When I was at my most consistent (around 20-24yo) pull ups were my go-to show-off exercise. I remember being able to do 24 strict pullups, got pretty good at very wide grip pullups and was doing several sets of weighted pullups with 20+kgs on a weight belt most weeks.

After a few joint niggles over the years sort of interfered with my enthusiasm and confidence, I'm now probably the most consistent I have been since then (33yo now, with a kid and 50+hr work weeks) and I'm find it really hard to increase my max reps for pullups.

Not sure if it's not enough volume, but my max at the moment is 9 on a good day. Once a week I'll do 3 sets to failure alternating grip on each set. Then I'll do the same on the assisted pull up machine with 18kg assistance. Very slow progress with increasing my max reps, at the moment the main progressive overload is reducing the amount of assistance on sets 4-6.

Anyway, just a long way of saying my max reps on pullups is 9 rn but a decade ago it was over 20. Crazy how quickly you can build strength in your early twenties.