Pull-ups are consistently one of the most sought after feats of strength we see at 5 Valleys CrossFit. As they should be. It looks really badass when someone is ripping out pull-ups with ease. They take time and dedication to master though so if you want the reward you’ve got to be willing to put in the work.

We’ve put together a progression to help you reach that goal of getting a strict pull-up. Below are the different exercises you will use to build up to the pull-up. Below that are the phases as well as sets and reps of each exercise to get you there. Make sure and master each phase before moving on. If you get stuck or don’t seem to be progressing anymore be sure and hit me up (ian@5valleyscrossfit.com). We can figure out what we need to do to break through that plateau and get you smashing pull-ups! Remember consistency is key so commit to spending 10-15 minutes 2 to 3 days per week.

Ring Rows/Inverted Rows

These are great start to developing the pulling power necessary for a pull-up. You can also easily adjust your foot placement to make them easier or harder. Because you are pulling in a horizontal rather than vertical plane you can’t rely on these alone to get you to that pull-up. To build necessary strength every rep should use full range of motion and be controlled.

Hang from the bar

A big part of being able to perform a solid pull-up is grip strength. Simply grab the bar in an overhand grip and hang. The goal is to get to a 45 sec hang but start with 4 or 5 sets of 5 to 10 seconds with little rest until you can go longer. You can also use a band when first doing these to give some assistance. Once you build up to 45 seconds with the band move to a lighter band or go to full body weight hanging.

Chin Over Bar Hold

This is the finish position of the pull-up. Use a box or bench to help get yourself in position. You want to focus on squeezing your shoulder blades back and down, keeping your elbows by your side, and your abs and butt tight. Build up to a 20 sec Chin Over Bar Hold and again use a band to assist at first.

Controlled Lowering/Negatives

Again use a box or bench and start with a chin over bar hold. Take about 5 seconds to lower yourself under control from chin over the bar position to fully hanging position. Rest 5 to 10 seconds and repeat for between 3 to 5 reps. If you find you can’t control the lowering anymore stop there.

Self/Partner Assisted

Have a partner assist you through the movement or put one foot on a box or bench to assist yourself. Use only enough assistance that you can do 3 or 4 quality controlled reps in a row before needing to rest.

Full Pull-ups

Hang from the bar with arms starting totally straight. Pull yourself up until your chin is completely over the bar. Control yourself back down to hanging with straight arms.

How to get there:

Here is the progression to work towards those full pull-ups. Spend as much time at each phase as you need until you have mastered it before moving to the next one.

Phase 1 – 2 to 3 days per week

Ring Rows 3 sets 5 to 10 reps

Hang from Bar 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 20 seconds

Before moving onto the next phase you should be able to:

• Do 5 ring rows starting with shoulders under the rings and touching the rings to the chest each rep.
• Hang from the Bar for 45 seconds

Phase 2 – 2 to 3 days per week

Chin over bar hold 3 sets of 10 sec hold rest about 90 seconds between each set (start with a band to assist)

Ring Rows 4 sets of 5 reps at hardest level you can do with good form for all reps

Before moving onto the next phase you should be able to:

• Hold Chin Over Bar for 30 seconds

Phase 3 – 2 to 3 days per week

Controlled lowering/Negative Pull-ups 3 sets of 3 to 5 reps taking 5 full seconds to lower (rest 2 minutes between sets)

Self/Partner Assist 3 sets of 3 to 5 reps (rest 2 minutes between sets)

Before moving onto the next phase you should be able to:

• Do 5 controlled Negative pull-ups taking 5 seconds to lower

Phase 4 – Do a Pull-up!!

Being a gym owner many people think I must be some kind of hardcore health fanatic. While I greatly value health and fitness, I am anything but perfect when it comes to eating (or my fitness for that matter!). I have a wicked sweet tooth, enjoy all kinds of adult beverages, and am partial to salt and vinegar chips. For the most part, I can keep these to a moderate enough level that my indulgences aren’t especially detrimental to feeling pretty good. When I do go a bit overboard, my body is quick to let me know and I feel sluggish and unmotivated.

For about the past week I have been crushing fruits and veggies. It’s common knowledge that you should be regularly eating a variety of fruits and veggies, but it seems like very few people actually do. I’m not going to go into all the benefits, but if you want more info check out the articles linked below.  While I have always eaten some fruit and veggies, I have definitely lacked in the variety department and consumption has not been a priority. After seeing several posts about eating 10 shades a day on a blog I follow (OPEX Fitness), I decided it was time to step my game up. So far it’s been way easier than I thought it would be. Liz has been on board as well so each evening we check in and tell each other what we ate that day.

In the past I’ve done the Whole 30 or various paleo challenges and they have helped me dial in my eating and feel really good. But they have all had a specific timeline, and when I finished I would eventually revert back to old habits that included not having much of a plan or consistency with my nutrition. I learned a lot by doing these challenges, but this time around I wanted to see if I could create a long-term habit rather than more of a temporary reset. I liked that instead of having to eliminate a bunch of foods I could simply focus on adding something nutritious.

My daily game plan to get 10 shades in:

• Morning Smoothie (6 shades): 1 scoop of Driven Whey, a handful of Antioxidant Blend Frozen Berries (from Costco, it has 5 types of berries), a handful of spinach, and water. This takes me about 1 minute to make and is delicious.
• Late Breakfast/early lunch (4-5 shades): 2 eggs, bacon, piece of toast, mixed green lettuce mix, carrots, purple cabbage. Sometimes I will sub bell peppers for carrots or cabbage or add tomatos or avocado to the mix.
• Dinner (2-5 shades): Usually some type of meat or fish with a couple veggies on the side: Roasted potato or sweet potato, broccoli, brussel sprouts, bell peppers etc. If I don’t have the smoothie in the morning I will add some more veggies at dinner.

So far I haven’t had any issues getting 10 in and plan on continuing indefinitely. I have found there are a couple keys to my success:

1) Buy enough fruits and veggies. Pretty simple but if they aren’t readily available what are the chances you will eat them?

2) Get a large variety in one meal. With a smoothie or a salad you can easily add a bunch in one go. Likewise if you are roasting or sauteing. Just chop more up than you might normally and throw them in.

3) Don’t be overly concerned with serving size. I’m not going to try to game the system by eating one baby carrot and counting it but I’m also not weighing and measuring everything either.

Here are a couple articles on why it’s important to get your fruits and veggies in.

https://opexfit.com/blog/colorful-eating/

https://www.precisionnutrition.com/color-chart

If you don’t like vegetables here is a great article explaining why and giving you a method to make them more enjoyable or tolerable depending on your outlook.

https://www.precisionnutrition.com/dont-like-vegetables

I’ve got a few more nutrition habits I will be implementing in the months to come but want to make sure I have this one fully dialed in first. If you are reading this and ready to give it a go yourself shoot me an email and let me know (ian@5valleyscrossfit.com). I’m always more motivated when I’ve got some buddies around.:)

1) I’m not going to the CrossFit Games.  I know it’s shocking. Early on though I thought I might be able to. The first couple years not a lot of people were participating in the Open so it didn’t seem that far off. I told myself if I can get better at x, y and z, I will have a shot. While I did get better at x, y and z, I only got further and further away as more people and higher level athletes started participating. For me to have a chance I would have to add about 100lbs to every lift and improve my conditioning by a huge amount. No matter how much I train this is not going to happen, so my focus for the Open is to have fun myself and make sure everyone at the gym has a great time too. So unless I go as a spectator I will not be going to the Games.

2) Be well fed and rested. In the first Open workout last year I was planning on doing the workout at about 3:30pm and had timed my meals accordingly. A few things got in my way and I didn’t end up going until the last heat of the night at around 8pm. I hadn’t eaten since about noon, so this was a very bad idea. About two minutes into what turned into a 19 minute workout I felt really weak and terrible. Lesson learned. For the rest of last year’s Open workouts and all of this year’s I made sure my eating was timed right. If something had thrown it off, I likely would have pulled the plug and done the workout at a different time.

3) Constantly watching the leaderboard is a terrible waste of time. Checking your ranking every couple hours after you submit your score and researching your “leaderboard rivals” can be entertaining but in the end usually just makes you feel worse about yourself. I used to do this every week and by the end of the Open I would be more worried about what score I got relative to others rather than going for it and having fun. If you gave your best effort you should feel really good about that and avoid deriving value about yourself from how anyone else performs.

4) Watching strategy videos is generally a waste of time. All the strategy videos out there are geared towards athletes essentially trying to make Regionals. None of these strategies apply to me because I’m not capable of doing what they say for the entire workout. Here is my simple strategy for every workout: Get a good warm-up, organize your equipment nicely and don’t go too fast at the start.

5) Use the correct weights. Personally I’ve never had an issue here but we had this happen a few times this year. Even a couple coaches made this mistake, ahem… Katie, Andie:) I will definitely triple check what weights I’m using so I don’t have to redo any workouts.

6) Judging is really fun. In the past I haven’t judged that much because I was focused on organizing the heats, running the clock, and making sure everyone had all their equipment set up. This year Jessie stepped up taking on those tasks. This freed me up to be a judge and it was awesome. I had a ton of fun helping people stay focused, giving some coaching tips, and pushing them to keep moving all the way to the end of the workout.

7) I’m terrible at handstand push-ups. I can do some good ones but burn out really quickly and it turns into me staring at the wall for long periods of time during the workout. The recipe to getting better at them isn’t more handstand push-ups in workouts. Practicing them while not under fatigue and gradually build up the volume of reps I do, is a much better strategy. This goes for any movement or skill development. If you struggle with double unders it is really hard to get better at them during a workout with a bunch of burpees and kettlebell swings. Carving out some time to practice without worrying about the clock or having a heart rate through the roof is a much smarter approach.

8) Lower your expectations (or don’t have any). There is a psychology formula: happiness = reality/expectations. So if you set an expectation of a certain score and in reality you don’t reach it your happiness will decrease. The opposite is also true, if your reality exceeds your expectations you will increase your happiness. Say person A thinks they can get a certain number of rounds but fall short and are upset afterward. Person B is a bit scared of the weight in the workout and thinks they won’t do very well but is able to get several more reps than they thought possible and is ecstatic. Did person A not work as hard and be disappointed? I would bet Person A just set their expectations too high. I used to calculate out how fast I thought I could go each round and what final score I could get. At some stage during the workout I would realize that wasn’t going to happen and start to feel disappointed even during the workout. Not a recipe for feeling good about myself. Now I try to keep my expectations to a minimum and focus on performing my best in the moment.  And that has led, you guessed it, to greater happiness after each workout and overall about the Open.

If you participated in the Open this year or years past I would love to hear what lessons you’ve learned! Let us know in the comments!