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Max Pull-ups - How long did it take you?

WinterMute

New Member
Just out of curiosity, how long did it take people to get to where they want to be as far as pullups are concerned? It took me about 3 months of pullups and pushups 4 days a week to get from 9 to 18. I will add as a caveat that I was kinda/sorta a vegetarian during that time. Also, 6' 4" and 195 lbs.

This is doing about 50-75 pullups trying to follow Maj. Armstrong's workout, and maybe 100 pushups with occasional bench press.
 

BACONATOR

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Just out of curiosity, how long did it take people to get to where they want to be as far as pullups are concerned? It took me about 3 months of pullups and pushups 4 days a week to get from 9 to 18. I will add as a caveat that I was kinda/sorta a vegetarian during that time. Also, 6' 4" and 195 lbs.


So you basically picked the wrong forum to openly admit that to. :icon_wink :D

Personally, whilst eating things that used to make a noise, it took me probably a good month to increase pushups and situps from 50's and 70's respectively to MAX.
 

WinterMute

New Member
Eh, I'll take whatever flack I get. I was eating meet about 1-2 times per week, I just mention it as it relates to protein intake.
 

eddie

Working Plan B
Contributor
Just out of curiosity, how long did it take people to get to where they want to be as far as pullups are concerned? It took me about 3 months of pullups and pushups 4 days a week to get from 9 to 18. I will add as a caveat that I was kinda/sorta a vegetarian during that time. Also, 6' 4" and 195 lbs.

This is doing about 50-75 pullups trying to follow Maj. Armstrong's workout, and maybe 100 pushups with occasional bench press.

kind of sort of a vegetarian? dont act unintelligent. you either are or you arent... :confused:
 

WinterMute

New Member
For the sake of Accuraccy, no, not at all a vegetarian, just rarely ate meat. My roomates were vegetarians(Of the Hindu persuasion) and the smell of cooking meat made them a bit quesy, hence the 1-2 times per week. Thing to take away is that particular time frame for improvement is based on limited protien intake(And of course genetics, work ethic, and a million other things) Maybe this thread was not such a good idea....
 

eddie

Working Plan B
Contributor
For the sake of Accuraccy, no, not at all a vegetarian, just rarely ate meat. My roomates were vegetarians(Of the Hindu persuasion) and the smell of cooking meat made them a bit quesy, hence the 1-2 times per week. Thing to take away is that particular time frame for improvement is based on limited protien intake(And of course genetics, work ethic, and a million other things) Maybe this thread was not such a good idea....

no, im just an asshole

But you will probably get yelled at about how "your mileage will vary"
 

usmarinemike

Solidly part of the 42%.
pilot
Contributor
Don't let them bother you. You must have thick skin or you will die here, especially as the FNG. With that said, you should have told your mates to suck it up while you burned some sacred goodness on the stove. Or better yet, grilled it outside the way God intended. Everybody wins in that situation.

Anyway, my dirty little secret is that when I went to boot camp at the tender age of 18 I only did 2 pullups on the initial strength test. I said it, 2. I was 6'3" and 185 so I feel your pain on the week it takes to do one rep because of arm length. It took getting accepted to MECEP to get above 14. So yeah, it basically took about 5 or 6 years for me to get 20. Once I got on the horse though it only took about 5 weeks to go from 14 to 20. Now I can get 20 any time as long as I keep up with the maintenance.

And FTR, 90 days is a long damn time when working the Armstrong program. If you weren't chickening on things like max sets and getting as high on the ladder day as possible, you can thank your Indian friends for the energy deficiency.
 

sanders

Member
A year before OCS I could do 8 pullups and I worked up to 20 or 21. I used armstrong until I hit 20 or 21 pullups. It took pretty much a full year for me to work my way up to that and I was working at it 5 or 6 days a week.
 

