How To Go From 0 To 30+Pull Ups (Step-By-Step Guide)

Are you looking to increase your pull up count?

My name is Andrew Aurora and I help men in their 20's and 30's build athletic physiques and functional strength with Hybrid Calisthenics

In this post I am going to be showing you how to go from 0-30+ pull ups step by step, regardless of your current skill level.

Let's jump right in

Mastering the pull up and building a strong foundation for your pulling strength is going to be necessary for much harder skills like the high pull ups, muscle ups, front levers, and one-arm pull ups

If you follow the tips I provide in this guide then you will be doing more pull ups in no time!

If you are overweight, LOSE WEIGHT FIRST!

If you are carrying around any extra bodyfat then you are going to have a harder time doing pull ups. 

That's not to say you can't start training for them, but if you are carrying around an extra 20-30+ pounds you are going to struggle a lot more

To give you some context, my weight vest is 35lbs with all of the weights in it, and when I first started using it I couldn't even hardly do a pull up with that much weight.

However, without it I was able to do between 10 and 20 pull ups, so if you are 30lbs overweight and can't do a pull up maybe all you need to do is lose some weight

If that's you, you need to focus on getting your nutrition dialed in more than anything, but that's a topic for another video

Now that that's out of the way, assuming you have your weight under control, let's work through the different rep ranges and how to progress through each

Exercise 1: Australian Pull Ups: The first exercise is going to be the Australian pull up. 

This exercise is very simple and easy for entry level athletes, allowing you to build some fundamental pulling strength. 

For proper form you're going to place your hands roughly shoulder width apart with a nice firm grip on the bar

From here, keep your body straight, core engaged, glutes engaged, and keep your arms straight. 

Engage your back muscles and pull all the way to your chest and then come back down until your arms are straight and proceed to do this for reps.

Avoid letting momentum assist you and focus on pulling with your back, making sure to get a tight contraction with your traps. 

Once you can comfortably do 15-20 reps in a row you should have developed some decent pulling strength

And remember, you can always make the exercise harder by progressively lowering your body

Exercise 2: Bar Hang: The next exercise we have is the bar hang. 

One of the most important aspects of any pulling exercise is your grip strength because your hands and your grip are going to be the first point of contact for the exercise

With the bar hang you are going to be working on your grip strength.

You're gonna want to challenge yourself to hang for as long as you can while maintaining a strong grip, meaning the bar will rest in your palms, not your fingers.

While hanging you may find it more comfortable to engage your scapula. 

If you engage your scapula this will require more strength, but might be more comfortable on your shoulders

The goal here is for you to be able to hold yourself for at least 30 seconds comfortably with correct form. However, the longer the better, so don't be afraid to challenge yourself

Exercise 3: Scapula shrugs: Once you have gotten used to hanging from the bar, you now need to get good at engaging your scapula while hanging from the bar.

This is actually the first movement of the pull up, so getting used to this movement and building strength here hill help you build a good foundation for your pull up

Once you get real good at these you will be able to easily swing your body, which will be one of the first steps to mastering harder exercises like the muscle up and front lever raises.

Once you can do at least 10 of these comfortably, however, you should be ready for the next exercise

Exercise 4: Jumping Pull Ups: If you don't have strength to do a pull up then this will help you get there quickly. 

Your simply going to jump and use the momentum to pull yourself up to the bar 

Ideally you will be able to hold it at the top for a couple seconds and control yourself on the way down as opposed to letting yourself drop

Once you can comfortably do 10 of these, along with the other exercises, you should finally be strong enough to do your first pull up. 

If not, keep drilling these exercises until you can, and once you can do 5 pull ups you will be ready for the next stage of this tutorial

At this point you should be able to consistently clear 5 pull ups every time, but now we want to get you to the 5-10 mark. 

This is going to require refining your form and pushing yourself past the point of failure

First let's focus on form. I see people all the time doing pull ups with crap form.

Whether that's kipping, crossing your feet, arching the low back, not doing full range of motion, etc.

All of these things need to get cleaned up to lay the foundation moving forward to increase your pull ups

Let's go over the pull up checklist:

- The first thing is to have your arms shoulder width apart and your palms on the bar, not your fingers. 

- Second is to engage your scapula at the beginning of the exercise just like you did with the scapula shrugs 

- Next is going to be engaging your core and keeping your legs straight. By having your whole body engaged you will plug any energy leaks and develop a better mind-body connection

- From here we are going to pull all the way up to our chest and come all the way down until our arms are straight, never letting our form fall apart. 

