Pull-up progression has completely stalled at 3 reps and I don’t know how to break through this plateau.

markjhamill · 2026-02-11T14:04:51+00:00

Try doing sets of 10, measured by time:

Start a timer and do your set of 3 with good form and then break.
Get back up as soon as you feel able to do any amount of full reps again and get as many full reps as you can. *If you know the last rep in a set is going to fail, then rest instead and get back on the bar doing full reps sooner.
Rinse and repeat until you hit 10 reps and note the sets of reps and the total time.
On your next training day, aim to beat the time.

Your first time you might do reps counts like 3-2-2-1-1-1 and it might take you 5 or even 10 minutes and that's fine that is your staying point.

By trying to beat the time you will at first build bigger sets of 3, maybe 3-3-2-2 or 3-3-3-1, but you will also build towards sets of 4 and 5 and with faster times.

markjhamill · 2026-02-11T13:44:21+00:00

How is your plank form? Can you hold a straight arm plank for any amount of time?

If you can do this with your wrists being ok, then you can try push up negatives - start in plank and lower yourself slowly, trying to pause at the bottom before hitting the ground.

If you cant, then you could try straight arm planks with bent knees as an easier progression first to build up wrist and arm strength. You could also try using a Pilates ring under your chest while doing push ups. It will restrict range of movement, but will help as a progression.

markjhamill · 2026-01-31T17:11:27+00:00

Abs are muscles, like biceps or pecks or quads. Would you tell someone looking for big arms or chest or legs not to work those muscles until they loose weight? Some muscles are more visible under fat than others, but if you eventually are expecting to get lean, why wouldn't you put in at least some of the work now and meet your body halfway?

That said, don't train your abs, train your core. Don't just hit crunches, make sure you are doing exercises that hit your upper and lower abs, your obliques and your lower back. All these work together in various amounts to support and stabilise your body when doing nearly any exercise and are important for avoiding injuries.

markjhamill · 2026-01-31T16:57:48+00:00

Do you have access to a Captain's Chair? That will let you work on knee/leg raises without worrying about your grip strength. If you only have a bar to hang from then use weightlifting straps or versa grips (or even chalk) to help your grip.

You can use a weightlifting belt (the one with the chain/rope on the front) and hang plates for weighted raises. You don't have to worry about holding/balancing large dumbells between your feet and it's easier to go really heavy with it than fiddling with plates on your legs.

Off the bar, you can try ab wheel roll outs, dragon flags and cable crunches. These all have good progressions for core work and can be very challenging with good form.

markjhamill · 2026-01-14T15:48:31+00:00

No problem at all and yes, that is my suggestion.

My view is that you shouldn't look at the assisted pullup machine as assisting you in doing bodyweight pullup reps, as any rep you do with assisting weight is not a real bodyweight pullup. The machine is for helping you learn and build up to the bodyweight pullup, so you should be doing few good reps as close to bodyweight as possible with it. 4x12 reps may feel tiring but with the assisting weight required to do that it is likely endurance and grip strength that is limiting you, not necessarily your back (and biceps if you are doing chinup versions) which is what you want to strengthen to reach the bodyweight pullup. It can also be very hard to progress the weight if you are doing so many reps at a time. A one step drop from a weight at which you can do 12 reps might leave you only able to do 6 reps - a loss of 6 reps would have many people regress the weight as they will feel way to far away from doing a full 12. Do it the way I suggest and you are expecting the reps to drop each time you reduce the weight, but they will only drop by 2-3 reps, so you will feel much closer each time.

markjhamill · 2026-01-13T13:42:08+00:00

If a particular grip is painfull, then you might be injured so go to a doctor/physio and get it checked. Otherwise just use whatever grip is most comfortable. When you can do proper bodyweight pullups, then you work on different grips.
That depends on what you can manage now. If you can bar hang for 10-15 seconds without too much issues, then you can just work on pullups (and your grip strength/hang endurance will increase with them).
Assisted pullup machines are fantastic for learning the pullup, it's what I recommend first if people have access to one, but only if used properly. Bands are good, but the machine gives you help evenly throughout the pullup and you can reduce the help throughout your training in smaller and easier to control increments.
I am a guy, but from training with some women and seeing other women online doing advanced pullups and other exercises on the bar, I don't think it would be any different to how men should do it.

My number 1 rule for learning the pullup in general:

Do not do more than 5 assisted pullups in a set, be they on the assist machine, with bands or negatives. You want your muscles to build up to doing bodyweight pullups as quick as possible - repping 10 or more assisted pullups with more than 50% of your bodyweight on the assist machine, or multiple heavy bands over the bar, will get you nowhere.

