50 Pull Ups - 5 sets of 10 or 10 sets of 5

Can you do 5 sets of 10?

When David Goggins performed 4030 pulls in 17 hours, he did sets of five. I think that’s the easiest way to perform a high number of pull ups.

So if you just want to get to 50, then sets of five.

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Can you do 5 sets of 10?

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I can do ~20 dead hang and 5 set of 10 is no problem.

My question is what splits are better for performance.

If your goal is to get to 50 in the fastest time possible then it depends how long it takes you to recover from the bigger sets. For example, if you can do 5x10 with a 3 minute rest between sets as opposed to 10x5 with a 1 minute rest between sets then 10x5 will yield a faster time. If you can do 5x10 with only 90 seconds rest between sets then 5x10 will yield a faster time. It depends on your muscle endurance and work capacity. That is just if you are trying to test yourself. If training though (IMO) the best way to get better at pull-ups is to do a bunch of small sets of perfect pull-ups with adequate rest between each set - grease the groove. 10 sets of 5 perfect pull-ups is better than 5 sets of 10 imperfect pull-ups.

I’m personally of the opinion of shooting for 50

Whether it takes 10 sets of 5 or two sets of 25

I’m currently at 4 sets of 5 so there is that