necessary strength.

Good luck!

medic2038

Negatives work because they're engaging the same muscle, just in reverse. Any time I've taken some time off of lifting and came back I've always used negatives until I was strong enough to do the exercise normally.

The 2 that I really use it for are pullups and dips. So say your routine has a goal of 3x10 pullups. The first week you try to do one, and can't even do that, so you do 10n instead. Just use a chair/stool/whatever to boost yourself up, then lower yourself down. Repeat.

Eventually you'll notice you're able to do 1,9n, then 2, 8n,etc.

At least that's how it worked for me. I use negatives, and definitely stand behind them!

lemmie177

Yes! Negatives were what got me to my first pullup much more so than rows or assisted pullups. Frequency seemed to help a lot too. When I was dead set on doing the first pull up of my life, I was doing 5 sets every other day. Prior to that, I'd been doing around ~3 sets twice a week and progress was slow.

GiddyupTim

Negatives are often recommended. Intuitively, they make sense.
But at my gym they generally have people do banded pull-ups. There are different thickness bands that provide different levels of assistance. Have you tried those?

julie_broadhead

Negatives are one thing you can do to help build strength. Most of the time, unless you are really holding tension through the whole negative, negatives focus most on the top of the range of motion. Since you will have a spotter, try some spotter assisted pull ups. Bend your knees and have the spotter hold your feet.

emmab0902

julie_broadhead wrote: »

Negatives are one thing you can do to help build strength. Most of the time, unless you are really holding tension through the whole negative, negatives focus most on the top of the range of motion. Since you will have a spotter, try some spotter assisted pull ups. Bend your knees and have the spotter hold your feet.

My spotter is my 11yo son lol so not sure that will go so well

Return2Fit

Negatives are good but also try lowering a bar on a Smith Machine or something. Lay on your back, then pull yourself up.
Pull Ups are a staple of mine, and I can deadhang between 17 and 25 on any given day.
I started out not being able to do any just like you, so I know you can get up to at least 10 which is great for a lady.
Heck, there are females in our gym who smoke me on that pull-up bar, so who knows?
Good Luck...
PS:
Here is a video I made 2 years ago completing the 20 Pull Up Challenge...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UUwATJlUxI

Chieflrg

Scooby has given back to community for many years. He has a lot of knowledge especially on the training part.

I know a few woman your age who are doing sets of 8 after seeing his vid a few years ago.

emmab0902

Just went to the school and used their bars. Did one set of 10 negative chin-ups then one set of 10 negative pull-ups. All with about a 5 second descent. Don't think I'll be able to move my arms tomorrow, and have to do a 3km swim in a couple of hours lol.

troytroy11

Good luck with the 3Km swim? That is hardcore!

emmab0902

troytroy11 wrote: »

Good luck with the 3Km swim? That is hardcore!

I'm a swimmer. Apparently we're meant to be able to do pullups lol.

rybo

I prefer negatives over bands and assistance machines. That doesn't mean to not use those other 2 options, but the bulk of your work at this point should be negatives.

SideSteel

I've had a decent amount of success with my clients by incorporating eccentrics at high frequency (for some people I'll have them do these every training day) and we build volume so that over weeks they are doing more and more total eccentrics.

We combine this with a variety of pulling accessories and it tends to do the trick.

Seems that right around the time people get mad at me for programming so many damn eccentrics, they get to the point of being able to do full chin ups. So I'm possibly annoying them into it

Sued0nim

LOL

Is eccentric a posh way of saying negatives? @sidesteel

ttippie2000

It's good to try a couple of pullup setups and figure out what fits you at your current weight/fitness level. Here's some options: 1) Negatives /w no assist, 2) negatives with band assist, 3) Pullups in different grips (palms in, palms out, wide grip, 4) pullups with weight hanging from waist, and my least favorite: 5) Pullup assist machine.

Negatives help you focus on improving your time under tension. For example, I'm happy if I can make my negatives slow enough that I do two in a 1 minute interval during circuit training.

I like bands for a lot of strength training stuff such as deadlifts, bench, squats, so I already have a variety of them sitting in my gym bag.

Re: SideSteel's post above: You are lowering the weigh during the 'eccentric' phase of the lift whereas you are raising the weight during the 'concentric' phase of the lift.

LazSommer

Sued0nim wrote: »

LOL

Is eccentric a posh way of saying negatives? @sidesteel

I would use the word technical vs posh.

emmab0902

Did 20 negative pull-ups today with a 8-10 second lowering. Trying to find the balance between improving and not renewing my rotator cuff injury!

Return2Fit

emmab0902 wrote: »

Did 20 negative pull-ups today with a 8-10 second lowering. Trying to find the balance between improving and not renewing my rotator cuff injury!

GREAT!
The key is to just stay on that bar and let your body begin its adaptation.

ninerbuff

Best place? Depends on the person. I couldn't get a very overweight or obese person to do it. Inverted rows either with a suspension system or on the Smith machine seem to be a great place to start with just about anyone. As they progress, then I incorporate eccentric movements to help increase strength to start working toward them doing a full pull up on their own.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

mom22dogs

I recently started trying to do chin ups/pull ups because I maxed out the lat pulldowns. I screwed up my rotator cuff, so now I'm having to do exercises to rehab that. I'm working on negatives now as well. I was actually able to do 2 chin ups 1 pull up before I injured my rotator cuff.

singletrackmtbr

I'm surprised no one has mentioned working in inverted rows. This is a great way to add volume to your workout and works your back in a similar way. If you can't do pullups, to me this is a must add.

robhod1

I can only speak from experience but at one stage about 6 months ago I couldn't do one pull up but can now do about 3 with good form. I cannot specify what the best exercise was that led to this but I did a mix of bent over rows, inverted rows, dead hangs, chin ups and negatives. However, I do feel it was the negatives that helped the most, though that might be in my mind! Just keep building your strength up and every so often try to do a proper pull up so that you can check your progress.

awnurmarc

If you have enough patience to be diligent at negatives, then that my be best. I never was. I used a barbell to do pendlay rows (barbell rows where you place the barbell on the floor between each rep). That got me strong enough to do a couple.