Grease the Groove: A No-Fail Technique For Increasing Pushups and Pullups
April 25th, 2012
Every once in a while, I like to physically challenge myself by trying to do as many pushups and pull ups as possible. When you do these two exercises as part of a strength training workout, you’re combining the two essential exercise movements of pushing and pulling. However, many people are challenged by how to increase pushups and increase pull ups. Pavel Tsatsouline’s “The Naked Warrior” talks about a technique called “Grease the Groove” that I would like to share with you.
Before I get into the background and specifics, I’ll get right to the bottom line. You can improve your personal best for pullups, pushups, squats and bench presses just by using this amazing, beneficial technique called “Grease the Groove”.
What exactly is this? Grease the groove is an expression for doing a particular exercise repeatedly until you can see definite improvement. As Pavel says, “if you want to get good at pull ups, why not try to do…a lot of pull ups?” The key is not training to failure. I think this is best explained with an example. If you can perform a maximum of 10 pull ups, then you’ll want to train by performing 5-8 reps, 3-4 times per day, 4-6 days per week. For that matter, you may want to put a pullup bar in a doorway, so that every time you go through the door you’ll be reminded that you need to do 5 pullups. That will give you plenty of practice!
Why does this work? Your muscles will gradually become more efficient at completing the movement when you perform repeated strength training. This efficiency technique is a neurological process, and over time your muscles get better and better at doing a specific movement. So, quite simply, you will get better at pullups the more frequently you do them. This technique does not only work with bodyweight exercises either as you can use it for any strength training routine. For example, you can use the same method and apply it to help increase your squats or bench presses.
You can grease the groove with 1-2 exercises at a time. While I have personally made improvements by doing pushups and pullups during the same exercise, your best bet is to just focus on one exercise at a time when you get started. In order to avoid working to muscle failure, you will want to be sure to only do about 50-80% of your maximum reps during each session. If you do this between 3 and 4 times each day in the morning when you wake up, at noon, in the evening and before you go to bed, you will see results. By doing pushups or pullups as often as possible, you will gradually get better at them. You repeat the whole process again the next day. Always stop at least 1 rep shy of failure. This prevents you from sending the signal to your muscles to fail.
Regardless of your reasons behind looking to increase pull ups or increase pushups or even increase the amount of squats and bench presses you can do, the only thing you need to remember is to keep practicing them over and over. If you use these “Grease the Groove” fitness tips you will continue to increase your numbers, strength and agility as you teach your muscles to more efficiently complete each exercise.