Stuck at 5 pull-ups or dips? With this simple method, you can improve your muscular endurance and start building more reps.

Get More Pull-Ups: How to Break Through the 5-Rep Plateau

If you keep getting stuck at around five reps on pull-ups, dips, push-ups, or another exercise, that doesn’t automatically mean you’re too weak. Very often, the missing piece is muscular endurance.

In other words: you’re strong enough to perform the exercise, but your muscles fatigue too quickly. The first few reps still feel good, but then suddenly you have nothing left. That’s exactly where you need to train differently if your goal is to increase your reps.

Why You Shouldn’t Only Do Max-Rep Sets

A lot of people make the mistake of constantly testing their maximum number of reps. Every workout looks the same: as many pull-ups as possible, all the way to failure, and that’s it. That can feel motivating in the short term, but it often doesn’t lead to consistent long-term progress.

If you only do max-rep sets, you accumulate very little clean training volume and fatigue quickly. But if your goal is to increase your reps, you need the opposite: lots of clean repetitions, short rest periods, and an intensity you can maintain for multiple rounds.

The Method: 50–60% of Your Max Reps Every Minute

Let’s say your current max is 6 pull-ups. Fifty percent of that would be 3 reps. So you perform 3 pull-ups at the start of every minute. Then you rest for the remainder of that minute, usually around 40–50 seconds, before starting again.

A simple setup could look like this: set a timer for 8 minutes. At the start of each minute, perform 3 clean pull-ups. Then wait until the next minute begins and repeat. By the end, you’ll have completed 24 pull-ups without constantly pushing yourself to failure.

If your max is 5 pull-ups, start with around 2–3 reps per minute. The key is to keep every rep clean. As soon as you start kicking, forcing yourself over the bar, or losing your range of motion, you’ve chosen too many reps.

Why This Method Works

This method trains your muscular endurance by teaching your body to produce repeated efforts with relatively short rest periods.

Your muscles become better at handling fatigue, while you accumulate more clean repetitions than you would with one or two all-out max sets.

And this method isn’t limited to pull-ups. You can also use it for dips, push-ups, handstand push-ups, and other exercises. The important part is adjusting the reps to your current maximum and not starting too aggressively.

How to Use It in Practice

First, test your maximum number of clean reps. Then take around 50–60% of that number.

Perform those reps at the start of every minute for 6–10 rounds. Start a little easier and build up gradually instead of doing too much too soon and falling apart after three rounds.

Example: If your max is 6 pull-ups, perform 3 pull-ups every minute for 8 minutes. If that goes well, you can later increase it to 9 or 10 minutes, or add 4 reps to some of the rounds.

Conclusion

If you’re stuck at 5 or 6 pull-ups, you don’t just need more motivation. You need a method that helps you build more clean training volume without completely exhausting yourself every session.

Train with 50–60% of your max reps every minute, keep your technique clean, and gradually increase the number of rounds.

If you’re unsure how to structure pull-ups, dips, or other skills in your training plan, a personalized training plan or coaching can help you progress faster and with a clear structure.