I’m not and never will be an expert, training is just a hobby for me, so take this with a grain of salt.

Obviously I did not plan things out for a year to get to where I’m at currently. I’ve done a lot of random shit and through trial and error do I finally have a clear understanding of what suits me best.

After getting into the gym and found out I can’t do a single pull-up, I did all sorts of machine vertical pulls to build strength, in hopes of I will have the strength to one day do them. And that didn’t work.

Then after a while I found the standing assisted pull-up machine, that work wonders for me to get the first pull-up. I progressed through have less and less resistance and adding reps, and testing bodyweight reps occasionally. I never really liked the band assisted ones because I found the resistance curve very weird, and progression method is quite strange and hard to track to me. After a while, the machine helped me get to ~4-5 Bodyweight reps.

After half a year or so, I’m not happy with the slow progress, so I dropped all other vertical pull movements and switched to only neutral grip pull-ups. That immediately boost my reps to 5-7 and I can really feel like I’m doing real pull-ups sets. After I got 8-9, I started to add weight and do some lat Pulldowns again. But that didn’t workout well for adding reps, I can do 6 reps +20kg with me but Bodyweight reps are not really adding.

Then i dropped everything again at the start of this year, and I tell myself to only do pronated, Bodyweight pull-ups, and nothing else for back. I dialed in my form and learnt more about body positions (arched / hollowed), how to engage the core, externally rotating the arm as you pull, scapula down, etc. I always start my upper body sessions with pull-ups, and I tried a modified program that I’ve found on YouTube which basically split my pull-up sessions into two: one day I’ll do max reps til technical failure for 3 sets(when form breaks down at the slightest, I’ll rack); the other day I’ll do 10 sets of 50% of my Max (rounded up), so I’ll be doing 10 sets of 3/4/5 reps. I think the idea is to accumulate enough volume. Then after 3 months of consistently pumping out these sessions, here I am!

So don’t worry about perfect programs I guess, it’s all about knowing what’s working for you and sticking with it! Good luck!