I am thinking of adding weighted pull ups to my workouts. I currently do 50 BW pull ups once a week. Sets of 10,10,10,8,7,5. What would a good starting weight be.
Whatever you can lift. Just add weight until your in your desired rep range. It depends on your strength and weight, which you know more about than us.
Sandy, are you Sandy Holt of Bolton fame? On a completely unrelated topic to your question, do you know of any thai clubs in the south Manc area?
I'm 185 and use between 25 & 40 lbs for sets of 5 (weight varies depending on how regular I do them).
I had always had a plateu of 10-12 reps without weight. I did this routing for a few months and did 18 un-weighted no problem!
I did raise some eyebrows at the hardware store getting the chain and links for my weight belt. As I'm measuring from my navel down with the chain the guy who was going to cut it for me finally asked "and, uh...I'm curious..just what are you going to do with this?". He lauged when I told him...he thought I was into S&M.
I think you should use different, like the ladders Pavel has in PTP, start out with just doing sets of five without extra weight, than progressively increase until you're on a weight where you can barely get 3-4 reps. Then start over slightly higher.
Sandy, I would go for a 1rm or a 3rm just like you would with any other lift, and then use that to do a typical strength-gaining set/rep scheme like with other upper-body lifts. This is what I did, and I am very happy with the results. I weigh 145lbs, and I now do 5x5 working up to 55lbs on the last two sets (supinated grip, I do chin-ups instead of pull-ups).
Thanks
btw, I am not the real Sandy Holt, I just play him on mma.tv.
here is the link for the ladder and synaptic facilitation articles:
http://www.trainforstrength.com/ex-10.shtml