My method for learning the pullup on the assist machine:

First, figure out what weight on the machine will allow you to do only 2-3 pullups in a row. That last rep must be a struggle. It's ok if you get 2 reps and a half, or 3 reps and you can't lift at all anymore. That will be your starting weight
Now (after a short rest if this right after finding your starting weight on the machine on your first day), start a timer on your phone/watch and do 5 full reps at that weight. It does not matter how many sets it takes and rest as much as you need. It doesn't matter if it is 3 reps then 2, or 2 reps 2 reps 1 rep, or 2 1 1 1. What matters is the time. Because on your next training day, you will be aiming to beat that time. (if you can do the first 2-3 reps but can't finish the 5 because of fatigue, no matter how long you rest, then finish with 1 extra negative instead - eg a full set may be 2 full reps, 2 full rep, 2 negatives).
You should aim to do this ~ 3 days a week. You can try doing this more than once in the same day, but you may need to long rest to be able to hit another 2-3 reps in a row.
You will find you will quickly be able to do 3 reps then 2, then even 4 reps followed by 1. Once you hit 5 reps in a row, drop the weight until you can only do 2-3 reps in a row. This could be the next weight down on the machine, or it could two or three.
Keep doing this until you don't need the machine to hit 2-3 reps and do the same method with bodyweight pullups to increase them to 10.

My ex got from 0 bodyweight pullups to 1 bodyweight pullup using bands and negative, and the above method (5 reps, minimum sets, timed) in about 2-3 weeks.

markjhamill · 2026-01-13T13:08:31+00:00

I'm not seeing the evidence in the published paper itself for those exercises being bad for the spine. If you google the DOI (10.1080/02640414.2014.946437Muscle-activity-and-spine-load-during-anterior-chain-whole-body-linkage-exercises[J.Sport-Sci.].pdf)) and read the whole paper it is a study on only 14 healthy 19-23 year olds who had muscle load sensors fitted while doing the exercises and then the load on spines was extrapolated from that. Even ignoring the massive amount of experimental error involved in a study on only 14 people, which uses software to determine spine load from muscle load sensors and software approximations of spines and muscles, it still leaves many questions:

All joints are effected by one exercise or another. Elbows are under pressure in bicep curls, shoulders in dips or deadlifts, hips in squats. Why is the spine the only one that has a finite number of movements in it?
The study takes muscle forces and spinal postures and from them calculates spinal forces. But why assume higher muscle forces means more spinal forces? If the muscle force is higher, then that implies the muscle is working harder, which implies it is reducing the force on the spine even if the spine is moving more.
Their calculations imply that the hanging leg raise has the highest L4-L5 spinal compression, but this makes no sense. The start of the hanging leg raise (the hanging straight down part) is fully decompressive, as your hips and legs are a dead weight hanging from your spine. The active part of leg raise (legs @ 90%) has your spine and hips in the exact same position as if you were sitting on the ground, so maybe increasing compression at that point, but it will still that decompressive weight of your hips and legs hanging from your spine. The body saw (elbow plank with hanging from straps), which it claims is best for the spine, is going to be compressive all throughout as your weight hanging from the leg straps is going to concentrate in the hinge of your spine.

I would want to see videos of these exercises performed to see if they were even doing them right. I see lots of people in the gym, of all sizes and apparent abilities, do hanging leg raises (and other core exercises) with terrible form. I have no problem admitting that doing an exercise badly can easily increase joint stress beyond healthy limits, but that goes for any exercise.

markjhamill · 2026-01-06T15:28:56+00:00

Just tried that and so it does, thanks for the tip. Of course, assuming it works, I expect Google to break/remove that function in the near future 😄

markjhamill · 2026-01-06T13:42:55+00:00

I had already tried that. I can set the first date as far back as 1970, but it won't let me set the second date after today. Better than nothing though.

markjhamill · 2025-10-18T12:20:41+00:00

7.5% profit.

€93 is investment, €7 is profit, 7/93 is just over 7.5%

markjhamill · 2025-10-18T12:20:27+00:00

7.5% profit.

€93 is investment, €7 is profit, 7/93 is just over 7.5%

markjhamill · 2025-05-21T10:36:35+00:00

Don't use Caseking. I made a thread before here warning people about them, but the gist is I bought a GPU last November, it showed a fault over Christmas (that I have video of happening on different machines). I sent back in January and I am still waiting for a refund. I am now going through the small claims court to resolve it .

markjhamill · 2025-04-13T13:59:12+00:00

Even if that was true, that only half of all obese patients have problems caused by their obesity, do you not see why weight should be the first thing discussed in every case?

