Have you tried reving your tree? That can help a lot.
A general rule for fruit tree trimming is to prune not more than 1/3 of the total
canopy. To give you a good idea of what a properly pruned tree
should look like; Hold your hand out flat in front of you palm side up, next bring all of the fingertips up and together above the center of your palm, as if you're supporting an invisible tennis ball on your fingertips. Now, your fingers represent the major branches of the fruit tree , and you will notice that none of your fingers crosses your palm but instead are vertical or nearly so. This is a handy trick that I use when I prune peoples trees.
The steps of tree pruning:
1) Cut all the
water sprouts,
2) Cut all the "crossers". These are limbs that cross or grow into the open space (remember your upturned palm and the invisible tennis ball?) in the center of the canopy.
3) Cut limbs that cross or block the sun of fruit bearing limbs.
Now if your trees have not been pruned in some time then you may reach the 1/3 limit before you get past #2 or even finish this #1. So the next general rule is that the top (canopy) feeds the bottom (
roots) and the bottom supports the top. When you break the first rule remember the second, and that your tree will go a little crazy when there is not enough food for the roots. The tree will try to fix this problem by growing a lot more water sprouts (your tree may turn into a bush!). There is a fix for this out burst of water sprouts but it is not something that I would advise a novice to do unsupervised.