What is an Athlete's TRUE 1RM on Pull Up?

Shout out to Eric Guthrie for starting this convo when he asked if there should be a 1RM or 3RM for pull up/chin up maxes.

For starters, we are going to use simple % based lingo for this blog. As I have already shared on social media you can and should hook up your Vitruve unit to see velocity on your pull-up/chin-up just like you would with other movements. So for the sake of this blog, less VBT talk, mainly percentages.

To answer that question - you should treat it just like you do all your other strength movements (squat, bench, dead, press, clean, snatch, etc…) if you 1RM test those movements, then 1RM pull up as well. If you take a % and have them do rep outs with the other movements - do that for pull up too.

Word of caution for coaches who estimate 1RM on anything other than 90% plus, you are over estimating someones max. The closer to 100% you get with the rep outs the more true the 1RM. Let me show you.

For starters, this is the Epley formula for predicted 1RM.

wt lifted * reps * 0.033 + wt lifted = 1RM

Now lets say you had a 1RM on an athlete and it was 300lb. During training you let them do 80% for reps to see how many they can get. Based on relative intensity charts you expect around 8 reps. But they do 10.

240 * 10 * 0.033 + 240 = 320

That gets them a new max of 320. 20lb bump, thats big. Slow down now. Iif you had 90% on the bar for them and they got 4 reps it’s only a new max of 306

270 * 4 * 0.033 + 270 = 305.64

That 306lb is WAY more accurate than the 320 from 80%. You don’t want to inflate maxes. You want to set your athletes up for success - and inflated maxes are not the way to go for that.

Back to the pull-up talk and 1RM vs 3RM - like I said, whatever you do for other movements, do for pull-up. IMO it is not unsafe to do 1RM testing with team sport athletes.

It is also not unsafe to do rep based. Both have their pros and cons. For your test data just pick one way to use it and be consistent - but like Nick said in his reply to Eric - there is value in doing heavy 3 and heavy 1.

And Nick is right, there needs to be heavy 1, 2, 3, 4, etc…for pull up (and other movements). There also eventually needs to be DE and RE for pull up.

Yes there is the westside part of my programming brain coming in. You can do DE with dynamic reversal on pull up - and you can even do weight releasers (like Erica has done) with pull up, or using bands and chains - and adding you Vitruve unit to measure.

Now - what is the % of 1RM with pull up?

To me, it is the whole system load - so BW is taken into account.

If someone weighs 200lb and they do a pull up with 100lb DB their pull up 1RM is 300lb. Other coaches disagree with me and say the pull-up 1RM is 100lb. Let me show you why I think they are wrong, and it has to do with % based lifting and relative intensity charts.

So, lets take 70% of that 300lb pull-up 1RM I was talking about. 300 * 0.70 = 210lb

This means this athlete has 10lb added for pull ups. This would be an EASY 10 reps. But it SHOULD be an easy 10 reps because 70% for 10 isn’t hard based on relative intensity charts



Converse this same math with the coaches who say the pull-up 1RM is based on the weight an athlete adds to their body when doing a pull up.

Remember this athlete did a pull up with 100lb, so 70% is 70lb. Based on relative intensity charts 70% for 10 is very do able and not very hard. Go take that 200lb athlete and ask them to do 10 reps with 70lb on them. I have $100 says they don’t get more than 5 reps and that 5th rep will be ugly.

Why is that?

Because for this athlete they are really doing 90% 300lb was the total load lifted (200lb athlete and 100lb DB). 300 * 0.90 = 270lb

See why BW matters in the pull up.

Now, the coaches will disagree with me and say “well why doesn’t BW matter in other movements like squat or deadlift.” Easy, it doesn’t effect the lift as much as in a pull up. Look at where the load is vs the movement arm (yup - going back to the CSCS and CSCCa exam prep) for ya!

BW matters on pull up just like it does on push up, and dips. It just matters here.

Think about it like this too.

What if an athlete who weighs 200lb can do a pull up with 10lb added. They fail when they tried 15lb. So you’re telling me that 50% for this athlete is 5lb added?

No shot. 50% means they can do 10 reps EASY!

This athlete did 10lb on a pull up, failed at 15lb - but you think they can get 5lb added for 10? No way. What they can do is 155lb for 10 reps easy (210lb system load * 0.50).

Or what about the 300lb athlete who can do a pull up with no extra weight. Their pull up 1RM is not 0. It is 300. 70% of 0 is still 0. So based on your math they should be able to that 70% for an easy 10 reps. No way. But they can do 210lb pull up for 10 reps easy.

How do they take the 90lb off their body then?

Great question - this is when band assistance and tension comes into play.

You can get real nerdy on this and really dive into the weeds on band tension with how much it pulls and the bottom and top of a pull-up for your athletes based on the bands and pull-up bar.

What you should do is mess around with it on yourself and figure out what feels like 0-30 / 31-60 / 61-90 / 91-120lb help.

Mess around with how the band is looped on the top of the pull up bar. Is it over the top of the pull up bar? Or did you put the band through itself on the bar?

Same for with how you put it on. Do you put the loop on one knee or both knees? What about moving it down to the foot. Is it one foot or both? Moving it down to the feet and putting it on both feet or both knees makes it easier (cuz it gives more help) than if it was on one.

How do you communicate this band assistance?

If you print on Microsoft excel sheets (please stop and get with the times and get TeamBuildr - they literally have a grant help guide here so you can get TeamBuildr). But until your grant is approved and you get TeamBuildr - click here to download the excel lift card we used at Towson with the pull up formula I created, oh yea, you need to be a SCN member to access the forum to download this.

Once you have TeamBuildr you can make a PDF showing the height and band assistance used for different weights, attach that PDF to a note on the calendar, and now athletes know what band to use.

Boom!

So there you have it - you know how I feel about pull-up 1RM. Am I wrong? I don’t think so. Let me know if you think I am wrong.

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