Plague of Strength

Analingus and Pullups- Get Fucking Nasty with It to Get Good at Vertical Rowing

Jamie Chaos
Analingus and Pullups- Get Fucking Nasty with It to Get Good at Vertical Rowing

I’ll admit that I have a guilty pleasure when it comes to reality television- a gigantic, steaming pile of shit called Battle of the Fittest Couples. It’s a fucking train wreck, basically a combination of that NBC show STRONG and Jersey Shore– gone are all of the sob stories, and in their place you’ve got insanely hot, buxom cunts batting eyelashes bigger than fucking bat wings at the oily fuckwit boyfriends as they flex and get drunker than freshman sorority girls (on six fucking shots) between competing in fun-looking lifting challenges.

To give you an idea of exactly how nearly incomprehensibly douchey these people are, the show is hosted by a couple of dipshits who met on The Bachelor. We’re talking people who could walk into a Sephora and be utterly reviled for their insincerity and superficiality, because these self-absorbed Instagram superstars are too good for the plebes they find in a brick-and-mortal retail establishment. Nevertheless, it’s entertaining as hell to leave on in the background as I write, because it’s a bunch of hot yet shockingly stupid people lifting and attempting (and failing hilariously) to strategize with and against one another.

Frankly, I have no idea how people like this even exist, but I’m certain Tara and I would be escorted off the set of this show in handcuffs covered in blood (though it seems these days that’s how most of my social interactions are going to go). Nevertheless, the most entertaining part of the first episode was a pullup competition between two guys who were both under 200 pounds, neither of whom could do twenty consecutive pullups. A competition between a CrossFitter and a fitness model ended in a dual defeat, and that stuck me as bizarre- there’s not been a time in my adult life, outside of directly after my bicep surgery, that I could not do twenty consecutive pullups… and I am hardly a natural athlete. I simply do the fucking work.

This guy, however, made it look like the first ten were difficult and the remaining seven were a fucking trial of Hercules.

That said, it seems like there are a lot of people who have no idea how to get good at pullups, and me repeatedly typing “JUST DO FUCKING PULLUPS” doesn’t seem to drive the point home. And that is literally all you need to do- set a goal for a number of pullups and do sub-maximal sets until you reach that number. I can do sets of ten endlessly, and do on days when I don’t feel like dragging my ass down to the gym.

Everyone has an individual comfort level for this sort of thing, and anyone who tells you they know what yours might be is talking out of his or her proverbial ass. For me, I can do thirty pullups at a go most days, without kipping. They’re not dead hang or strict, but I’m not kipping either. I’m just doing pullups, and I don’t give a sloppy, wet, fuck what the internet thinks about form, kipping, ROM, or anything else- this is about volume, not about minimizing the criticism of faceless online strangers.

To wit, I did this rather unimpressive set of pullups after an hour and a half of doubles on Pendlay rows yesterday to elucidate my point. And I’ll admit, half the reason I posted this is I look big as fuck at the end.

So, with 30 as my “max,” I do sets of ten. I’ve tried every other number from 8-20, and ten is the most comfortable and repeatable. I don’t want to struggle doing these- this is honestly more like jogging than it is like lifting. From there, the world is your oyster as far as setting up how you want to train, but I always do my pullups at home so I can spread them out over time if I want.

I’m not telling you that ten is your magic number. I’d say somewhere between a quarter and a half of your max is ideal, depending on your personal muscular strength/endurance balance. And your AMRAP will improve over time due to the volume you do, regardless of the rep number you choose.

This methodology arose out of hanging out during the summers with my training partner. We worked at the same place, so afterwards we’d lift and run, and if we were playing video games or whatever in the evening we’d randomly throw in pullups and pushups because we liked to compete at everything, all the fucking time. It didn’t matter if we were playing Tiddlywinks or benching 225 for reps- he and I competed at literally everything. So, when we weren’t seeing how obnoxious we could be while flashing our abs like douches to pick up chicks, we were finding ways to test our relative physical prowess against one another.

The point is not to run a clinic on form- it’s to do fucking pullups. Ignore literally everything anyone on the internet ever says, because if they were actually lifters they’d be lifting, not discussing it on the internet.

We’d both run the 100, 200, and 4×100 in track, so we were used to using interval training to build up our endurance and muscular endurance. That translated into our strength training, as we started using a lot of what amounted to rest pauses, though it was really just born out of a desire to make the other guy look like a pussy for resting too long. Eventually, we settled into a rhythm in which we’d do an easily repeatable set of something, rest a short while, and go again, endlessly.