If you were previously doing incorrect form then I'm sure you will find that you feel a lot stronger by making these small adjustments

Now that your form is corrected, you may already be able to bust out a few more pull ups, but you will definitely be able to bust out a few more if you follow these next steps 

So once you have your form right, repeat your max reps of pull ups for at least three sets with 60 seconds of rest in between. 

However, there is a catch. Once you hit your max reps, you are going to add a resistance band to the mix and use this to assist you in busting out a few more pull ups. 

Once you can't do anymore with the band, you are going to do jumping pull ups for max reps. 

And remember, if you can, try to hold at the top and control your body on the way down to really push your lats to their limits. 

Give yourself a 60 second rest and repeat this practice for 3 sets. 

Do this for a few weeks and I guarantee you will be doing at least 10 pull ups in no time.

Now that you are able to do 10 pull ups consistently, now it's time to hit our next mile stone, and that's 15 pull ups 

To achieve 15 pull ups is going to require consistency, as well as doing the previous exercises mentioned in the last section 

The difference here is that we are going to start mixing up variations. 

Instead of just doing regular pull ups, we are going to include commando pull ups and close-grip pull ups in the mix

Go through your max reps of pull ups, then give yourself at least 30 seconds of rest and start doing commando pull ups 

This will incorporate more biceps and mid-back into the movement, allowing for more assistance from other muscles, but still building your pulling strength. 

Aim to do about 5 on each side if you can, or max reps

We will also start including close-grip pull ups. 

This will recruit more bicep and forearm into the movement, taking some of the work off of your lats and allowing you to push your body farther.

From there, combine these moves with a resistance band to allow you to do more reps and you should be able to push past 10 reps

In addition to these new variations, you would also benefit from strengthening your weaker muscles that contribute to the movement like your biceps, rear delts, forearms, and traps 

If you want to include some pull up negatives, this can also allow you to push your lats to failure, while also strengthening your endurance and your strength throughout the entire range of motion. 

Do this routine for a few weeks and you should start to see your pull up count increase. 

Once you hit 15 reps you are finally ready to move onto the next phase

This is where things start to get fun. So this is where I would recommend adding additional weight. 

For awhile I was stuck around the 20 rep range, and it wasn't until I started including extra weight that my pull up count really skyrocketed 

I suggest investing in either a weight vest or weight belt if you don't have access to one and starting with a weight you feel comfortable with. 

For me, I started with 10lbs and worked my way up. My weight vest includes 35lbs, but there was no way I could handle that at first 

From here what you are going to do is pick a weight that allows you to hit a minimum of 10 reps

Once you can't go anymore with the additional weight, remove it and push yourself to do a few more reps. 

Do this for at least 3 sets, and if you really wanna push yourself you can incorporate strategies from the other phases like using bands for assistance or easier variations 

After a few weeks or so you should definitely see your pull up count go up

At this point it's going to be a lot of repetition and increasing the weight on your body, constantly pushing yourself to pull more weight 

However, that's not the only thing you can do. You can also incorporate harder pull up variations like explosive pull ups or pull ups to your lower chest 

To do explosive pull ups you will have to pull explosively, hard enough to actually get your hands to come off the bar.

This will strengthen your fast-twitch muscle fibers which will provide you with more overall strength, making regular pull ups easier

The other variation is where you pull to below your chest.

Normally with pull ups you are pulling straight up and down to your upper chest with the goal of getting your chin over the bar. 

With this variation you won't be pulling straight up and down, you will be aiming for your lower chest 

However, this will take a little technique to get right. 

This will be like a straight arm push down combined with a pull up. 

This will allow you to slightly swing around the bar and then pull to your lower chest 

These will make regular pull ups feel like a breeze, and is also one of the first progressions to high pull ups and muscle ups 

Continue to drill these and the prior techniques you have learned and you will be clearing between 20-30 pull ups in no time

If you are clearing 30 pull ups in a row consistently then you are now officially advanced in your pull up game 

For me personally the most I have ever achieved in a row was 33. 

To break that 30+ mark I had to start training for high pull ups, muscle ups, and very heavy weighted pull ups 

As it stands right now, I do about 20 pull ups with 35lbs on my body in one set, and 5 reps with 80lbs on my body when I am training more for strength than gains 

To continue to increase your pull up count will require that you continue to push and challenge yourself as much as possible. 

Don't be afraid to push boundaries and keep progressing

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