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Race the clock, not the reps

13 December 2025
Adarsh Gopal

Here's a simple trick we use to help clients work on their capacity to do many more full range pull ups or push ups on the trot.

We give them a target. It could be anywhere between 10 and 20.

We time how long they take to finish those repetitions with good form, full range of motion, reasonable control and a sense of urgency.

We run the same thing once or twice a week for a few weeks.

We keep timing them. And ask them to execute with awareness to ensure range or technique does not suffer too greatly.

We ran this last week as week 1.

We gave a few folks the target to complete 20 pull ups as quickly as they could.

The best time among clients was 58 seconds. The second best was 2 mins 10 seconds. The third 2 mins 19 seconds. And a couple at 2 mins 20 seconds. And a bunch at between 3 mins and 4 mins.

I tried it out myself and gave myself a few handicaps. No nunchuck, neutral grip or semi-supine grip. Those are grips I am stronger with. I went with conventional wide grip pull ups. With plenty of abduction and adduction. No shrugging. And full range of motion. I do these things with nunchucks. But not with a straight bar. And I've packed on 6 kgs through the year (mostly good weight).

And it took me a minute and 58 seconds.

I might give it a shot next week and the week after as well.

The goal is straightforward: the more efficiently you finish the target repetitions, your capacity to do more in a single attempt should also benefit from this.

There are caveats. You can't be relaxed about it. And you can't lowball your effort.

You can use this for push ups, dips, inverted rows or pull ups. But be sure to scale things appropriately. And not pick a move that is impossibly tough to begin with.


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