This 3-Week Program Can Help You to Double Your Pullup Power
Following his 3-week pushup workout, Athlean-X mastermind Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. has outlined a simple pullup program designed to improve endurance and increase your max rep count in another 22 days. The program consists of 5 blocks of 4 training days, then 2 final testing days. Each training block starts with a testing day, followed by 3 non-testing days.
On the test day, you’ll do the maximum number of pullups you can with proper form on each rep—which means you’ll clear your chin all the way over the bar at the upper end and fully extend your arms at the lower end of the move. Follow this with a 2-minute rest, and then a 5-minute period in which you do as many reps as possible.
“Understand you can get down off the bar, you can do rest/pause, whatever you have to do, just count how many pullups you do in that 5-minute total,” says Cavaliere. Make a note of the total number of reps you completed to failure, and add the total number from your AMRAP set.
The non-testing days each comprise of an accessory exercise and a set of pullups. For the accessory moves, which include chinups and commando pullups, Cavaliere prescribes twice the max of your pullup rep count from the previous testing day. “The idea here is not to go to failure,” he explains. “Let’s say I did 10 pullups to failure on Day 1, I’m just looking to accumulate 20 chinups. If I get tired at 6 or 7, I stop and shake my arms out, I get back up to the bar and keep going.”
On the third non-testing day, Cavaliere wants you to work on your endurance with scap pull hangs. “If you can increase your dead arm hang time, that’s going to have some other benefits for the rest of your workout,” he says.
Then for the pullups, the aim on non-testing Day 1 is to complete 40 percent more than your testing day max. Again, a rest/pause model here is allowed. The following non-testing day, aim for 50 percent more than the original maximum, then 60 percent the next day.
“Your test day sets the stage for everything else that follows,” says Cavaliere. “So on Day 5, your new test day, you get a chance to set a new max in a single set, and all those non-testing days, all that is going to be based off the new test day total, to ensure you continue to progress for the 22 days.”
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On Day 21, Cavaliere says you should be able to do your original test day total in just 5 minutes, without any rest period. Then on Day 22, for the final test, you see how many pullups you can do in a single set to failure. “If 10 was our number, you’re looking for 15, if not 20,” he says. “If you’ve been putting in the work here, you’re going to be surprised at what you’re capable of doing.”
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