Trying to do more body weight exercises and i have heard these are great.... only problem is im not strong enough to lift myself up Any suggestions of how to get started i.e doing partial reps or something?
Don't you have an assistance machine in your gym for wide gripped pull ups? No shame in using them and progressing as you would with any other exercise. Aside from that make sure that you are doing pull down "rows" (cable). If you are carrying extra weight losing it will help - obviously.
perform negatives at first, and then work up to chinups (palms facing you), and eventually add in pullups (palms facing away from you). Then work on doing pullups/chinups every other day and progress by adding 1-5 more reps each workout. Eventually you will be able to perform the 100 pullup pyramid. What you do is perform 1 pullup, then 2, then 3, all the way up to 10. This will equal 55. Then starting from 9 and back to 0, you'll perform chinups. It should look like this 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. This will total 100 and is a sure sign for a strong back and great strength in a vertical pull movement. When you're able to do the pyramid, switch over to doing weighted pullups.
If you can't do one pull up with a wide grip, try doing them with a less wide grip first. If you cant do that, try with the neutral grip (that's the one where your palms face each other) If that's too hard, do chin ups. After you get stronger, you can work your way to doing wide grip pull ups, trying to do more each time.
Are you recommending against doing wide grip pull ups in his case or generally? I'm currently trying to get a respectable level of wide grip pull ups - should I just not bother and stick to medium grip?
Sheff-fighter - it's a bit uncomfortable for my shoulder joints doing them very wide, this could be just weakness though. Try and see. They won't make or break your strength.
I think you should try pull ups for a while and then once you are comfortable with them and can do around 20 no problem - add the wide grip pull ups to your work out. its all about building your body up to it
Wide grip pullups are pointless. They are done by idiots trying to look cool or bodybuilders who think they'll give them a wider back. http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/7/ [/FONT]