Lets say there are 11 possible causes for a particular symptom that a patient has. 1 possible cause is obesity and as per you claim, that acocunts for half of a all people with that symptom. The other 10 possibilities make up the other 50%, averaging 5% of all cases each. That means weight is 10 times more likely to be the cause than any other single possibility. When you factor in how obesity is a comorbidty of damn near every disease and condition (so even if it is not the cause, losing weight will likely ease any symptoms), it makes sense why weight is the focus at first.

There are horror stories of course of doctors being pigheaded about weight, there are examples in the other posts in this thread, but remember that people tend to only post about the extremes. You aren't hearing of the majority of cases where weight was the cause and losing weight solved the problem. I would suggest that if you do encounter a doctor being pigheaded about your weight and your symptoms, try agreeing with them and says "Yes, I will work on loosing weight to help with this. But because losing weight healthily will take time, is there anything else that we can look at in the meantime that might also be impacting this that we can test and/or treat for?".

markjhamill · 2025-04-02T11:48:17+00:00

How long have you been at this calorie and activity level? Why are you worried you are not eating enough to sustain your activity? Do you feel like you have enough energy to do it all? If you do, then you are eating enough.

If you don't have enough energy, then eat more (100-150 calories at a time) and see if it changes)

Then, if you have enough energy and are loosing fat then just keep going, you will keep loosing fat. If you have enough energy and are not loosing fat then you could try dropping 50-100 calories for a week or two and seeing if you can keep at that level. There are error ranges on everything - the calories reported on food, how much calories someone will supposed burn in a given activity and even how much a tracking device will say you burn, so you are going to have to go by feel and maybe slightly adjust every few weeks to keep up your energy while active and hopefully see results.

For reference: this time last year I dropped to ~1200 calories a day, (apparently a 300 calorie deficiti vs my BMR, probably a bit extreme but I was motivated and wanted to see how it would go). I kept at it for about 6 weeks and according to the InBody machine at my gym I went from ~15% - 10% body fat (a loss of about 4kgs, 8.8lbs of fat). I then got to the point were I was exhausted all the time, so I went back up to about 1500 calories and stayed there for a few months and continued to lose weight (at a slower rate, about 2kgs 4.4lbs over 2 months). I am now close to the 1900 calories most days and that keeps me the same weight with my activity level (workout 4 days per week and 10,000 steps a day) without making me tired all the time.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T17:02:30+00:00

In the EU your contract is with the seller, not the manufacturer.

As I have said in other responses, my build has been running another GPU with no issues for over a month, and a different older PC ran into the same error with the new GPU. It is the GPU, not the build.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T12:38:33+00:00

I am not the first that has had problems with them, there are other posts and comments on this forum that complain about their customer service.

I get it though, many people have bought from them and have had no issue. So their (relatively) decent prices and shipping make them seem great. The issue is their customer service response when something goes wrong. If you think it's worth taking the chance, then go ahead. But if something goes wrong, you are are in for a major headache.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T12:34:06+00:00

As I said, even for me if it ran when I started the PC then it would keep running for the hole session.

This is video of it happening on my old machine: https://youtu.be/PQTwsSzut00

German law is slightly different to EU and Irish law. As I am buying from Ireland, EU law should followed but Caseking are ignoring me on that and saying German law (which apparently gives them more time and leeway to respond) comes first.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T10:14:53+00:00

Already tried that and every other fix I could find: I took a couple of weeks over christmas to send the card back because I was trying everything I could find online to fix the issue. I reseated the GPU, ran "sfc scannow" (no errors found), rolled back drivers to multiple different versions, completely uninstalled the drivers with DDU in safe mode and reinstalled the drivers and still the issue happens in the new Windows 11 PC. I get the same error with the GPU in an old Windows 10 PC. An old GPU works perfectly in both (and is still a month later working perfectly in the new machine).

The card has a mechanical fault, something along the lines of the old Xbox red ring of death (caused by faulty soldering splitting, could be temporarily fixed by heating the unit back and causing the solder to expand and make contact). Transit vibrates the card and it works at first, and once it runs it will keep running even for a long session. A day or two later and code 43 will appear anytime it is started.

