How To Get Your Strongest Ever Pull Ups In 2025?

The pull up is the foundational vertical pulling pattern for calisthenics and all of bodyweight training. Yet most of us, myself included, often rush to get past the pull up and on to the next progression as soon as possible.

Whether that’s weighted pull ups, higher pull ups/muscle ups or one arm pull ups, we jump on the tracks to whichever destination we’re aiming for as soon as we can just about do that elusive tenth rep…because 10 reps is the general arbitrary number in almost every tutorial video or article you’ll see.

‘Get to 10 and you’re ready to look onwards’.

But are you really?

Who said 10 reps is the stepping stone between beginner and intermediate?

Could it be the case that just like with ring muscle ups, the numbers needed to be eligible for the next progression could differ??

For person A it could be 7 reps and for person B it could be 12 reps. Or any combination thereof. It all comes down to how you do your pull ups. How strong you are in what positions and ultimately, what’s ‘bottle-necking’ your progress towards your goal(s).

Here are some examples…

Let’s say you want to do bar muscle ups but your current pull up game is slow from the bottom of the rep. You have no trouble locking off above the bar but time seems to freeze for a moment, before you properly start pulling out from the bottom of the rep…

Bar muscle ups need explosive power right from the get-go, unless we’re talking about deliberately slow bar muscle ups, but in this case we’re talking explosive, seamless reps where you fly over the bar with ease.

You could have 15-20 pull ups if you like but if the start is slow on every rep, you’ll still be searching far and wide for that elusive muscle up.

What do you need?

A faster & more explosive pull up from the bottom of the rep. More on how to do that later.

A different example is you’re close to a full one arm pull up but you just can’t comfortably pull the chin nicely over the bar, to finish the rep. Basically your end range strength isn’t sufficient to truly lock off.

And if this is you, what would you potentially benefit from?

A stronger two arm lock off and more strength holding the chin over the bar, whether that be with 2 arm variations or assisted one arm chin over bar holds, the premise is the same; more ‘short range’ strength where the muscles are in their most shortened position.

I’ll give you one more example…

Imagine you’re someone who can do fast & fluent bar muscle ups but you find slow/slow(er) muscle ups impossible.

Why?

In this case you need more end range strength, again, similar to the one arm pull up example previously. It’s one thing to pull your chest to the bar with speed but a whole other thing to actually pull up and hold it there for time, or keep pulling up past the basic chin over bar position to where you’re almost rowing the elbows back as your chest meets the bar.

This strength where the upper back muscles are in a very shortened position can be hard to develop if it’s not naturally already there. There’s a variety of options to develop this strength though, from foot assisted holds/pull ups to this range, to top paused ring rows, 1.5 top focused pull ups, to even isometric holds themselves with the aim of holding as high as humanly possible.

Gradually the holding height & end range strength will improve.

Hopefully these examples illustrate how you can tailor your basic pull up training in the direction of a more specific goal. What I want to do now is elaborate on some ways to develop strength in order to tackle these weaknesses, whichever one you may have. These are a little glimpse into what I do with my online coaching, to attack weaknesses for my clients.

Bottom/Long Range Strength

Usually I see more women in this camp than men. For some reason females tend to be much more capable at the top of the pull up, and a bit weaker if you force them to really extend at the bottom, or ask them to explode out of this position.

Maybe it’s because male connective tissue is naturally thicker and therefore more elastic? So men have more spring in their pull from a stretched position? It could even be this combined with the naturally lower amount of upper body fast twitch muscle fibers?

That’s definitely my theory. Occasionally though, I have seen men struggle with this bottom/long range strength. With that said, what’s the fix? How can we work to improve this?

One option is deliberately over-emphasising the bottom range by prolonging the pause at the bottom, and deliberately forcing the body to generate more force for less reps. This is no different to power training; preserving speed & minimising fatigue. The trouble is most people aren’t disciplined enough to stick with it as long as needed to actually see the increase in force production, which inevitably comes but can take time to show in your pull up game.

Another option is purposely overloading this bottom range by doing a half rep (forehead to bar), before lowering under control to a deadstop and then aiming to be as explosive as possible for a full range pull up. Each time you do this it’s a rep. So let’s say you do 5 reps per set….you get 10 reps in the bottom range – your weakest part in the overall range of motion. Again, this is super powerful over time!

Top/Short Range Strength

Quite often those who struggle here are the bulkier, immobile types. And by ‘immobile’ I mean those who don’t have easy elbow flexion (where touching your shoulder with the same side hand is impossible), and/or less than ideal extension through the thoracic spine, which tends to go with being bulkier as they’re usually guilty of overtraining the chest, lats & biceps – aka the mirror muscles.

And in turn this makes a pretty (upright chest, chest glued to the bar) top position much harder to do, compared to someone with nice elbow flexion & a thoracic spine that extends without much effort. With this in mind, sometimes mobility work itself can be a significant part of the puzzle; loosening the long head of the triceps & creating some more motion in the upper spine, both passively and actively.

Although this alone will not fix the issue. You still need to develop strength in the specific range/position in question.

Some options are…

Working on higher volume rows with a firm focus on scapula positioning and purposely pausing in the top position, where the muscles are maximally contracted. Then slowly over time you can decrease the angle to make things harder, when needed.

Coupling this with either foot assisted pull up work where the focus on pausing in a higher, more contracted position than you can access without your feet, will slowly open up more range for when you work without foot assistance. This can take time to see notable changes, particularly if it’s very lacking to begin with.

Obviously there are so many more ways to go about addressing these weaknesses but I wanted to offer you two examples per case. It’s very individual though and your needs can be quite specific. I get more into this when working one on one with you and draw from an even bigger box of tools.

But Does It Really Matter?

You may wonder if it’s worth bringing up these weaknesses and whether it’s better to just play to your natural strengths. This is an understandable curiosity. Back in the day I always thought it was pointless to worry about things you’re not so good at, but this is a close-minded & immature mindset – and a mindset that went on to get me injured.

Because you can only get so good at one thing before you’re ‘bottle-necked’ by your weakness(es). Simply put: your body will prevent further gains in an area if you’re too weak in other areas. There are innumerable examples of this in the real world and I’ve written about this very often.

Your pressing strength could be limited by weak external rotation strength. Your pushing strength might be hindered by your lack of pull strength in the opposite direction – you can see this with vertical & horizontal panes alike. And more to the point, having a weakness in the range of motion, be it at the top or bottom.

Therefore it’s so worthwhile to bring these up for an all round, balanced, healthy body. See, when I get clients come to me to progress their training, I always increase their strength & capacity across the board, with a focus on their original goals as well as what I detect they may be naturally suited to.

But I don’t let them get too strong in any one area without working on another. Which goes such a long way to preventing the common complaints: elbow pain, shoulder tightness/discomfort & stalled progress for too long.

I encourage you to have a think about your longer term goals this year – you could want a heavier weighted pull up, yet you struggle to get the weight moving at the start of the rep, and subsequently have to over-rely on the top strength, then you may need to address this weakness to get to your goal, rather than trying to force the weights up with mere progressive overload.

That’s just one of so many scenarios. But the premise is the same: figure out what’s missing from your personal strength curve and aim to work on it. Or, establish the ideal style of pull up for your overall goal(s).

If you need further help with this, don’t hesitate to reach out. I have a couple of online coaching spots open for the start of 2025.