Help with wide grip needed

[KRATOS]

I was hoping someone could offer some advice or tips to help me out. Wide grip pullups have always been tough so I've been trying to work on them by using the assisted machine and using less and less assisting weight. However, I just cannot seem to break off the weight I'm doing at the moment. When I try I don't get the reps I need so I have to drop back again. How can I try and bust through this? Would other exercises help with this? I have no problem with wide grip pulldowns, I can improve those no problem.

[Dinahlady]

Maybe try doing some lower reps. I'm not sure what you mean by "not doing enough reps". but something like a pyrimid set going up the stack is okay. 3 reps at a higher weight is a good way to build strength into higher weights. Remember to "save yourself" for the heeavier sets and dont burn out too early. just treat the lighter weights as a warm up for a max of 5-8reps until you get to the level that is quite challenging. Lower reps will be helpful for getting up to the weight/strenght that you want to. 

Another good way is to do negetives - for example unassisted jumping up to a bar wide grip and lowering yourself down as slowly as you can (or doing this on the assisted machine aswell - or 4 second negatives on your "normal" reps)

Do you know if anyone at your gym has strenght bands? They are a great way to practice real wide grip pullups assisted. Or if you have a training partner (or ask a gym instructor) they can spot you for pullups by pushing up on your upper back or legs on an standard pullup bar - this is more like the real thing and will definitely help towards the real pullups.  

Ofcourse practising narrow grip chins are great too or using the metal triangle attachemnt and hooking that over a pullup bar for a neutral grip pullup is good too. This might be easier for you to work on your form (below). 

In terms of form for wide grip pullups (and pullups in general) you need to tilt your chest upwards so it is pointing towards the bar and you are looking back at the ceiling. (the looking isnt important its the position) so you are really engaging your lats and supporting your scapula (bringing them downwards - sliding into back pockets) rahter than pulling up through your traps and hunching shoulder up. It will be much harder to improve if your form is not the best. 

 Also trying to externally rotate your arms might help this - which means pushing downwards through your pinkies and upwards through your thumb and letting your radius spin outwards (which should push your shoulders/shoulderblades back and down and away from your neck). This can help stabilise the shoulder joint and create more muscular support for the pullup.

One of tte best ways to do pullups aswell is to lose weight or excess body fat. 5kgs off will mean much easier pullups and that would be the fastest way you'll get your numbers up. (but this depends on your goals!) 

There will be lots of smaller stabilisation and mobility work you could do that miught help these things but I wont get into that now  

 

 

 

[Kigorri]

I've NEVER been good with pull ups...ever...

But in the past month or so, I decided that they were too good to miss out on so I installed a pullup bar at home and away we go.

First started with my chin ups. Negatives all the way... very slow and clontrolled decline. Nothing dramatic, just two sets of ten on the daily... some times only ten depending on workload. I will then finish with 5 wide grip negatives.

The idea is to progressivley shift from chin ups to pull ups as I grow stronger. You may not even need to muck around with the chin ups.. I'm just doing it this way due to.....well.... being weak really... haha.

I'm also getting my lat pull domn machine back up and running... should have done that from the start really. 

 

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

how wide are you going and how wide are you yourself? some of those things seem to be wide as hell probably designed for super massive/wide guys and if you are average to medium build beginner/intermediate it doesn't mean you should start trying to work at the same width as the super wide guys right away.

 

start just a little wider than your own shoulder width and progressively work your way wider as you reach your target reps. in regards to pullups there are plenty of good programs out there just for improving your pullups fast if that's what you're after. they usually involve doing pullups every day or two or a little bit few times a day and incorporate pyramid sets as dinah mentioned. quite a bit different to the usual bodybuilding split where you only do pullups on back day which is once a week so check those kind of routines out (google pullup routines) if you want to spice up your progress a little.

