One Arm Pull-ups

As usual the charts from when I do the following workouts can be found on the charts page of the blog.

This is the most controversial element of my training.  Does it help climbing, is it a waste of time?  Who knows.  I find it a fun distraction that has no danger of popping an A2 pulley.  Its taken me years to get a solid one arm pull up(OAP), but I never spend more than 15 minutes 2 or 3 days a week on them.  Also my methods have evolved to what seems to be a much more efficient system then I originally used.

Weighted Pull-ups


I've used weighted pull-ups in the past but now I don't do any pull-up(apart from front lever pull ups and muscle ups) with 2 arms.  These could be important for someone who doesn't have the necessary strength to perform a OAP without significant assistance.  Each of the following workouts could easily be scaled to use weighted 2 arm pull-ups instead of OAP's.


Tools


Unless you are incredibly strong you are going to need a system for assisted one arm pull-ups.  I use the following pulley system.

Here is Ben with the pulley system in action.

Obviously you need something to do the pull ups like a bar or a hangboard.

Pyramids


I got the basic idea for these from the beastmaker website, though doing pyramids for an exercise is not all that original.  This workout consists of 9 sets separated by a 2 minute rest.  The sets have the following structure:

1. reps: 1, weight: base
2. reps: 2, weight: base-5
3. reps: 3, weight: base-10
4. reps: 4, weight: base-15
5. reps: 5, weight: base-20
6. reps: 4, weight: base-15
7. reps: 3, weight: base-10
8. reps: 2, weight: base-5
9. reps: 1, weight: base

 Now you need to decide your "base weight".  Originally I just picked the amount fairly randomly and let the amount of assistance drop as I got stronger.  Now I've noticed that I do the first and last set with ~7 pounds less resistance than my one rep max.  For example if your one rep max is a OAP with 3 additional pounds then -4 pounds is a good base weight.

Its worth noting that -10 pounds means 10 pounds in the pulley system but +3 pounds is a one armer with 3 pounds in the free hand.  I usually increase resistance(1 pound at a time) in this workout when I am able to finish the last set strong.

Pyramids Plus


This is a version of the above workout tailored to building the ability to perform multiple repetitions of one arm pull ups.  There are 5 sets separated by 3 minute rests with the following structure

1. reps:2, weight: base
2. reps:4, weight: base-10
3. reps:6, weight: base-20
4. reps:4, weight: base-10
5. reps:2, weight: base-20 

The base weight used here is 3 pounds less than the weight used for the 2 rep set in the "pyramid" workout.  

Pull up on Holds


This is only mainly useful for climbers.  If you are not a climber I'll offer a suggestion for the 3rd workout.

I pick 5 different holds on my hangboard.  For the beastmaker 2000 I currently pick the mouth jug, the big edges, the middle edge, the big 2 finger pocket, and the 15 degree sloper.  For each hold I'll do 2 singles with as little assistance as possible, resting as much as needed between sets.

Maximum Singles


If your not a climber/do not have a hangboard a good workout to balance against the other two is as follows.  Perform 10 single OAP's where the assistance is as follows for each set

1. one rep max -4
2. one rep max-4
3. one rep max-2
4. one rep max-2
5. one rep max
6. one rep max
7. one rep max-2
8. one rep max-2
9. one rep max-4
10. one rep max-4

Training Week

I perform each of these workouts once a week.  This gives me a hard day(pyramids plus), a medium day(pyramids), and an easy day(pull ups on holds).  Every so often I test myself: