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Okay, a little backstory is appropriate:
I'm joining the United States Marine Corps in four months, and I have my Initial Strength Test(IST hereafter) in less than a month, and I'm having difficulty with the ten or so dead hang pullups I need to do. Now, since I'm not currently at my university, but at home, I don't have access to our 24/7 gym on campus, and I don't have the money to pay for a membership down here.
So, my problem is this:
I need to build up the number of pullups I do, but I'm not able to access a lat pulldown machine or similar equipment which I would normally use for that sort of muscle area workout. So, anyone have any sort of calisthenics/barbell workout I could use for that(ie, military press etc) particular area.
Thanks in advance.
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Umm, grab a bar and do pullups until your arms ache?
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In Canada, you can buy self-installable pull-up bars (between your door) for around 20 CAD. Since you are from the states, I'm sure you can find one in a hardware store for cheaper 
I would think pull-up is mostly shoulder and bicep... push-ups might help a little bit (the shoulder part at least).
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Well I have a pullup bar which fits onto my door, I was simply wondering(and somehow omitted this from my OP,) if there weren't exercises other than pullups that I could do to increase my pullup rep count.
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Pull ups are about your back muscles and partly the biceps.
How many can you do now?
Anyway, some tips:
1 - lose weight. The lighter you are, the more pull ups you can do. For a month, I say you can safely lose no more than 10 pounds. If you are very fat maybe 15, even 20.
2 - Look at this. You want to gain strength. So you gotta do 3-4 series, pyramidal style, the last series should be no more than 5 repetitions. I suggest you warm up with 20, then do 10, then 7, then 5. As for the weight, your aim should be the last series to be like your body weight. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you aim to do 5 repetitions with 200 pounds. And look to increase the weight.
3 - For the biceps, look at this. Figure out the weight yourself. Whatever is comfortable, not more than 5 reps for the last series.
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On December 16 2008 23:36 Track wrote:
Well I have a pullup bar which fits onto my door, I was simply wondering(and somehow omitted this from my OP,) if there weren't exercises other than pullups that I could do to increase my pullup rep count.
If you are able to do pull ups why would you be looking for another way
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If you are only concerned about getting more pull up reps:
do as many reps as u can and come down slow. When you cant do any more reps, you will need to jump into the full pull up position or have someone support you. The eccentric act of lowering yourself with considerable effort is the fastest way to get more reps / build muscle. barbell work / lat pulldowns wont beat this.
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On December 17 2008 00:28 gusbear wrote:
If you are only concerned about getting more pull up reps:
do as many reps as u can and come down slow. When you cant do any more reps, you will need to jump into the full pull up position or have someone support you. The eccentric act of lowering yourself with considerable effort is the fastest way to get more reps / build muscle. barbell work / lat pulldowns wont beat this.
Definitely agree that negatives are the way to go if your goal is to do more reps.
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There is no way that you are going to build up significant muscle mass to help you get to 10 ups within a month..
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Requirement for USMC is at least 6 pullups right?
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Alright, hymn, I definitely see where you're coming from there. My only problem is that I only have ~40 pounds of weight with which to work with since I don't have access to gym at the moment(though immediately following my first IST, I'll have access to one for the months before boot camp, so it's not THAT big of a deal.) I can currently do about four full extension Marine Corps style pullups, my only worry with doing only pullups to increase my reps is that I feel like I'm not giving myself enough of a workout since after doing a set of four and doing other SEAL workouts I do, my arms are generally too tired to do ONE pullup of the next set, so it's like my arms don't really get a chance to get really challenged.
Gusbear and Shallow, let me just make certain that I have the mechanics of that straight. It's just forced reps after I can't do any more: the person helps me go up to the top and I lower myself down, etc?
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slightly OT:
I recently read an article (on spiegel.de; so it is a trustworthy source) about a different training method for people who lack time to go to a gym 7 days a week. The main idea was that you have fewer training sessions a week but you use your muscles until complete exhaustion and even further (as far as this is possible). People were getting really great results out of it and I didn't see any obvious criticism in the article.
I'm no expert on this field by any means and there are people out there who are far more competent, but this might be something you could look into. I'm sure you can find articles on this in English as well.
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It is generally agreed that doing eccentric (negative) reps with the same heavy weight (like lowering your body weight) are better than concentric reps with lighter weights (like light lat pull downs or pulling yourself up with assistance).
So don't worry about not being able to pull yourself up, just start from the top and lower yourself with max effort.
On December 17 2008 00:48 d1v wrote:
There is no way that you are going to build up significant muscle mass to help you get to 10 ups within a month..
If you are able to do 4 reps now, doing 10 in a month should be easy.
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if you wana be good at pullups do pullups, you will not need a plan with numbers of reps and sets you do not have to accentuate the eccentric phase, you do not have to do anything but pullups to get better at doing pullups as fast as possible.
ive been weighttraining since 6 years, being able to do 10 consecutive pullups has absolutely nothing to do with losing fat or gaining muscle, if your able to do 3pullups and train until you can do 10 consecutive ones, dont expect any gain of bodymass -,-
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On December 17 2008 00:49 Lamborsche wrote:
Requirement for USMC is at least 6 pullups right?
Minimum score on IST is 2 pullups, perfect score is 20. I want some room for improvement, though.
Thanks, hymn, I'm definitely going to give that a shot!
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is there any workout to become a spartan with the spartan body with 8 pax and stuff?
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A 24/7 gym? Where do you go to college?
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On December 17 2008 02:49 Chill_emo_powertrip wrote:
is there any workout to become a spartan with the spartan body with 8 pax and stuff?
lol how about googling "spartan workout" you'll get tons of hits. but anyway... there is no magical workout like u do 10 mins a day and turn into a beast...
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I go to a university north of Atlanta.
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if you want to increase the number of pull-ups you can do, there's no other way around it: do pull-ups. other exercices can work the same muscles, but nothing can imitate the movement from a pull-up. even if you can't do one, just try very hard evrytime you walk past the bar and in a short time, you'll be able to do 1, then 2, then 5 and so on.
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Body weight exercises are the best anyway, who needs a whole weight room. I remember reading somewhere that instead of working yourself to exhaustion, try doing one or two pullups all throughout the day, so that you do a large number of them just not at one time. They said afterwards when you try to do lots of reps at once it is easy, but I've not tested this out myself.
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EPT
