Brag Post: Two Pull-ups!

[fitfool]

Thanks to all of you who offered advice and tips on how to work up to doing pull-ups. I work from home and the pull-up bar is in the doorway of my home office. So I kept trying stuff on the bar whenever I walked by it. I tried a mishmash of the various suggestions I could do. Lots of bent-arm hangs, slow negatives (jump up and then lower myself from bar) and assisted pull-ups whenever my boyfriend was around to help push me up over the bar. At the gym, I focused on the Gravitron (for assisted pull-ups and dips), lat pull-downs, and any machines that said they helped make my back stronger.

And especially thanks to all you women who posted that you could do a pull-up (and even several of them!). It made it seem that much more possible with enough work. (http://community.livejournal.com/gymrats/1831348.html)

Questions:
1. My body just folds up when I try to lift myself up. Is it trying to doggy-paddle its way towards a kipping pull-up?

2. Does it make it easier to do a pull-up when my legs come up too? I need to concentrate to try to keep my waist straight and if I do so, I can only do one at a time so far. My boyfriend's legs come up naturally straight so he ends up in an L-shape when his chin is above the bar.

OK...maybe it's not a big deal for some of you but I've never been able to do two pull-ups in my life. I was so happy about it that I called up my sister to boast. Her husband picked up the phone.

Me: Oh Hi! I was calling to brag to my sister but I can brag to you too.
Sister's husband: Ok...Go ahead. Let's hear it.
Sister (noticing the anticipating-big-news tone in his voice): She's getting marrried?!

My sister got on the phone afterwards to congratulate me for the pull-ups too (though I don't think she was as excited as if I had gotten engaged)

Cross-posted to gymrats

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

oooh go you!

I need to start doing reverse pull-ups. I may never get strong enough (or shrink enough) do to real pullups, but anything counts.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You might surprise yourself. I've been doing assisted pull-ups on the Gravitron machine at the gym haphazardly for a long time. And then moving to my full body weight, I could barely hang for 5-10 seconds at first. But just kept trying and then one day I had the thrill of crossing that bar. Really cool feeling.

[hanseth.livejournal.com]

Color me super-impressed! You look buff and great, and I bet it feels great to be so strong, too.

(Edited for icon!)

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks. My boyfriend has figured out that instead of telling me I'm beautiful, he'll get a bigger pleased smile if he says, "My sweetie's tough!" (what is cloits and dloits?)

[itsacountry.livejournal.com]

AWESOME!!! Go you! Seriously, that's fantastic. I totally knew you could do it!

Concerning the legs coming up, it is a kipping motion. Focus on letting your body relax, while still hardening your abs and lower back. It's harder, like you mentioned.

Really, there's nothing wrong with kipping. It's not a true dead-hang, but a workout is a workout. All I can really speak for is the Marine Corps standards, which don't allow the knees to come above the waist, or any swinging motion.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Is that you in your icon? I want to work my way up to muscles like that! Thanks for the explantion about the leg movement. Now I'll have to go back and work on doing them the Marine Corps way too.

[dg76.livejournal.com]

ooooh, you're my new hero!

what do you do at the gym? i want to be able to build up to doing at least one pull-up too. i'm afraid of looking like an idiot on one of those assisted pull-up machines though. i might have to suck it up and ask someone who works there.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I haven't been following a set exercise plan since I only go in about once a week on the weekends for 60-90 minutes (which usually includes chatting with this one guy who kind of adopted me and gave me the bug to try doing pull-ups and dips). I tend to wander from machine to machine as they become available and based on which parts of me feel strong enough to try them. One's I definitely tried to get in for my back included:
- Gravitron assisted pull-ups and dips
- Lat Pulldowns
- Seated Row
-----
Other exercises that show up frequently in my notebook:
- Bench presses (flat, incline, or decline)
- Leg and Knee Lifts on Captains Chair
- Leg Presses (now trying to learn to do barbell squats instead)
- Back Extensions (holding a weight plate)
- triceps pulldowns (straight, rope, angled handles)
- Dumbbell shoulder presses

[mylkqueen.livejournal.com]

Thats beyond awesome!

Envious!

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

*grin* Thanks!

[manley1.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the newfound strength!

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm a very happy puppy.

[fixnwrtr.livejournal.com]

Good for you, but using your legs like that means your arms aren't taking all the weight. If you want to strengthen your back, Pilates is the answer. That will do it because it works all the girdle muscles.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

oh interesting. Thanks for that explanation of why it feels easier to do with raising my legs. I've been curious about Pilates but those classes charge an extra fee at my gym so I've never tried it. Which ones are the girdle muscles? I'll try other exercise to try targeting those muscles.

[alchemi.livejournal.com]

Kick ass.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

*grin* Thanks!

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I'm very proud of you!

