Ten Strict: 6-Week Pull-Up Ladder

Ten Strict is a single-lift specialization block for a stuck pull-up. It trains the pull-up itself five short days a week at a deliberately submaximal dose — roughly 40-50% of your tested maximum reps per set, always stopping at least two reps short of failure. Frequency is the stimulus here, not fatigue, and the hardest skill in the program is learning to end a set early.

For anyone stuck between zero and ten strict reps with a bar at home, in a garage, or at a park, and for climbers who want more pulling exposure without more hard sessions. The entry standard is a 20-second dead hang; if you cannot hold that yet, run a beginner bodyweight program built on inverted rows first and come back. Skip this if you want a balanced full-body program, if your elbows are currently irritable, or if you cannot commit to five 20-30 minute sessions a week — shortest in weeks one and two, longest in week four, when set counts peak.

Session one contains a single all-out set of strict pull-ups, performed once and never repeated, which routes you to one of three tracks: zero reps, one to four, or five and up. Per our Training Frequency framework, repeated submaximal exposure drives skill-limited lifts better than infrequent maximal work, and per our Injury Prevention framework the weekly pulling total is capped in week one and raised by no more than 20% into week two to give the elbow tendons an on-ramp. Accessory work is horizontal and scapular rather than more vertical pulling, because accumulated elbow load — not lat strength — is what usually ends a high-frequency block.

Expect two weeks of grooving the dose, two weeks where set count rises and reps do not, one sharper week where reps rise and set count drops back, and a re-test in the final session of week six.