Primary Goal of Level

The goal of Level 8 is to maintain the ability to be able to do a set of 15-20 strict pull-ups with minimal effort each week.

A Note About the Maintenance Phase

If you’ve read the Periodization article you may recall that I break the progression of a movement into two primary phases.

• The Prep Phase: This is the time where we develop the skill to the level we set out to. In the case of the Pull-Up, we set out to be able to perform 15-20 Strict Pull-Ups in a row. During this time, we are spending a not-insignificant portion of our training time towards developing that skill.
• The Maintenance Phase: In this phase, we are spending the least amount of our training time/volume in order to maintain the skill. For example, in Level 7 of the pull-up program, you had three workouts a week and additionally may have been greasing the groove. This means you may have been doing pull-ups 3-6 days a week! The great thing is that once we can do 15-20 pull-ups then it doesn’t take much effort to keep it.

We are now in the Maintenance phase. So we will be spending minimal time each week on the two-arm pull-up to maintain the ability to perform 15-20 pull-ups. Pretty awesome, right?

Now that we are nearing the end of the pull-up program, this leaves a few options for you to pick from.

• First, you can spend about 5-10 minutes a week maintaining your 15-20 pull-ups. This is a great option if you want to spend more time acquiring other movement abilities.
• Second, you can maintain the 15-20 pull-ups and work towards doing heavier weighted pull-ups. This is a great option if you are interested in barbell strength training or specifically want a thicker and stronger back.
• Third, you can maintain the 15-20 pull-ups and begin working towards the one-arm pull-up. The one-arm pull-up is the epitome of upper-body pulling strength and will take you 6-12 months to acquire that skill.

Maintenance Workout

This last section of the program will show you how to maintain 15-20 pull-ups. It is dead simple.

There are many ways to maintain your 15-20 pull-up ability. Here is how I would suggest you do it. One a week perform Workout 1. Do that for as long as you want to keep this skill.

Easy, right?

Then as you acquire more and more skills, you just have a ‘maintenance’ day once a week. At the time of writing this, I have a ‘maintenance day that I do 2-3 times a month that has about 15 skills that I’ve worked hard to acquire and want to keep.

Order	Focus	Movement	Sets	Reps or Hold Length	Rest	Tempo
A1	Specific Warm Up	Passive Hand	1	60 Seconds	as needed
B1	Maintain	Strict Pull-Up	2 to 3	15 to 20 Reps	as needed