Tom Venuto's BodybuildingSecrets.com - A new way to do pull-ups you've never seen before

A new way to do pull-ups you’ve never seen before

Tom Venuto, CSCS, CPT

Saturday, July 23rd. It was back day again, and it was a good one. The “pullup medley” was tough… although I think it hurt my training partner a lot more than it hurt me, LOL! Still, he made it out “unscathed” and will probably wake up tomorrow with a bigger lat spread, feeling muscles he didn’t know existed.

BACK

A1 Pullup “medley”: Set 1: medium grip pull-ups X bodyweight X 12; Set 2: Close grip (palms facing) pullup X bodyweight X 12 reps; Set 3: Reverse (curl) grip pullup X bodyweight X 12 reps; Set 4: wide parallel grip (palms facing) pullup X bodyweight X 10 reps; Set 5: Angled Pullups with spotter (spotter holds feet behind you/pull up at angle towards the bar)
B1 Straight Arm Pulldowns: 3 sets X 70 lbs X 12, 10, 10 reps
B2 Reverse Grip Pulldowns: Set 1: 170, 180, 190 lbs X 6, 6, 6, reps (ascending set); Set 2: 200 X 12 reps, 160 X 8 reps, 130 X 12 reps (descending set); Set 3: 200 lbs X 10 reps reverse grip, change to wide grip, 150 lbs X 10 reps
C1 Low cable rows: Set 1: 170 lbs X 12 reps shoulder-width reverse grip, switch to wide pronated grip 150 lbs X 8 more reps; Set 2: 160 lbs X 10 reps pull low, 10 more reps pull to chest (triangle bar); Set 3: 180 lbs X 10 reps reverse grip, 160 lbs X 8 wide overhand grip, 140 lbs 8 reps pull low medium overhand grip

CALVES

A1 Smith machine standing calf raise on calf block: 1 set X 135 lbs X 20 (warm up); 1 set X 185 lbs X 15 reps (warm up); 4 sets X 285 X 20, 20, 17, 17 reps
B1 Donkey Calf Machine: 4 sets X stack X 23, 21, 20, 10 reps

Workout Commentary

The last couple of weekends, I’ve been training with Kostas Mar. When he showed up today, I was already upstairs on the lat pulldown, headphones on… warming up and working up a good psych…

I said, “You know you’re in trouble today, don’t you?”

“I am? Why’s that?”

“Cuz when I’m wearing the House of Pain Shirt and listening to Old Metallica, it means I’m ready to tear it up, and that means you’re in trouble.”

He chuckled (but not for long)

“I went on, “Do you usually do a lot of chin ups and pull-ups in your back workouts?”

“Not really.”

“Ah yesssss… verrrrry goooooood. Let’s begin, shall we?”

Then it was onward to the chin up bar. Instead of doing the traditional 3 or 4 sets of pull-ups - all sets with the same grip, we did 5 sets, each with a different grip… quickly; we only rested long enough for the other person to finish his set. Going at this pace, bodyweight was all it took - no extra weight. After set 5, the lats were already pumped!

The last set was the clincher. I wish I would have gotten a picture of this one, but Kostas was spotting me, alas, no photographer. “Angled pull-ups” require a spotter, who spots/grabs you by your crossed angles, and takes a couple of big steps backward so your body is not hanging vertically from the bar, but angled so your lower body is behind the bar and you are pulling yourself up towards the bar at an angle leaning into the bar.

Because your spotter is holding some of your bodyweight, these may be a little easier than a regular pullup simply by virtue of less resistance, but the exercise itself is quite unusual and difficult, and it hits your back from an angle no other pullup can match. The only machine I’ve ever seen that comes close is one made by stairmaster (yes, stairmaster makes weight training equipment, not just cardio equip). On that machine, you’re doing a pulldown leaning into the machine at an angle.

You can make the angled pullups harder by doing them when your lats are already exhausted (we did them last set today, or you can do them second in a superset).

Next it was on to a superset of straight arm pulldowns supersetted with reverse grip (curl grip/supinated) pulldowns, emphasizing the stretch. On the pulldowns, each set was done with a different technique: ascending sets and descending sets. The pulldowns were done very strict with the body totally vertical (no leaning back) and a full stretch at the top.

We finished back with seated cable rows using a variety of different grips as well as descending sets.

Calves was a repeat of last week (smith machine calf raise and donkey calf raise), with more weight and or reps.

Until next time, train hard, and if you have a training partner, try some angled pullups for an interesting change. (I’ll post some pics next time!)

Posted 23 July, 2005 in Workouts

Comments

Elisa said:

I have plateaued with back and this seems to be just the workout I need to blast in some change. I am so thankful you are sharing your experience with us. We will be cursing you and Richie but we will be loving you both at the same time ;-).

Posted on Jul 30, 2005 03:30 PM

shawndeats said:

Hi Tom,

The commentary and pics are, of course, terrific and appreciated. I was wondering if it would be possible for you, from time to time, to post short videos of some of your workouts. Especially little known exercises or, perhaps, tips and commentary during your workout. These could be as little as one minute, but I really think they would bring home some of what you attempt to convey through your writing and photographs. Anyway, if this is possible, I just thought I'd let you know that I, for one, would be interested in seeing this.

Good luck to you and keep up the hard work. Your inspiration keeps me going, too, long after the inclination to pack it up and go home has set in.

Posted on Jul 30, 2005 10:08 PM

ahahouhas said:

Hi Tom.
First of all I would like to congratulate you on your blog. It is state of the art material. I would like to ask for something that all the visitors of this blog would appreciate. The exercises you suggest are often very complicated. I think that if you added more photos in the blog we would understand the details of your training program. Thank you for your time.

Nick from Greece.

Posted on Jul 31, 2005 03:02 PM

jose said:

tom,
where did you come up with the idea for angled pull-ups? sounds like something i'll have to try. as i envisioned it, it sounds like and exercise that might work well on the "total gym" contraption that chuck norris promotes. i've never used one, but it does look like it could do an effective job with those and even allow you to do them straight arm (like reverse lateral db raises.) maybe i'll have to invest in one.

Posted on Aug 02, 2005 08:58 AM

Tom Venuto said:

Jose, angled pullups weren't my idea; Richie Smyth, my trainer, came up with that one. He invents new exercises and comes up with variations on old ones all the time. You haven't seen anything yet... keep following along in the blog for more unique, little known exercise variations like that one

Posted on Aug 03, 2005 08:48 PM