Assisted Pull-ups: The Mystery Unraveled

20 Jun

Up until this point, no one ever really knew how much assistance the various bands provided when used during a pull-up. This made calculating work performed and avg. power output for band-assisted pull-ups impossible.

By the way, which is harder: using blue and purple (or plain) bands together, or just using the green alone? And just how much harder is the blue band than the green band? What about blue and red? We get these questions all the time at our gym.

During the process of incorporating power calculations into beyond the whiteboard, we decided to measure and quantify the assistance provided by the various colored bands. We now know very accurately how much work is being performed by the athlete during assisted pull-ups. These numbers depend on the weight of the athlete, the distance they travel during a pull-up, and the band(s) they are using for the pull-up. This was a huge step toward our goal of enabling comparison between Rx’d and scaled workouts based on work/power output.

Based on our findings, we have created a PDF that shows the relative assistance of the various bands and band combinations, and have made it available as a free download. We hope that CrossFit Affiliates and individual CrossFitters alike will find it a useful addition to their gyms. Feel free to print it out and post it near your pull-up bars, that’s what we did!

Pull-up Band Assistance Chart

bandassist

Color Version PDF
Black and White Version PDF
*Updated on Jun 24th to include more combinations

Jonathan Kinnick and Corey Tripp

7 Responses to “Assisted Pull-ups: The Mystery Unraveled”

  1. looralsnups December 11, 2009 at 9:30 pm #

    Excellent article, good looking weblog, added it to my favs.

  2. Lin December 5, 2010 at 5:43 pm #

    Excellent! This is much appreciated and will be helpful for a long time.

  3. Vivian Votava June 10, 2011 at 7:49 pm #

    I wish you gave the formula for how much work was done based on weight, distance/height, and bands. It is great to have this chart, because it tells you the band combination to try next. Thanks! We posted the chart on the wall next to where the bands are kept.

Trackbacks and Pingbacks

  1. Go Green Get Fit Update #1: First RX Workout | Spit That Out: The Blog - June 18, 2012

    [...] 3) Improve banded pull-ups by at least two levels (current 5 rep max is Red/Purple – for an explanation see here) [...]
  2. Go Green Get Fit Challenge Update #2: Bigger Boxes and Lighter Bands | Spit That Out: The Blog - July 2, 2012

    [...] As for the banded pull ups, I had the opportunity to work up to a one-rep-max which I was pleased to find was red. I was even more pleased to learn that chin-ups count as pull-ups at my gym, and I just about pulled off a chin up using a purple band! (See band explanation here) [...]
  3. August 7, 2012 | CrossFit Mount Laurel - August 7, 2012

    [...] Assisted Pullups, Beyond the Whiteboard - Todd found this page, which is funny because I am pretty sure he spent a whole Sunday testing out the different bands for how hard they are. [...]
  4. Go Green Get Fit Challenge: Challenge Completed | Spit That Out: The Blog - September 10, 2012

    [...] by at least two levels (5 rep max went from Red + Purple to Blue – for an explanation see here). I also achieved a one rep max on pull-ups with purple (chin-up style) and a one rep max on ring [...]

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