What Happens When You Train Negative Pull Ups For 30 Days?
After almost 10 years of struggling, I achieved my first pull-up in 2019, and was beyond excited that a skill which seemed beyond my reach was finally accessible to me. Unfortunately, when the pandemic hit 6 months later, I gained a bunch of weight and lost a lot of the strength and skill needed to perform a pull-up.
Eventually, I was able to lose 30 pounds and get back on track fitness-wise, at which point I wanted to try and get my pull-up back. Negatives were one of the exercises I did to achieve my first actual pull-up, so I was curious if they could help me once again. More specifically, could I achieve a pull-up by exclusively training negative pull-ups for 30 days?
What Are Negative Pull-Ups And What Do They Do?
Basically, negative pull-ups are an exercise where you focus on the “down” part of a pull-up rather than the “up” part. In fitness terms, it’s what’s known as eccentric movement. Eccentric movement concentrates on resisting gravity and lengthening your muscles under tension, which can help build strength, joint stability, and prevent injury. Negative pull-ups use eccentric movement to strengthen and engage your pull-up muscles, including your lats, biceps, shoulders, and forearms. Negatives also teach your body the movement patterns necessary to perform a regular pull-up.
To perform a negative pull-up, you start by jumping up to the top position of a pull-up with your chin above the bar. Then, lower yourself in a slow, controlled manner until your arms are fully straight.
Equipment-wise, you really only need a bar to perform negative-pull ups, which you can find at any gym, park, or at home if you have one installed. If you are unable to jump up to the starting position, you could also use a plyo box, workout bench, or stool to help you. In addition, if you are not strong enough to do an unassisted negative pull-up, you can use a resistance band to take some weight off yourself and make the exercise easier.
How Many Negative Pull-Ups Should I Do?
I had the same question when I set out to train negatives for 30 days. Luckily, I happen to know an excellent fitness expert that I could consult. Jake has participated in several monthly challenges himself, including 30 pull-ups a day, 100 kettlebell swings a day, and jumping rope for 10 minutes a day, so I knew he was the right person to help me figure out how I should structure my workouts. His advice was to start with a rep range that was challenging but not difficult for me, then progress the exercise as the days went on by either adding seconds or doing more reps. I decided to increase the total amount of seconds every five days with the ultimate goal of lowering myself for 20 seconds per set.
To give you an idea of how you can structure your own workout, I’ve laid out the routine I used for 30 days below, including an optional warm-up. If you’re new to negative pull-ups, you may want to stick with each progression longer than 5 days so that you don’t injure or burn yourself out.
OPTIONAL WARM UP FOR NEGATIVE PULL-UPS
PVC pipe pass throughs - 5 reps
PVC pipe around-the-worlds - 3-5 reps per side
Shoulder rolls, forward and backward - 3-5 reps each direction
Scapular push-ups - 3-5 reps
Finger flicks - 30-50 reps
Finger tendon glides - 10 reps
Dead hang - 10-30 seconds
NEGATIVE PULL-UPS: 30-DAY PROGRESSIVE WORKOUT
Day 1-5: 3 sets of 3 negatives lowering for 3 seconds (9 seconds per set)
Day 6-10: 3 sets of 3 negatives lowering for 4 seconds (12 seconds per set)
Day 11-15: 3 sets of 3 negatives lowering for 5 seconds (15 seconds per set)
Day 16-20 - Deload/Recovery: 3 sets of 3 negatives lowering for 3 seconds (9 seconds per set)
Day 21-25: 3 sets of 3 negatives lowering for 6 seconds (18 seconds per set)
Day 26-30: 3 sets of 2 negatives lowering for 10 seconds (20 seconds per set)
Another important piece of advice that Jake gave me was to make sure to rest as needed, since negative pull-ups can be a bit intense. According to Jake, “The goal of ‘greasing the groove,’ or doing one exercise a day, is to never get sore.” This is why I included a deload/recovery set halfway through the 30 days. I also chose to rest completely for one day before moving onto the next progression to give my muscles a break, and avoid injury.
Can Negatives Help Me Achieve A Pull-Up?
It’s absolutely possible, but may require more than 30 days of training and additional exercises, such as assisted pull-ups with resistance bands. Unfortunately for me, 30 days wasn’t enough and I was unable to achieve a full pull-up again. However, I did notice a few other improvements due to focusing on the movement for so long:
1. Stronger Concentric Movement
Concentric movement is the opposite of eccentric. It’s basically the “up” or lifting part of a pull-up. When I started training negatives, I needed to use a plyo box to jump up to the starting position. After around 15 days, jumping up to get my chin above the bar became so much easier, and I was able to forgo the box. By the end of the 30 days, I was able to pull myself up to the starting position with bent arms.
2. More Control of The Lowering Movement
When I started training negatives, lowering myself for 3 seconds felt challenging to me. However, by the last day, I could easily lower myself for 10 seconds.
3. Improved Lock-Off/Grip Strength and Forearm Endurance
Finally, and most importantly, I saw improvements in my lock-off and grip strength. This, along with increased forearm endurance, has helped me unlock harder moves in climbing.
Although a full pull-up still remains elusive to me at the moment, I’m pretty happy with the results of my experiment. I still experienced improvements in other areas and am definitely closer to a pull-up than I was when I started. I plan to continue to train negative pull-ups in the hopes that I will unlock a pull-up again in the near future. If you are looking to get your first pull-up or improve your lock off and grip strength, negatives are a great way to engage and train the muscles you need to achieve this.