Sidebar: One such exercise we called handoffs, but are apparently known on the internet as buddy curls. The late body mod phenom Rich Piana was apparently a fan of them, and filmed himself and a partner busting them out here. If you’ve never tried them, you should- they’re fun as hell. All you need is a person with a relatively similar level of bicep strength and about six square feet of space, plus a cambered bar loaded with whatever you want to curl.

In high school, we’d called this “fart licks” and held endless debates about which famous chick’s ass most needed eating, the name of the methodology we’d been is called Fartleks, and it’s unlike the HIIT and Tabata bullshit to which you’re accostomed- in spite of what you might see from the 20 year olds on Youtube, four minutes is not getting it done when it come to vertical rowing. Fartlek means “speed play” in Swedish, and involves alternating bouts of sprinting with jogging to quickly increase your endurance. Not only does this work fucking wonders for your mile time (spend a month sprinting the straights and doing the “airborn shuffle” on the curves of your local high school track, a mile at a go, and do at least five miles a week like that, and you will see your mile time get seriously respectable without having killed yourself to do it), but it works amazingly for pullups as well.

I do believe we have a prime candidate for fart licks.

The terms “jog” and “sprint” are completely ambiguous terms, so this method is so scalable it’s fucking ridiculous- it doesn’t matter what your ability is, because you will always have a “sprint” and a “jog” pace with whatever you do.

With that said, if you can’t do a pullup yet,

  • do 10×3 negatives on pullups three times a week for a month- you’ll be able to do pullups for reps at the end, and then you can start doing this sort of thing.
  • do not use bands or machines to help you do pullups- that shit is not a training wheel, but rather a tricycle. You will never be able to do pullups on your own with that weaksauce horseshit, so just do the fucking negatives and be sore and grow.
  • don’t be a pussy. Do the fucking negatives.

Our coach used a methodology like the one in this image for the sprinters. Middle distance (400m-800m) had their own intervals, and then the milers had their own.

I realize that the above varies the ranges on the work and rest, but the gist of it is that the effort is submaximal, repeatable, and characterized by rest periods that basically match the effort periods. I’m not too wedded to timers, however, and follow the sprint the straights/slow jog the curves methodology more closely here. The point, however, is not to ape my methods exactly but to find your own way- this just gives you a starting place.

Option 1: A Day of Pullups

You can do this sober, drunk, or blazed out of your mind, and any which way you do it, it rules. On a day I’m not planning on hitting the gym I might kick off the morning with 50-100 pullups, then do pullups randomly throughout the day thereafter. This means during commercials, between rounds of Call of Duty, as breaks from writing, or just because I feel like it, I’ll crank out a set or two or ten throughout the day. In total I’ll do somewhere between 300 and 2000 pullups, and I’ll be sore as fuck for days after. I don’t track the numbers because I don’t give a fuck what the number is- what matters is I did a shitload of pullups, not how many of them I did. I don’t need a number for bragging rights, because my back gives me all the bragging rights I need. Also, no one really gives a shit how many pullups anyone can do unless the answer is “very few.”

Option 2: The Burst

Usually this is a max reps in 30 minutes sort of thing. I’ll throw on a podcast and lose myself in it as I do sets of 10 reps with a break between to grab a drink of water, shake out my arms, and walk down the hall and back. I think my record for this is 372, but I generally don’t bother counting. This results in similar soreness to Option 1.

Option 3: The Goal

Simple- set a daily or weekly goal, and achieve it. There’s some challenge going around with a preposterously low number of daily pullups in a year. Like 10 a day. I’ve no fucking clue what the point of ten pullups a day is, beyond just jerking yourself off for having done a dumbass challenge. Ten pullups won’t do shit. At the very, very minimum, do 200 pullups a week if you want to have a badass back at some point.

It doesn’t really matter how you do them, so long as you pullups. Kip em? I don’t give a fuck- eventually you’ll start doing strict ones just for fun. Shitty ROM? It’s better than doing them with the bitch band or the fucking elevator machine. At some point your ROM will lengthen as you grow stronger.

You’re a motherfucking great ape. Act like one.

There is no reason to be alive if you cannot do a few pullups.

Just remember, every now and again, fart licks go sideways on you. Forewarned is forarmed.