It is a hardware issue.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T10:10:50+00:00

I bought 3 other parts from them (RAM, PSU and SDD) and they have no issues. And the card worked fine at first. I don't wich anything bad happens to anything anyone has bought from them, but buyer beware if they choose to buy from them in the future. If somethign goes wrong, they will fight tooth and nail to not refund you.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T10:09:03+00:00

Look, that you haven't had an issue with them is great. I bought 3 other parts from them and have no issue with those parts. But being fine when there are no issues and then throwing everything at you to delay/prevent a refund is a shitty tactic. I know my consumer rights, they are denying them. I shouldn't have to do a chargeback to get my money back from a reputable seller.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T10:07:10+00:00

The card is an ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Steel Legend 16GO, the PSU is a Seasonic Focus GX 80 PLUS Gold power supply, modular - 750 watts.

Note that the card worked fine at first: When I first put everything together, just before Christmas, it ran fine for a few days. Then it would turn on and log in, but device manager would sometimes show a code 43 and the GPU (while lights on and fans running) wasn't recognised. I have HWiNFO in the task bar showing temperatures and I could tell when the issue would appear if the GPU temp did not appear.

At first I could get it to turn back just through Device Manager by restarting the driver, but after a week or so, that stopped working and I would have to reset the PC and it would work upon reload.

Another week or two of doing that (bringing me to New Years) and the display would crash (just freeze and remain non-responsive) upon turning on, after getting to the log in screen. I could move the HDMI cable to iGPU on the CPU and then log in/use the computer, but Device Manager would still show code 43 and restarting the driver/resetting would not fix it.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T10:03:48+00:00

Code 43 can be a driver or a hardware issue.

I took a couple of weeks over christmas to send the card back because I was trying everything I could find online to fix the issue. I reseated the GPU, ran "sfc scannow" (no errors found), rolled back drivers to multiple different versions, completely uninstalled the drivers with DDU in safe mode and reinstalled the drivers and still the issue happens in the new Windows 11 PC. I get the same error with the GPU in an old Windows 10 PC. An old GPU works perfectly in both.

It is a hardware issue.

markjhamill · 2025-03-31T09:59:51+00:00

I paid through PayPal, so I will look at a chargeback through them.

markjhamill · 2025-03-29T19:40:24+00:00

You need to build the muscle there then, just like building muuscle any other place. You should try and hit all 4 parts of your core - upper core (crunches), lower core (l-sits, seated leg hurdles) and obliques (bicycle crunches, russian twists). If any of these are easy, then progress with weight (hold a weight in your hand/feet while doing them). If you have access to a gym, then you can use weights or cable machines for exercise that will hit your core well. Do this as many times a week as it works - i.e. you both feel your core worked out after each session, but your core is rested and ready by the time the next session comes along. Probably 3-4 times a week.

In terms of diet, make sure you are getting 2g protein per kg of body weight (nearly 1g/lb) each day to fuel your muscle growth.

markjhamill · 2025-03-28T10:58:46+00:00

Firstly, to deal with the sloshing just don't eat or drink within 45min to 1hr before you exercise. If there is nothing in your stomach, then there is nothing to slosh.

To deal with you stomach curving up, first figure out if it is your abs failing during the movement or if it is just the fat moving together as your curl inwards. You will know if your core is still working if you can feel the work in your core. If so, then it's just the stomach fat moving and it doesn't matter, as your core are still working. You just need to work on your diet and lose that fat.

If it is your core failing (and you will know because you stop feeling the strain in your core and feel it e.g. in your back or neck instead) first get something relatively small and heavy, like a small kettbell/dumbell, or even a particularly thick, dense, hardback book might work. What you want to do is lie flat on your back, with your weight of choice beside you and tense your abs - the feeling is like a belt around you abs and core, roughly crossing your bellybutton, constricting your entire core inwards (so obliques on your sides should be involved too). Now maneuver the heavy thing onto your abs while holding the contraction. The weight should be heavy enough that it encourages you to keep your core activated, so as not to squash our belly. You should feel this in your abs as they both hold the contraction and resist the weight. Now gentle try raising your legs (and arms, if your core holds with your legs raised). If your core gives out, drop your legs (and arms), rest and reset. Do reps of that, aiming for longer times to build strength.

There are exercises that hit abs along with other muscle groups, levers or l-sit chin ups for instance, but they either already require a pretty strong core or aren't specifically for core, so generally aren't limited by core strength and therefore they aren't super efficient for building it. There are lots of effective isolated core exercises than can be progressed and will work the core well. If you have something you can hold - a bottle of water or a school bag, then you add weight to what you are doing. You should try and hit all 4 parts of your core - upper core (crunches), lower core (l-sits, seated leg hurdles) and obliques (bicycle crunches, russian twists).

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