Key Areas of Progressions

Vertical Pulling Strength

Increasing the amount you are able to lift in the vertical pull movement pattern will be the most crucial aspect of being able to perform the archer pull up. The archer pull up requires a great deal of strength in order to perform with precision. Individuals with very strong pull up metrics will easily be able to perform the archer press up, so it should be the main focus when working towards the archer press up.

Sets and Reps

Building strength in the vertical pull range will involve lifting a weight that you consider very heavy (85+%) for few reps, usually between 3-6. Try and perform 8-12 sets of vertical pulling strength in your week. This will ensure you are training the most important physical characteristic to achieve your goal. This means you may select two exercises and spread them across two different sessions.

Sample Exercises Selection

Weighted Pull Ups

Tempo Pull Ups

Lat Pull Downs

Unilateral Horizontal Pulling Strength

Another important physiological attribute will be unilateral horizontal pulling strength. This however is not as important as vertical pulling strength. This again will aim at increasing the amount of force production the muscles in the back can perform, through the same principles. Lifting something “heavy” for minimal repetitions.

Sample Exercises

Horizontal Pulling Muscular Endurance

Horizontal muscular endurance is the final physiological characteristic I would add into a progression for archer pull ups. Although muscular endurance is not the characteristic which is going to make or break your goal completion it will likely be very beneficial and maybe help build some more muscle mass. I would stick with bodyweight variations just the specificity if this is a short term goal. If this is a very long term goal and will take more than 6 months to perform I would use a mixture of body weight and free weight exercises.

Muscular endurance will involve using high repetition ranges of 15+. Sets would be from 4-8 per sessions, I would only touch on this one session per week when the goal is performing your first archer pull up.

Sample Exercises

Summary

Vertical Pulling Strength - 2 Exercises, between 8-12 sets sets per week

Single Arm Horizontal Pulling - 1 Exercises, between 4-6 sets per week

Horizontal muscular endurance - 1 Exercises, between 4-6 sets per week

Organisation of Training

Once you have selected your exercises, you will need to build a training block with other elements that you would like to maintain or progress in conjunction. I am assuming that if you are interested in performing the archer pull up you will also need to squat, hinge, press etc. Then once you have built your training training block, use progressive overload appropriately on each exercise.