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Jamie Chaos Avatar
Jamie Chaos
I am a former all-time, all federation world record holder in raw powerlifting at 181lbs, a record I broke just to say fuck you to the internet’s “lifting” community and the powerlifting community at large. Over the last ten years I’ve written over 500 articles on strength training, nutrition, and supplementation, and continue to do so simply to fight the tide of weakness and sadness that currently pervades the scene I’ve called home for the better part of three decades. I’ve got personal trainin certs, BodyPump and BodyCombat certs, a BA in History and East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona, and MBAs from the Vienna University and University of South Carolina on my side, in addition to some sick lifts and a hell of a lot of rage. What the fuck have you got?

20 responses to “Analingus and Pullups- Get Fucking Nasty with It to Get Good at Vertical Rowing”

  1. Jon Rock Avatar
    Jon Rock

    Ahh, I really like this one.
    This would work on anything, I suppose: sandbag presses, dumbbell rows, whatever.
    Like “grease the groove” but more fun, as Jamie is far more fun than the bald russian.

    I show your old vid in which you do pullups “jumping in the air” at 2 different heights whenever a “calisthenics guy” tells me that lifters cannot do them and all the calisthenics blablabla…
    Then I proceed to do a 1 leg 2 hands pull with my isometric strap/handle system and a 200kg resistance spring coil. I pull until I exert more than 200kg so the spring lengthens, then hold it for 10 seconds, then the other leg. Similar to Hoffman isometrics. With a single handle, both hands on it (small hands, haha).
    To the aforementioned calisthenics guy, I tell him to repeat your feat of jumping pullups or to lengthen the spring exactly as I did. Always the same… If they are such a wonder, why the excuses and not the feats?

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      Hahaha. Your rhetorical question answers itself- because they can’t. Or more likely, they’re afraid to try, which I think is the issue most people have. They think people are watching and judging them, or that their judgement matters. It doesn’t, haha, and all it takes is one hilariously catastrophic fail to make that super apparent. I’ll expand this answer out in a Ask the Asshole, since I’ve had a couple requests to resurrect that.

      I’m sure like you with your hilariously old timey spring setup (where’d you get the spring, btw? If you hit me with an article on it, I’ll throw it up on here as a guest article if you’re down) the intent wasn’t to do a feat- it was just to see if you could do something you conceived in your mind.

      1. Jon Avatar
        Jon

        The fear of failure is great.
        I love Ask the Asshole, fantastic!!

        Yes, I wanted to see if I could lengthen the spring, it seemed fun and also a way to measure if the isometric thing builds strength or not.
        I also do back lifts, oh presses, etc with the same setup and same spring. On the oh press I have only achieved a slight “give” in the spring (not lengthen it) by using the legs as in a push press.
        I am sending you an email.

  2. Adeel Avatar
    Adeel

    Do you think curls are needed for Bi’s if chins and pull ups are being worked this much?

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      I don’t know about you, but I want 20″ arms, so I will not be skipping my curls. I don’t know about “needed”, but I know Bruce Randall would have reached through internet and slapped you in the face for suggesting someone should skip curls.

      At the very least, do reverse curls and say it’s for your forearm development. Remember- when you’re in a tshirt and shorts, the muscles that matter the most to your appearance are arms, forearms, calves, and shoulders/traps.

  3. Adeel Avatar
    Adeel

    Gotchya- On that subject, how do you like poundstone curls?

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      Literally never heard of them. I’ll give them a google. At the risk of sounding hyper pretentious, I am sort of like whatever that one death metal band (fuck if I remember the name- I just remember the drop in a song) is that doesn’t listen to metal (though they do like Rings of Saturn) in that I don’t pay much attention to what’s going on in lifting at the moment because I find it negatively influences my writing. Having googled it, I don’t do them, though I occasionally do up to fifty reps on cable curls, I don’t do straight bar curls ever. They make my writs hurt, and post bicep tear they made my gimpy arm cramp like a motherfucker for the first couple of years.

  4. Jip Avatar
    Jip

    Sort of related: do you have any tips for training around/through bicep tendinitis? I used to love me some high volume pull-ups, but recently, the second I do a single pull-up, my left arm acts like a complete cunt, same deal with any kinda reverse curls also.

    Looking thick solid tight bro! Not trying to constantly maintain 5%bf seems to be paying off haha!

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      Hahaha. Yeah, every time I start to diet seriously I start to notice by XL shirts not being as tight as they should be and eat a pizza, lol.

