Over the last 12 years we’ve helped many people to achieve their first pull-ups and with this guide you can achieve it too! Let’s make 2024 the year you finally do your first pull ups! Follow our guide Pull Ups for Beginners.
What you will learn in this article:
How to do your First Pull Up in 2024 (Step by Step Guide)
In this article, we’ll show you how to set up the different phases, what you need to know about them and how they work. We’ll also give you some important tips at the end of the video that are as important as the plan itself.
Preparation Phase
Here we focus on preparation to avoid injuries and to give your body enough time for the necessary adaptations.
This is very important especially for absolute beginners with no workout experience or for people that took a very long break from working out. In the prep phase you’re focusing on easier exercises in a higher rep range because this not only puts less load onto your joints, it also allows you to develop the right feeling for your body and your muscles.
Good exercises to focus on:
- Active to passive hangs
- Body rows Seated pull ups
- Pull ups on a machine
So basically all exercises that either mimic the pull movement with a lower intensity or exercises that hit the same muscles.
In the preparation phase you start with 2 workouts a week and increase it to 3 for the last 2 weeks of this phase. To keep it simple choose 1 exercise for every training and do 4 sets of it. Like said before we are focusing on a higher rep range so try to do about 15 reps with 90 seconds rest between the sets.
Also, make sure to not overdo it, of course it should be challenging but you should not train till failure in every set. If you’re not an absolute beginner and have some experience, the preparation phase is not mandatory, but still recommended. So if you already do some pull up work or practice the exercises I mentioned before regularly, you should be ready for the next phase.
Strength Phase
In this phase things get really interesting because now you’re working with harder exercises in a lower rep range.
Good exercises for this phase are:
- Band assisted pull ups
- Negative pull ups
- Pull ups on a machine (adjust the supported weight to the correct rep range).
Now for the next 8 Weeks you do 3 workouts in each week with at least one rest day in between. In every workout you focus on just 1 exercise and do 4-5 sets with 3-4 minutes rest in between. I suggest picking 2 of the exercises mentioned before and alternate them in every session.
No matter which exercises you pick, they should be hard enough to train in the 3-8 rep range. However in my experience you still get the best results if you reach your limit between 3-5 reps. Also, make sure to not and I repeat TO NOT go all out in every set. This training is about performance and not about building huge muscles only. I suggest leaving 1 rep in the tank in every set but the last.
Strength training has a strong neurological component and this means you want to avoid constant muscle soreness.
Deload Phase
Ok, after you’ve done this for 8 weeks you’re adding a deload week. This means you’re only doing light training sessions with easier exercises, less volume and less intensity or do not do any kind of focused pull up training at all and just stick to mobility training.
Further Training
After the deload week you’re starting with the 8 week phase again, but this time you change some details to progress further.
So you just use a lighter band with less assistance, decrease the amount of supported weight on the pull up machine or do more negative reps. You can repeat this procedure again and again and still make progress if you just stick to the rule of progressive overload.
After your First Pull Up
Once you reach your first pull up I suggest making some adjustments to the negative reps. So instead of doing negatives only you now combine them with full pull ups. So you do 1 full rep and continue your set with negatives.
When you get stronger you simply do more full and less negative reps until you are able to do 3 pull ups for every set. At this point you can skip the negative reps completely and only work with the full reps.
General Tips
Ok, last but not least I got some general tips that are as important as the training itself:
Stick to the same grip
Make sure to stick to the same grip and grip width. Of course there is nothing wrong with changing the grip in general, but if you want to learn a particular movement it’s best to practice it with as little changes as possible.
Focus on proper form
Make sure to work with proper form all the time, so no kicking, no swinging, no reduced range of motion and don’t just let yourself fall down when doing the negative part of the pull up!
Adapt to individual needs
Make sure to adapt the training to your individual needs.
So if you’re getting sore all the time, reduce the sets or add an extra day of rest once in a while. On the contrary if you feel not challenged enough you can do a bit more by adding an extra set in every session or even a complete workout day every now and then.
If you like structured and detailed workouts like this one, please make sure to check our complete programs on calimove.com. The Full programs not only teach you how to do pull ups for beginners, but also learn and master many other exercises. If you’re looking for a comprehensive guide that actually works, get your calimove program and start progressing today!
Watch The Video Pull Ups for Beginners – How to Get from 0 to 5 Pull Ups!
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