21-25 Pullups

If you did 21-25 pullups in the test
Day 1 120 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 5 120 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	12	set 1	14
set 2	16	set 2	19
set 3	12	set 3	14
set 4	12	set 4	14
set 5	max (minimum 15)	set 5	max (minimum 19)
Minimum 1 day break		Minimum 1 day break
Day 2 120 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 6 120 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	13	set 1	15
set 2	16	set 2	20
set 3	12	set 3	14
set 4	12	set 4	14
set 5	max (minimum 16)	set 5	max (minimum 20)
Minimum 1 day break		Minimum 2 day break
Day 3 120 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 7 120 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	13	set 1	16
set 2	17	set 2	20
set 3	13	set 3	16
set 4	13	set 4	16
set 5	max (minimum 16)	set 5	max (minimum 20)
Minimum 2 day break		Minimum 1 day break
Day 4 120 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 8 120 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	14	set 1	16
set 2	19	set 2	21
set 3	13	set 3	16
set 4	13	set 4	16
set 5	max (minimum 18)	set 5	max (minimum 20)
Minimum 1 day break		Minimum 1 day break
Day 9 120 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	17
set 2	22
set 3	16
set 4	16
set 5	max (minimum 21)
Minimum 2 day break

Weighted Pull-Ups: How and Why to Add Load

There comes a point where bodyweight pull-ups stop being hard. When you can knock out clean sets without much struggle, hanging weight from a belt is the natural next step. Weighted pull-ups take a movement you've already mastered and turn it back into a genuine challenge, which is exactly what your muscles need to keep adapting.

The main reason to add load is progressive overload, the simple principle that muscles grow and strengthen when you gradually ask more of them. Bodyweight is a fixed ceiling; a weight belt isn't. By adding small increments over time you keep the stimulus high, sidestep the plateau that eventually hits every calisthenics routine, and keep making progress in strength and size. A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2014 compared weighted and unweighted pull-ups and found that adding load increased muscle activation, particularly in the lats and biceps, and a study in the Journal of Applied Biomechanics in 2018 reported meaningful upper-body strength gains among people who trained the weighted version.

The carryover is broad. The pulling muscles you build, the lats, biceps, and trapezius, are the same ones you use to climb, lift, and haul, so strength here tends to show up in other lifts and in everyday tasks. Grip gets a workout too, since holding position while loaded demands a secure, committed grip.

If you want to add weight, do it deliberately. Start with a load that's challenging but manageable, using a dip belt with plates or a weighted vest, and add weight only as the current one starts to feel easy. Keep your form honest: back tight, shoulders down and back, chin clearing the bar, full range of motion, controlled on the way down. Match your reps to your goal, roughly 4 to 6 reps with heavier loads for strength and size, higher reps with lighter loads for endurance, and rest a couple of minutes between hard sets so each one is clean.

A few habits keep it sustainable. Warm up with dynamic stretches and a set or two of unweighted pull-ups first. If you're new to loading up, have a training partner help you add and remove plates. And pay attention to what your body tells you, if form breaks down or something feels off, drop the weight or stop. Treated with a little patience, weighted pull-ups are one of the most reliable ways to keep getting stronger long after the bodyweight version has become routine.