The pull-up marathon: how to pull smart

The idea behind a pull-up marathon is simple: you pull a lot, often, and with solid technique. In real life, though, the question comes up right away: how do you fit it around your regular gym program, your recovery and your back training?

My recommendations, comments and guidelines all come from my own experience. What this pull-up marathon did for my back can without a doubt be called a revolution. It works. But only if you don’t go in for mindless bar-hammering.

Why does a pull-up marathon work at all?

The pull-up is an honest exercise. The bar doesn’t ask whether you had a long day or whether your biceps are a little sore. If your body doesn’t come up, it doesn’t come up. That’s exactly why a high volume of pull-ups sends your back and arms a very clear signal: get stronger.

At the same time, a marathon doesn’t mean every set has to end at failure. Quite the opposite. The key point is that you really don’t have to go to failure. Do 10 x 4, 5 x 7, 6 x 6 or 7 x 7 with reps left in reserve. Your back grows, your arms grow, and your nervous system doesn’t take a hammering every time.

To be honest, the hardest part wasn’t the pulling itself, but finding the logic. I’ve been pulling for two months myself. Throughout those two months I kept looking for a system to progress by. One thing did become clear, though: pulling literally every day is out of the question alongside my main training split.

How do you fit a pull-up marathon into your program?

There’s no exact universal recipe. I can only tell you how I did it. Sometimes I did pull-ups at the end of a regular workout, sometimes at the start, even when the main focus of the day was shoulders and triceps. Sometimes pull-ups were the first exercise of a back day, sometimes the last, sometimes somewhere in the middle.

Of course, I also did pull-ups on rest days. Although when you’re preparing for competitions, it’s hard to call them truly free. For the last three months, my typical rest day looked like this: 50 – 100 pull-ups, a little abs work and 40 – 60 minutes on the bike. And that was even when a separate back day might come again the next day.

In practice, a week could look like this: today I pull 70 pull-ups (10 x 7), tomorrow is back day and I only do 6 x 6 pull-ups there. The idea of 100 today, 101 tomorrow, 102 the day after and so on sounds nice on paper, but in real life it didn’t work for me.

If you have your own gym program on top of the pull-ups, don’t force even more push-ups and lunges into it. That kind of extra volume makes sense only if you have no other program. High-frequency pull-ups give you plenty of work on their own.

The volume goal that actually helped

I’ve now been pulling for 2 months. While the schemes didn’t produce a perfect system right away, I did meet one condition: 1000 pull-ups in every 30 days, i.e. 1000 pull-ups in a month. When Waterbury talks about 13,000 pull-ups in five months, that’s an insane number. By my calculation, it would mean about 2600 pull-ups a month.

1000 pull-ups a month on top of your main program is already enough to grind through. It’s not a small amount of work. But it’s doable if you keep your sets under control and don’t try to set a record every time.

Technique, rests and signs of progress

My rest breaks varied: 1:30 – 2:30. If I decided, for example, to pull with 1:45 rest periods, I tried to keep that rest between all the sets. It gives your training a rhythm and makes comparing later easier.

I pulled on both a fixed bar and rings. At first more on rings, later more on the fixed bar. I didn’t feel a big difference in my own case. What mattered far more was keeping the technique clean: a controlled pull, a slow descent, and a set you feel in control of rather than just flailing through.

When I did, for example, 10 x 6, those sets were with reps in reserve. At the same time, I often did them very slowly, sometimes even with emphasized negatives. That way even a short set with reps in reserve gives you enough productive work.

At some point I also added days to failure. I simply did 5 sets to failure and kept track of the total across the sets. For example, one day 53 pull-ups as the total of five sets, the next time maybe already 55 reps. It’s a simple metric, but you shouldn’t do it too often.

A result I’m especially pleased with: as a relatively heavy guy, I finally managed to do 10 x 10 pull-ups. For someone who weighs 97 kg, that’s probably not an easy task.

How can you try a pull-up marathon yourself?

A simple truth: start smaller than your ego would allow. If you can do 10 reps in one set, you don’t have to do tens of sets every day. Do, for example, several shorter sets and leave 2–3 reps in reserve. That way you build up volume without burning yourself out.

One possible approach is to take a weekly volume as your target. In the version I suggested, it came to about 600 pull-ups a week on average. I can’t promise 100 percent that it suits everyone. But if you have a strong base, your recovery is in order and your technique is clean, it can be a sensible challenge.

Watch three things: your elbows, your shoulders and your appetite for training. If your elbows start to nag, your shoulders roll forward or the sight of a bar kills your mood, cut the volume. The pull-up marathon should make you stronger, not wreck your regular training.

FAQ: the pull-up marathon

Can you do pull-ups every day?

You can, but it isn’t the best option for everyone. If you already have a solid gym program, your back, elbows and grip need recovery. It makes more sense to build up volume over several days a week than to force it every day.

Does every set have to go to failure?

No. Most sets should stop with reps left in reserve. Sets to failure can be used occasionally as a benchmark, for example 5 sets with the total written down, but not as the main method of every workout.

Are rings better than a fixed bar?

Both work. Rings give your movement more freedom, while a fixed bar keeps the exercise more stable. Choose whichever lets you do a clean, controlled, pain-free pull-up.

Author: Janar Rückenberg

Source:Turg.Fitness.ee

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