Here are pull-ups for beginners, that will take you from negative chin-ups to your first full pull-up and beyond!

When To Do This Program

Ideally you make the following a part of my workout plans for beginners or teen beginners, because just working your back wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

Given those schedules, you will be working on your back 2 – 3 times per week, which is also what you should do if you choose to not follow the rest of my routines.

No Pull-Up Bar?

If you don’t have a pull-up bar at home, that’s no problem. This article has tons of suggestions where you can do chin-ups and pull-ups.

Pull-Up Vs. Chin-Up

Now let’s get some terminology out of the way. A chin-up is when you grab the bar and your hands are facing toward you. In this position your biceps provides more assistance when doing the motion:

A pull-up is when you grab the bar and your hands are facing away from you, which mostly neutralizes the biceps:

Negative Chin-Ups: Great Choice For Beginners



All that being said, let’s get started. Because chin-ups are easier to do than pull-ups, we will begin with those and make them even easier: we’ll do them as negative chin-ups. “Negative” means that you only part of a movement where you lower the weight. In case of a chin-up that is your body. To do this, we’ll use a chair.

Step on it, so that your chin is approximately at the height of the bar, grab the bar with hands facing toward you, slightly pull yourself up, hold for a second and then slowly lower yourself to the ground:

Your first workout starts with three sets of these, with six repetitions per set and between every set you take a break of one minute. On each following session, you add one more repetition to a set:

Workout 1: 6 – 6 – 6

Workout 2: 7 – 6 – 6

Workout 3: 7 – 7 – 6

Workout 4: 7 – 7 – 7

Workout 5: 8 – 7 – 7

Etc.

Doing Your First Full Pull-Up Test

When you reach 12 negative chin-up repetitions on all three sets, it is time to test if you are ready for a real pull-up. Without using the chair, grab the bar, hands facing away from you and try to pull yourself up.

If you are: well done! Start over with six repetitions each, doing as many real pull-ups as you can and do the rest negative, once more adding one repetition to a set per workout.

If you still can’t do a full pull-up, don’t be discouraged, you will get there! Do as you did with the chin-ups: perform three sets of negative pull-ups, each for six repetitions and add one more repetition to a set per workout. Beginning with the second of week of this, repeat the above test before you start and check if you are able to do a real pull-up. Once you are, you are ready for the step above.

Video

If all this is still a bit unclear, here is a video: