Should You Do Pull-Ups Until Failure

Training until failure is our favorite way to rep our exercises. We recommend it for nearly all bodyweight exercises, but especially pull-ups. Here’s why:

Repping pull-ups until failure is a must-do. Out of all bodyweight exercises, it’s the most rewarding and effective way to improve explosiveness and build muscular endurance. As a result, you can quicken progression as opposed to doing a fixed number of sets and reps.

Other bodyweight exercises, such as sit-ups, aren’t very muscle-demanding. For example, you may have to do 50+ before you reach the “failure” phase. Because of this, it’s common to lose energy (and even get bored), before you see the benefits.

The reason pull-ups are one of the better exercises to rep until failure is because they’re already an intense exercise. So, you reach the point of fatigue faster. And, the more you hit this threshold, the better conditioned your muscles become.

Let’s take it further. Unless you’re warming up for an important game, or recovering from injury we would confidently argue you should always rep pull-ups until failure. Why half-commit yourself? You get massively more for your workout. Let’s take a look at these gains in more detail…

Benefits Of Performing Pull-Ups Until Failure

The first point to call is always the benefits. Remember these aren’t generic benefits; instead, the benefits of training pull-ups until failure…

Engaging Fast and Slow Twitch Muscle Fibres
When you’re fresh, your pull-ups will be powerful and explosive – which utilize your fast-twitch muscle fibers. But, if you train until failure, you also activate slow twitch muscle fibers towards the end. So, you won’t only increase speed and strength, but you also better muscular endurance.

Improve Mental Resilience
Regardless of your ability, pull-ups aren’t easy; so, psychologically, you must jump a hurdle to do one. Now, think of the mental toughness to go until failure! It takes so much discipline, brain strength, and focus to reach this point. What’s more, all these attributes come into use outside of the gym.

Grip Strength
Regardless of how many pull-ups you physically do, your wrist flexors and forearm muscles remain contracted through the full duration. Because of this, those who train pull-ups until failure have a far stronger grip than those who don’t.

Better Upper Back Gains
Yes, traditional pull-ups are amazing for working your upper back; but, doing them ’till failure is even better. You do more reps this way, so time under tension is held a lot longer. Research shows these conditions give your muscles the greatest hypertrophic potential – increasing their strength and size.

‘The Feeling’
There’s not much to be said other than “if you know, you know.” When training pull-ups until failure, you have a rush of adrenaline pumping through your blood as you have to dig in deep and push your body to its limits. If nothing else, it’s worth doing just to experience this feeling.

The Most Important Part – Knowing Your Limits

While it may sound silly, you need to know how to train until failure. It sounds self-explanatory – do as many reps until you have to stop – but in practice, there’s a lot more to it. Not to worry though, after reading this you will be an expert!

The first point to recognize is there are 3 types of training until failure. Athleanx does a fantastic illustration, of what we call the 3 T’s. These are:

Technique Failure

Technique failure occurs when you can’t complete another rep, without compromising proper technique. This is most common in weight training as imperfect form can cause overexertion and injury. However, it’s not an indicator for pull-ups.

As soon as you feel your technique slack, you shouldn’t stop doing pull-ups; rather, keep moving forward. This may require a kipping pull-up, using extra momentum, or a bigger swing – but keep on going.

The reason for this is there are still plenty of benefits of doing a pull-up with comprised form, over not doing them at all. For example, you still have to contract your upper back, core, and arms – even with an imperfect form. As a result, you’ll still see improvements in your muscle strength and size.

In addition to this, unlike weight training, pull-ups are still safe to perform even with an imperfect form. Since they’re a bodyweight exercise, it’s unlikely you can build enough pressure to injure yourself through poor technique.

Tempo Failure

Secondly is tempo failure. Here, the point of failure is when you notice a drop in muscle power – which causes a decrease in your tempo. This is most common for explosive movements that use a sudden burst of energy.

While it’s worth mentioning, this shouldn’t be used to signal the point of failure during pull-ups either. Yes, they’re explosive, but when you’re training until failure your last few reps will be painfully slow. And, it’s at this point you benefit the most!

If you ever see someone training pull-ups until failure, they don’t stop as soon as their reps take longer. They squeeze everything they can out of every rep, even if it takes them minutes to do just one! This leads us nicely into our next point

Tolerance Failure

Lastly is tolerance failure. For this, your point of failure occurs when the burning sensation is so painful that you must give up. This is the most common indicator as it takes you up to the point where you can’t physically exercise anymore.

For pull-ups, you should always reach the point of tolerance failure. This form of training requires you to give it everything you got. And while, it’s by far the most painful and muscle-demanding indicator; it’s the most rewarding.

From experience, we know your brain will be the first to tell you you’ve reached your limit. But don’t listen to it. You must get used to this unique feeling of going beyond your comfort zone, and pushing yourself to your limits.

Normally, you feel the lactic acid build in your forearms first. It then follows to your lats, and then arms. To reach your tolerance failure, you must carry on doing pull-ups until this burning sensation is unbearable. Best of luck soldier!

Will Training Pull-Ups Until Failure Help Lose Weight

One of our most frequently asked questions is whether training pull-ups until failure helps you to lose weight any faster than traditional ones. Let’s not beat around the bush, here’s the answer:

It’s not recommended to train pull-ups until failure if you want to lose weight. This is because failure training releases significantly more cortisol (stress hormone) than doing an ordinary amount of sets and reps. And, research shows high cortisol is linked closely with higher fat levels.

It’s examples like this where the phrase “sometimes more isn’t better”, stands correct. Instead, you want to train near failure. This is the point just before complete exertion, usually a few reps less than you would do if you trained until failure.

Training near failure is optimal. It prevents you from doing too little amount of reps, and burning only a few calories. But, it also prevents you from filling your bloodstream with cortisol, which is detrimental to fat levels. Instead, you’re at a perfect midpoint, where you have the best of both words.

via GIPHY

Will Training Pull-Ups Until Failure Help Gain Muscle

Let’s follow the above with our second most asked question – is it better to train until failure if you want more muscle? Unfortunately, it isn’t as black and white, here’s why:

Repeatedly practicing pull-ups until failure is extremely fatiguing, and because of this athletes need longer rest periods. Where most athletes take up to 48 hours of rest when doing a fixed number of sets and reps, training until failure can push this to need at least 72 hours.

Because of this extended rest period, the total number of pull-ups you complete in a week will be less. So, when you look at the bigger picture, you actually end up selling yourself short and capping muscle fiber activation – hence limiting muscle growth.

Take a look at the example below. In training routine A, John does 90 complete pull-ups in a week; whereas, he only does 65 in training routine B. While it may sound minor over the course of a week, it’s a 1,300-count difference in a year!

John’s far better to train ‘near failure.’ In this case, he still performs a high amount of sets and reps; but, not enough to demand a prolonged break. And in doing so, he ensures there’s enough muscle stimulus in his workout to trigger growth hormones, without compromising longevity.

FAQ’s

My pull-up count has suddenly gone down?

When you overload yourself you may notice a drop in pull-up count, since your muscles feel fatigued. It’s most common for your forearm muscles to be worn out. This is because it weakens your grip, which reduces your pull-up count.

What if I can’t do one pull-up?

If you can’t do one full rep, you can still train until failure. The trick is to repeatedly practice what you can do; eventually, it will progress into a full pull-up. What’s better, as soon as you do your first, it gets easier and easier to do more and more.

How many sets of pullups to failure?

The precise number of pull-ups depends on your weight and strength levels; however, a fantastic place to aim for is 3 sets of 10 pull-ups. This puts you in a position where there’s sufficient muscle activation to see growth and an increase in strength.

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