 

if you want to get better at widegrip pullups then you'll have to try them for real ditch the assistance machine and bust out the negative reps like everyone else mentioned. also try the different grips see what works best for you. i have no idea what the body science is behind it but personally i found thumbless grip with just the slightest bends near the tips of my fingers to create a hook to cling to the bar works best for me as for whatever reason the forearm & wrist just feels more relaxed that way and i can focus on driving through the elbows better. thats just my own experience you might find a different grip to be better for you so experiment with that

 

i wonder why you have no problems with wide grip pulldowns, is the weight you pull on there above your own body weight? are you sure you are not turning the vertical pulldown into a horizontal rowing motion (like most people seem to naturally do) by leaning back a bit too much?

[Kigorri]

I forgot to mention.... hop under the table and practice wide grip on the edge, I use the kids trampoline.... good warm up.

[KRATOS]

Maybe try doing some lower reps. I'm not sure what you mean by "not doing enough reps". but something like a pyrimid set going up the stack is okay. 3 reps at a higher weight is a good way to build strength into higher weights. Remember to "save yourself" for the heeavier sets and dont burn out too early. just treat the lighter weights as a warm up for a max of 5-8reps until you get to the level that is quite challenging. Lower reps will be helpful for getting up to the weight/strenght that you want to. 

Another good way is to do negetives - for example unassisted jumping up to a bar wide grip and lowering yourself down as slowly as you can (or doing this on the assisted machine aswell - or 4 second negatives on your "normal" reps)

Do you know if anyone at your gym has strenght bands? They are a great way to practice real wide grip pullups assisted. Or if you have a training partner (or ask a gym instructor) they can spot you for pullups by pushing up on your upper back or legs on an standard pullup bar - this is more like the real thing and will definitely help towards the real pullups.  

Ofcourse practising narrow grip chins are great too or using the metal triangle attachemnt and hooking that over a pullup bar for a neutral grip pullup is good too. This might be easier for you to work on your form (below). 

In terms of form for wide grip pullups (and pullups in general) you need to tilt your chest upwards so it is pointing towards the bar and you are looking back at the ceiling. (the looking isnt important its the position) so you are really engaging your lats and supporting your scapula (bringing them downwards - sliding into back pockets) rahter than pulling up through your traps and hunching shoulder up. It will be much harder to improve if your form is not the best. 

 Also trying to externally rotate your arms might help this - which means pushing downwards through your pinkies and upwards through your thumb and letting your radius spin outwards (which should push your shoulders/shoulderblades back and down and away from your neck). This can help stabilise the shoulder joint and create more muscular support for the pullup.

One of tte best ways to do pullups aswell is to lose weight or excess body fat. 5kgs off will mean much easier pullups and that would be the fastest way you'll get your numbers up. (but this depends on your goals!) 

There will be lots of smaller stabilisation and mobility work you could do that miught help these things but I wont get into that now

Yeah I've got the form right but I think you're probably dead on the money about the weight, I've just finished a bulk and have put on quite a few but its by no means all lean haha need to tweek a few calories I reckon. So I'm about to reduce my intake and up my cardio. When I get back into bulking and have a more appropriate caloric intake it will be interesting to see how it goes. 

What I meant by the reps is that I aim for between 6-10 usually and once I can comfortably get towards the 10-12 mark I will up the weight (in this case lower the assisted weight) but here I just can't seem to get stronger and push out any more reps each week. So you reckon that even if I only hit 3 or so reps I should still use that assisted weight? 

Also, you mention not pushing to hard on the first few sets and saving for the heavies. I'll do 4 sets of this exercise but I usually try and max out each set, which then results in less possible reps each subsequent set, you don't think I should do this? 

And thanks for the tips!

 

[KRATOS]

I've NEVER been good with pull ups...ever...

But in the past month or so, I decided that they were too good to miss out on so I installed a pullup bar at home and away we go.

First started with my chin ups. Negatives all the way... very slow and clontrolled decline. Nothing dramatic, just two sets of ten on the daily... some times only ten depending on workload. I will then finish with 5 wide grip negatives.

The idea is to progressivley shift from chin ups to pull ups as I grow stronger. You may not even need to muck around with the chin ups.. I'm just doing it this way due to.....well.... being weak really... haha.