Slammer2

SNFO Advanced, VT-86 T-39G/N
Contributor
I could do 8 initially. Worked on them for about 3 weeks, no special program, just pullups whenever and whereever, and that got me up to 12. I was stuck at 12 for a long time. The Armstrong program got me from 12 to 18 in about 2 months. Stuck at 18 for a while and then got back on the Armstrong program and hit over 20. Anytime I slack off and get lazy and dont work on my pullups, I lose anywhere from 4-8 reps. If I do them for about 3-4 days straight I can get back up to 20 easily. For what its worth, I never did the pushups as part of the Armstrong workout. I did them on occasion, as well as other various forms of working out, but never as part of the pullup workout.
 

Herc_Dude

I believe nicotine + caffeine = protein
pilot
Contributor
I'm a vegetarian too.

Okay, I'm not a strict vegetarian. I do eat beef and pork. And chicken. But not fish - that's disgusting!

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WingForce87

New Member
I have been working for the past 4 months and have gone from 5 pullups to 15 presently. Really it seems that I'm in a rut of sorts - because it took about 1-2 months to get to 15 and now it seems that I can't increase, yet I'm doing 40-50 pullups a day. If I only go half way down then I can get 20-25! I don't think those would count though.
 

chupacabra

Member
pilot
Contributor
I have been working for the past 4 months and have gone from 5 pullups to 15 presently. Really it seems that I'm in a rut of sorts - because it took about 1-2 months to get to 15 and now it seems that I can't increase, yet I'm doing 40-50 pullups a day. If I only go half way down then I can get 20-25! I don't think those would count though.

Try taking a week off from doing pull-ups to let your muscles rest, you might be burning yourself out if you're doing 40-50 every day.

I started the Armstrong program doing about 10 dead hangs, did it for 6 weeks and got to 16-17, took about a week off and was able to get 20.

And you're right about the half way pull ups not counting. Like kipping, they may be good to use when training if you can't do any more dead hangs for the day, but on the actual PFT it's elbows fully locked out at the bottom until the chin clears the bar equals 1 rep.
 

Slammer2

SNFO Advanced, VT-86 T-39G/N
Contributor
I have been working for the past 4 months and have gone from 5 pullups to 15 presently. Really it seems that I'm in a rut of sorts - because it took about 1-2 months to get to 15 and now it seems that I can't increase, yet I'm doing 40-50 pullups a day. If I only go half way down then I can get 20-25! I don't think those would count though.

You will always plateau like that when training. You notice it the most in things like pullups or bench press or even running. At first you will make rapid gains because you never worked that muscle group out before. You pretty much just get used to it, and what seemed hard now seems easy. But then you get stuck. Just keep up what you're doing. Take a little rest as was mentioned but then get back at it. Eventually it will increase again. I've also noticed that varying the training methods will help you grow. I did armstrong until it apeared not to work anymore. Then I did pyramids every day and gained a few more. Then I did lat pull downs at the gym, and max effort pull up sets for a while. When that stopped gaining, I went back to armstrong. I guess every body is different. Learn what works for you.

Also, if you want to do the half way pullups its a good excercise. But it will get you nowhere at OCS or during a PFT. A large part of the pullup section is just muscle memory. Do them as fast as you can so that you're not using all your stregnth staying on the bar for so long. Theres a difference between coming down all the way and locking out. At least to drill instructors there is. The way my arms/elbows are, I can extend my arms fully without locking out my elbow joint. If I lock it out, I do not descend any further. They hit me with it hard at my in pft at ocs. I ended up doing what I would have counted as 26 pullups and I scored 18. Luckily, he counted them outloud as I did them otherwise I would have stopped at "20" and probably got 12 counted.

I suppose that brings up another point. At OCS, at least as far as your PFT goes, I would reccommend doing pullups until you cant anymore because you might think you hit 20 and stop and he only counted some of them. And if he doesnt count outloud, you'll never know until you're done. Doing those 3-4 extra pullups you can squeeze out over 20 is really not going to drain your energy for the run. Keep training!!
 
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