      As to your tendinitis, I would guess you have tennis elbow, which you need to massage and use anti-inflammatories. Cissus should work well for that (it’s the main ingredient in Helios, if you wanna rep Chaos and Pain). The easiest way to get that knocked out, in my experience, is to use a golf ball and an ace bandage. Wrap the golf ball tight against hte knotting and then open and close your hand, wiggle your fingers, and slowly extend and flex your arm. That should work the knotting out pretty quickly. Also, use different grips on the pullups- I typically use a neutral grip at home.

  5. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    I don’t know why but I swear your articles ALWAYS come in at the most convenient times for me. I was starting to go soft on my pullups due to elbow/shoulder irritation but apparently I forgot why I used to be “okay” at them in the first place: higher frequency. I remember when I went on a deployment and had a goal to gain as much weight as possible. Your article about Bruce Randall came out right after and it confirmed my decision. I gained 47 pounds in 3 months (yes, i was soft and fluffy but didn’t have a PT test anytime soon so who cares?) My lifts skyrocketed.

    I appreciate your content.

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      Thanks man- I never get tired of hearing that, haha. 47 pounds in three months is fucking serious, bro. Goddamn. You might need to do a quick writeup on how you pulled that shit off for everyone’s edification.

      The Bruce Randall example made a big impact on me as well- I train arms light far more than I’m “supposed” to, and my arms have never been bigger or looked better. The STEM crowd is just piss scared of hard work and hide behind bad science to justify their fears.

      1. Chris Avatar
        Chris

        Yeah. I arrived at 205 and got back to home station at 252. My office at the time was right next to the chow hall and I could eat anytime I wanted. In between meal times, you were allowed to get premade sandwiches, milk, cereal, and fruit. I hoarded as much milk as I could. The meals were surprisingly high in protein, so breakfast through dinner was as much I was allowed to get plus using the panini press they had every meal. Then, there was a pizza and schwarma restaurant on base that I went to as much as I could. Large pizzas were commonplace. It was around the clock eating and definitely not “clean.”

        I don’t think I recommend it as tying shoes was starting to get difficult. However, I knew I could lose all the weight with relative ease and have been back around my usual weight for over a year now. I’m incredibly weak and devouring that many calories helped lifting tremendously, but before all of that I assumed I ate enough then realized afterwards I was seriously lacking in calories.

        1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
          Jamie Chaos

          It’s funny how your outlook changes completely after a few months of serious force-feeding. That was the perfect fucking setup for bulking- you seriously lucked out, haha.

  6. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    Cool article, the comparison to jogging is spot on from what I do as well. I used to be able to go for as many pullups in one sets as possible and got up to 24 dead hang pulls at 220lbs but I then realized no one gave two shits about that. Also the old guys at my gym who move all of about 3 inches claimed they could do 40 in one set. It also just got mentally draining for me so now I don’t do anything more than sets of 10 and I do pullups 3 times a week at least 100 a day but sometimes more. Side note, that ass is fucking fantastic. Thanks for the article, and to the guy above me please keep doing your curls. You can never do too many.

  7. steve sutton Avatar
    steve sutton

    Pullups, dips, press-ups lend themselves to daily hammering. But every now and again, a three week daily squat splurge no days off is a good reminder of who you are.
    http://weightliftingacademy.com/squat-nemesis/

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      Sounds like a reminder to renew your gym membership so you never have to do that again, haha.

  8. Axel Avatar
    Axel

    Fantastic article that comes at the right time as I was wondering if I should get back into higher volume of pull ups with a stricter schedule for training.

    What do you think of weighted ones? For example I like to do 10×10 with fat grips and between 1-2 plates attached (I am barely 180lbs) or up to 3 plates with your infamous 10×3 or 6×4. Noticed tons of grip strength/endurance increases and arms development/curling strength increases but Lat seems to respond better to just pure volume and higher reps.

    Thank you so much and take care

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      I used to do a lot of weighted pullups, but I never really got the same benefit out of them that I did with the higher rep stuff. I tend to keep my heavy moves to horizontal rowing- the dip belt is an unwieldy, painful piece of shit when you load it up, and struggling with that doesn’t seem worth the effort to me. If I lacked the ability to do heavy as fuck barbell and hammer strength shit, I’d definitely do weighted pullups all the time.

  9. Vlad Avatar
    Vlad

    Guys with hurt elbows – I watched my fellow Russian youtuber which is 47 years old and can do 30+ clean pullups – he said when he does pullups without weights, his elbows hurt.

    But when he does it weighted – it relieves pain.

    Maybe because of elbow traction.

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      That’s interesting as hell.

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