I'm also getting my lat pull domn machine back up and running... should have done that from the start really. 

 

Yeah I seem to be pretty useless at pullups but other lat exercises are fine. I'd love to have a really wide back though so I think it's really important for me to nip this is the bud so I'm not hindered later on down the line. As dinahlady said, my weight is a factor and if I gain more muscle mass without developing such an important muscle then it could be a lot harder to play catch up. I like your idea though of pushing out a set or two a day to help develop them. Might give this a try, see how it goes. Thanks!

And that table trick, is that sort of like a wide grip bent over row? Wouldn't that hit the middle back and rear delts more?

[KRATOS]

how wide are you going and how wide are you yourself? some of those things seem to be wide as hell probably designed for super massive/wide guys and if you are average to medium build beginner/intermediate it doesn't mean you should start trying to work at the same width as the super wide guys right away.

 

start just a little wider than your own shoulder width and progressively work your way wider as you reach your target reps. in regards to pullups there are plenty of good programs out there just for improving your pullups fast if that's what you're after. they usually involve doing pullups every day or two or a little bit few times a day and incorporate pyramid sets as dinah mentioned. quite a bit different to the usual bodybuilding split where you only do pullups on back day which is once a week so check those kind of routines out (google pullup routines) if you want to spice up your progress a little.

 

if you want to get better at widegrip pullups then you'll have to try them for real ditch the assistance machine and bust out the negative reps like everyone else mentioned. also try the different grips see what works best for you. i have no idea what the body science is behind it but personally i found thumbless grip with just the slightest bends near the tips of my fingers to create a hook to cling to the bar works best for me as for whatever reason the forearm & wrist just feels more relaxed that way and i can focus on driving through the elbows better. thats just my own experience you might find a different grip to be better for you so experiment with that

 

i wonder why you have no problems with wide grip pulldowns, is the weight you pull on there above your own body weight? are you sure you are not turning the vertical pulldown into a horizontal rowing motion (like most people seem to naturally do) by leaning back a bit too much?

 

Yeah you could have something there with the width. I'm not all that wide so maybe I'll start narrower and work my way out, that's a good tip. I used to do regular pullups cause I couldn't so wide grip so that's why I decided to use the assisted machine. The idea of using negatives could also probably help too, might give those a whirl.

No I'm not leaning back on the pulldowns too much, I try and keep to strict form as much as possible. On the last couple of reps when I start to really struggle I even tend to curve my spine forward as I try to pull that weight down but stop as soon as I recognise it.

[Kigorri]

 

And that table trick, is that sort of like a wide grip bent over row? Wouldn't that hit the middle back and rear delts more?

 

 

Yup! just the opposite! it's an inverted row I think or reverse benchpress... it works your core a little too.

I think....and I mena I'm not 100% here, but the general pattern I see here is that between chin ups and these inverted rows, while not hitting exactly the same muscle groups as wide grip pull ups, when used in conjunction with eachother, they get you closer and prepped for a better pullup... that's just the opinion I got after reading a bunch of articles online.

This sort of thing, level the feet for a harder workout... the guy here says they can replace pullups, but I don't think thats the case personally.

 

[Dinahlady]

 

Yeah I've got the form right but I think you're probably dead on the money about the weight, I've just finished a bulk and have put on quite a few but its by no means all lean haha need to tweek a few calories I reckon. So I'm about to reduce my intake and up my cardio. When I get back into bulking and have a more appropriate caloric intake it will be interesting to see how it goes. 

What I meant by the reps is that I aim for between 6-10 usually and once I can comfortably get towards the 10-12 mark I will up the weight (in this case lower the assisted weight) but here I just can't seem to get stronger and push out any more reps each week. So you reckon that even if I only hit 3 or so reps I should still use that assisted weight? 

Also, you mention not pushing to hard on the first few sets and saving for the heavies. I'll do 4 sets of this exercise but I usually try and max out each set, which then results in less possible reps each subsequent set, you don't think I should do this? 

And thanks for the tips!