Chin Ups & Pull Ups | How to choose the right assistance exercises and progressions to get your first chin up & keep adding 1 more rep

Chin ups and pull ups are essential exercises for all strength based sports, including powerlifting. At the same time, they are the hardest exercises to progress and it often takes months to years for people to get their first pull up and add more reps to their pull up and chin up bank.

In this episode of the PRS Podcast we discuss:

How to choose the right assisted version based on your goals, abilities, and equipment access.
Why pull-ups are hard and progress slower than the main lifts
The number one way to eventually be able to do a pull-up (it’s our little secret)
Criteria to move from easier version to more challenging versions

Even if you CAN do pull ups and chin ups, this episode provides insight to progress them so you’re not chasing after one more rep for months!

Are you a barbell strength or powerlifting coach? Use this episode to help you more effectively program the chin up and pull up for your clients to improve shoulder health, strength, and reduce their injury risk!

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:10] Alright, guys, welcome back to another Ten-Minute Tip Tuesday episode on the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, clinical head coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength, and my lovely co-host Dr. Alyssa Haveson, a clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength. And in these Ten-Minute Tip Tuesdays, we hope to provide you with quick, actionable content you can implement immediately. So we set a timer for 10 minutes. We talk about a topic we frequently get questions about and give it all to you in those 10 minutes. So grab a pen, grab a piece of paper and get ready to take notes. Because in today's Ten-Minute Tip, we'll talk about Pull-Ups. For those who can't do pull-ups and want to do pull-ups. Or those of you who are struggling to progress your pull-ups. Or coaches or clinicians trying to incorporate pull-ups into their client's programs, and their clients can't do pull-ups, but you want to help them do pull-ups. Or you want to use it as a rehab exercise or rehab someone's shoulder to get them back to pull-ups. So this episode is for all of you, as these are always for all of you, the athlete, the coach, and the clinician here at Progressive Rehab & Strength. So I'm going to go ahead and start the 10 minutes, and we'll talk about what to do if you can't do pull-ups, how to choose the right assistance exercise, and how to progress all the way to get pull-ups. Here we go. Alyssa, why are pull-ups so hard to progress, and why do they progress slower than the main barbell lifts?

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:01:50] Great question that we get all of the time because, you know, a lot of people are seeing their lift's progress and pull up or chin-ups aren't progressing at that rate.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:01:59] Can I only do three? How is it taking me so many months to get that fourth pull-up?

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:02:05] So with the bar, that load is constant. The size of the bar is constant. That's not changing. We're adding a very specific amount of weight to the bar each session, but other than that, nothing is changing with the bar. Like the bar isn't bloated some days, or that's the reality. So, coming back to pull-ups or chin-ups, we're dealing with our body, which is a variable load. And, you know, some days we're heavier, some days were lighter, some days we're bloated depending on the contents of our GI system. The Center of mass can be in a different place. There are all these other things to consider. And also, if you think about it, if you were doing sets of, say, five reps with a barbell lift and RPE of nine or ten, it wouldn't be that easy to add a rep every time you do them. So even if the load wasn't variable with pull-ups, we're still it's already a challenging movement that is heavy because you're lifting your body weight, and it's variable. Things are changing daily, so you might not always be able to do the same amount of reps, either.

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