High gravity days, pull ups, and progressive overload.

dontlikepeople

I'm not sure if I'm asking, or just venting, but the varying strength on random days has me frustrated once in a while.

Some days you can just push a little more than you could other days. Some days you can just push a little less. But for whatever reason, this seems to be the most pronounced on pull ups for me.

I like to use my ability to do pull ups as a marker of "over all fitness." The problem is sometimes I progress, sometimes I regress, and it just makes no sense.

A couple weeks ago I was at 6 reps per set, and was building myself up for 7. On another day I was able to randomly crank out 9 in a set being just 1 shy of the coveted "10" standard. But today? Oh, but today. Today I could only squeeze out five reps per set.

I seem to do my best when I'm doing pull work outs frequently, every 3 days. If I take 5 days off between a pull workout all my numbers seem down. That's probably anecdotal though.

I get high gravity days on other lifts too, but never as pronounced as my beloved pull ups.

Making matters worse is that I'm losing weight at the same time, so by all measure, my bodyweight exercise numbers should be going up.

GymBunnyPaige

I'm pretty much the same way, plus I build strength in my upper body much, much slower than lower body. I eventually learned that I still made progress even without doing pull-ups daily. I stopped doing them as often and it surprisingly made them easier. I perform more pull-ups and with better form when I do them every 3-4 days. Same as you. Maybe you're overworking those muscles without realizing? I think it just takes some experimenting. And hey, if you did nine that one day, even if some days you can't do that many, I'd still be telling people that you can do nine! Because that counts in my book! Not every workout can be stellar, and you seem to be making great progress regardless so I would advise you to not worry about it and maybe just keep adjusting how often you attempt them.

claireychn074

There are loads of factors that influence your performance - it’s one reason why RPE is useful (as it’s based on your effort on the day not the number). It’s the usual offenders, your diet (enough calories, proteins etc), rest and sleep, muscle conditioning (are you sore / tired?), have you been sat still all day, and for me - mental state. A bad day at work can swing my session into complete oblivion as I can’t focus, or enable me to pump out high volume or weight out of anger! I monitor performance over time, so that may help you (i.e. average number of pull ups each week over two months).