Pullups hurt my arms

h3h8m3
h3h8m3 Posts: 455 Member
edited September 30 in Fitness and Exercise
Is this normal? I've been doing 4-5 sets of pullups every other day. I do them until failure each set. Which isn't saying much... At first I didn't actually DO any pullups, I just tried and failed for a while. Then I got the point where I could do one pullup, and I'd fail on a second attempt. Now I can do two successful pullups, and fail on the third.

Anyway, about half the time my arms will ache pretty badly after I am done doing pullups. Very uncomfortable. I don't get anything like this from any of the other strength exercises I do. This isn't normal soreness like I get from lifting weights, it feels more like something is stretched too much maybe. I'm really not sure.

Is this normal for pullups? Something to be concerned about?

Thanks.

Replies

  • h3h8m3
    h3h8m3 Posts: 455 Member
    Forgot to mention.. taking 2-3 ibuprofen seems to clear the pain up quickly and easily.
  • mauryr
    mauryr Posts: 385
    I don't know if it's cause for concern or not, but I thought I'd mention that I have a similar problem. When it hurts, I take some extra time off, perhaps 4 days or so. That works for me.
  • mauryr
    mauryr Posts: 385
    Might also want to try glucosamine/chondroitin.
  • jbucci1186
    jbucci1186 Posts: 440 Member
    over time, your arms will stop hurting. you just have to get them stronger/used to doing the pull ups. pull ups are so damn hard- good work!
  • shassen
    shassen Posts: 16 Member
    try taking a week off from performing pullups and see if that helps at all. It might be that your over training your arms. It takes a while to master pullups, i generally do pullups on saturday's only and do 5 sets of 12 (every grip). However, this takes time to work up to. If you would like some tips on how to improve let me know.
  • corpus_validum
    corpus_validum Posts: 292 Member
    You're probably activating too much of your forearms instead of your lats, back muscles. One way to activate your back muscles more are to use a wider grip on the bars and to think about pulling your elbows DOWN to your obliques.
  • boopiejones
    boopiejones Posts: 73
    you are probably doing them too often and your arms are compensating because your back muscles haven't recovered from the last workout. try working out your back only once a week. start with pull-ups so that you can track progress in that exercise. then do some other back excercises - bent over rows, upright rows, pull downs, etc... and then give that muscle group a week to rest before having another back day...
  • h3h8m3
    h3h8m3 Posts: 455 Member
    First, I should say that i'm actually doing CHIN-UPS. I didn't know the different until a few minutes ago.

    So... sounds like I shouldn't be doing this every other day huh? I can cut down to once or twice a week I guess. I do my other body-weight exercises (like pushups, situps, etc) 3 times a week, so figured this would be fine too.

    I don't really understand how pull-ups engage the back so much. As I look at videos of people doing pullups it sure seems like it's just an arm exercise. How does the back get so intricately involved?

    I definitely want to get keep getting better at pull-ups and chin-ups. If you'd like to recommend an effective regime to get there, that would be great. I am still losing weight, so that should help all by itself, but I want to be a bad-*kitten* who can climb buildings or whatever, so more progress is required! :)
  • boopiejones
    boopiejones Posts: 73
    a chin up engages your biceps a lot more than a pullup does. if you look at the range of motion of your arm during the excercise, it is basically contracting similarly to a curling motion.

    a couple ways to add reps are by having someone hold your feet and spot you, or by kipping (swinging your hips to gain momentum). but i would do as many as i can WITHOUT assistance before resorting to a spotter or kipping...
  • h3h8m3
    h3h8m3 Posts: 455 Member
    I haven't even tried doing pull-ups, just chin-ups so far. So, on my next day for this (probably Thursday) I was thinking of starting with a couple sets of pull-ups, to see if I can do this (and if so, how many reps), then doing the rest of the sets in chin-ups. Assuming that pull-ups will be harder for me.

    Between the two I will do 4-5 sets, depending how it goes. I do use kipping sometimes, to get a final rep, but mostly I figure when I'm done I am done.
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