So, they stole your girl, and now you have four weeks to prepare to beat them the only way you know how. Pull-ups.
More specifically, pull-ups by a ripped guy. While this sounds like the plot for every 80s action movie, there are still some awesome results waiting to be had with a humble pull-up bar.
4-Week Pull-Up Workout Program Overview
Growing up, I never liked pull-ups. Or chin-ups. Or hanging leg raises. Anything that had me relying on grip strength was awful because, to put it lightly, I was fat. And hanging movements are hard.
So, here we have a whole workout routine built around that “hardness.” Is this going to be easy? No, but that’s why there are resistance bands to help you if needed.
- Fitness level: Beginners
- Duration: 4 weeks
- Workouts per week: 5 workouts
- Average workout duration: 60 minutes
- Equipment needed: Minimal equipment
- Goal: Build muscle and lose weight
When the goal is to get ripped (specifically with pull-ups), you simply need training, diet, and recovery. But let’s focus on that first part, shall we?
4-Week Pull-Up Program Schedule & Details
Because we only have around four weeks to really build as much muscle and burn as much fat as we possibly can, we need to make use of some interesting lifting techniques.
But before we break down the weekly schedule, let me raise one issue:
Your starting position will dictate your ending position. If you’re really overweight, this plan isn’t long enough to get you shredded. You can do as many pull-ups as you want, but you won’t be able to lose more than 1.0% of total body weight (coming from pure fat) per week without also losing muscle mass.
With that out of the way, let’s look at how training for all muscle groups will be split up. Note that each workout should be done with a good warm-up.
Monday: Full Body Workout
- Pull-Ups – 4 x 10 reps
- Push-Ups – 4 x 25 reps
- Chin-Up – 1 x AMRAP (as many reps as possible)
- Shoulder Push-Ups – 1 x AMRAP
- Squats – 4 x 20 reps
- Hanging Knee Raises – 4 x 20 reps
Tuesday: Core and Cardio
- Plank – 3 x 60 seconds
- (superset with)
- Hanging Leg Raises – 3 x 10 reps
- Any Cardio Machine x 30 minutes (at 100 – 120 beats per minute)
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Full Body Workout
- Chin-Ups (with your legs straight in front of you) – 4 x AMRAP
- Muscle-Ups or Burpee into Pull-Up – 3 x 10 reps
- One-Arm Hang (overhand grip) – 2 x as long as you can
- Lunges – 3 x 20 reps per leg
Friday: Core and Cardio
- Sprint – 5 x 50 yards
- Shoulder Taps (push-up position, arms shoulder-width apart) – 3 x 20 reps per arm
- Mountain Climbers – 3 x 20 reps
- Sprint – 2 x 100 yards
Saturday: Testing and Cardio
- Pull-Ups – 1 x AMRAP
- Chin-Ups – 1 x AMRAP
- Body Hangs – 1 x as long as you can
- Any Cardio Machine x 30 minutes (at 100 – 120 beats per minute)
Pull-Up Program Diet (to Get You Ripped)
Once you’ve loosened your grip on the pull-up bar, you can fasten it around a shaker filled with protein powder.
That’s right… if you wanna get shredded abs with the pull-up program, you’re gonna have to diet. (Though, with the right technique and a lot of effort, you can definitely get shredded without dieting.)
Just a reminder that we can’t make shredded wheat from a bowl of lard. So if you carry quite a bit of timber, perhaps a longer and less aggressive cut is needed.
Right!
So, first, you need to calculate how many calories you need to eat daily to maintain your body weight. Some common sense will tell you that to lose some weight, you’d have to pull some calories from that number — around 150 – 250.
Secondly, ensure you’re eating a healthy amount of protein. As any personal trainer would also say, protein is what turns into muscles. More protein, more gains (to an extent). Raise your protein intake to at least 1 – 1.2 grams per pound of body weight.
* Note: While some may claim eating protein every 3 hours is needed for gains, eating your protein spread out evenly during the day is fine. Not one meal, but also not 10.
The rest of the calories can be split between carbs and fats. You should consume (at least) 0.3 grams of fat per pound of body weight to ensure your hormonal function remains optimal.
And that’s it with dieting!
Sure, you can try to spice things up by ensuring you only eat a certain amount of saturated fats or eat enough fiber, but these guidelines are the basics you need to get started!
Recovery
A quick word on recovery: Most of us don’t sleep enough, and most of us are way too stressed to actually recover between sessions. The truth is that you don’t grow in the gym… you grow from recovering.
Your muscles need rest, the joints in your elbows need rest, and the tendinitis that eventually plagues each gym bro also — as you’d expect — needs rest.
Respect your body and make sure you sleep more than 7 hours per night. Don’t do exercises that cause pain, and make sure to remove stressful factors from your life. If that means you gotta kick your significant other to the road, then hasta la vista, baby.
These gains are priceless.
(I’m kidding, of course, but having a supportive partner pays tenfold.)
4 Pros of Our 4-Week Pull-Up Routine
Look, the pros to doing any workout routine are immense. Regardless of whether or not you’re training the entire body, there are still a ton of positives, like:
- Improved insulin sensitivity and overall health
- More muscle mass which helps with aging
- Increased bone density
- Improved mental health
1 Con of This Pull-Up Bar Program
Drawbacks? Well, this particular program does have one drawback… time.
The workout plan is only four weeks long, and no matter which way you slice this beefcake, it’s probably not enough time. Even if you lost the most amount of weight per week, you’d still only lose a few pounds in 4 weeks.
And while that might help you, it certainly won’t get you shredded to the bone. Fitness is an investment, and it takes time.
Get a grip on your training, diet, and recovery. Nail those, repeat, repeat, and repeat until you’ve reached your goals.
If that sounds silly and like something you’ve never done, well, you’re trying to get something you’ve never had before…
4-Week Pull-Up Workout Conclusion
As mentioned a few times, you’ll be working pretty hard in these 4 weeks. We have no doubt that some weight will be lost, most of it coming from fat.
Just focus on the following:
- Training hard and getting stronger weekly
- Sleeping even harder
- And make sure your diet is as good as you can get it!
Personally, I would extend this to an 8 or even 12-week program. Pull-ups are great, and along with the other exercises in this program, you stand a great chance of building a great body.
Just make sure your pull-up bar can handle max load and max reps… Wouldn’t want that thing to break. After all, it’s not just a bar.