I've been exercising since school let out...curls...with a glass of sweet tea in my hand. :D

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Sweet tea sounds like a wonderful post-run drink :)

[faustin.livejournal.com]

The short answer is Yes, lifting your knees makes it easier.

Your body knows this: it prefers the rowing-angle to the pulling-straight-up-overhead angle. The lats connect to the upper arm across the scapulae, so they have an angle coming from behind or across the back --- so they're stronger if they're rowing an object toward your chest with your back almost perpendicular to the line of pull. When you curl your knees up, you enable your lats to pull at this stronger angle.


The next step for you is a fast 1-2 step: (1)curl those knees up explosively, then (2)even more explosively open your hips to throw your upper body towards the bar. This is the essential heart of the kip.

The other parts of it are two, 1) start from a swing, and 2) push away from the bar at the top - like a push-up or bench press - to cycle your body backwards and feed yourself back into the swing.

These steps to the kip, the swing, the knees-up, and the opening-the-hips, are why I designed the assistance exercises and billed them as drills to develop the pull-up. They are precisely that. The assistance exercises included swings, knees-to-elbows, L-sits. They get you comfortable with the kipping components while building your grip and hang strength, all of which will feed right into kipping pull-ups.

If you've got a problem with kipping pull-ups, let me know so we can discuss it. This is one of the most trenchant dogmas in the fitness world, and sadly, one of the most counterproductive and wrong-headed.

[faustin.livejournal.com]

People who habitually think in terms of bodybuilding-brainwashedness will say you need to "isolate the muscles!" (eg. the arms, the back, etc). This is bullshit. The better your performance, the more work you do, the more power you exert -- this is better in terms of all the metrics that really matter. So if you can do more pull-ups with your knees up, you're getting more out of it. Period. Performance is the first and ultimate standard. The enhanced performance will actually feed a positive feedback loop which will make you better at the inferior and stupid "isolate the muscles!" posture... so you'll progress at both, better than if you stuck with the isolate-the-muscles guidance. This has been demonstrated time and again. On both theoretical grounds / in debate, and more importantly by examining results and performance, I can bury anyone who advocates the bodybuilding / isolationist approach.

[jessacord.livejournal.com]

Those are awesome videos! Congratulations, it is so hard to do pullups or chinups! Are you left handed or is your right wrist the injured one? I'm asking because I noticed that you seem to be initiating/leading your pulling motions with your left arm.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Strange isn't it? I'm right-handed and my left wrist is the injured one. But in all the years I've strength-trained, my left arm always seemed a tad bit stronger. I'm not the slightest bit ambidextrous so I'm glad it was my left wrist and not the right one that developed problems.

[jazzbird.livejournal.com]

Woo hoo!!! That's so cool. I was never one for arm strength.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Me neither...that's why it's so exciting for me now. :)

[razz.livejournal.com]

You're so badass!!!! Sorry for the swear, but that was awesome AND inspiring. I guess if you keep trying, you'll start building the muscles you need to make them feel more natural.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

That's the goal...I want to be able to do pull-ups like it's no big deal. There's one man at the gym who kind of adopted me one morning when I was doing bench presses. (pointed out a few things on form and safety) After running into each other at the gym for a few weeks, (and being my informal trainer), he took me around to a few things and had me try to do a pull-up (not a chance), a dip (shocked me how difficult it was...I couldn't do one of those either), and some other things that I've forgotten. So I've been on a kick to try to bang out a pull-up or dip since then. That was last fall I think. So last weekend, when I saw him at the gym, I said, "Hey Jorge, watch this!" and I jumped up and grabbed the parallel pull-up grips and banged out TWO of them. He laughed "HEY! You can do them! Remember before you couldn't even do one of them!" (He hadn't known that I've been trying hard to figure out how to do those all this time.) I felt so badass :)

[shelikesclots.livejournal.com]

that's fantastic! kind of inspiring, too. :D

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Will you be on your own campaign for pull-ups too, now?

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

5 pullups? That sounds plenty strong to me. I thought I was strong enough to go rock climbing even when I couldn't do a single pull-up! (granted, it rather limited how difficult a route I could pick). But yeah...I'm actually pretty thrilled with my imperfect pull-ups. It's a big deal to me :) I would like to try boxing but I'm afraid of getting hit in the face since I wear glasses (and not wearing them isn't an option for me...I'm as good as blind without glasses)

Awesome!

[bob-mars.livejournal.com]

You're really making some serious progress!

Here's a book you might really come to treasure...

Bodyweight Exercises for Extraordinary Strength. Brad Johnson
from Ironmind. www.ironmind.com (powerlifting, strength training)

http://www6.mailordercentral.com/ironmind/prodinfo.asp?number=1396

God Bless!

Re: Awesome!

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll look for this book at the library. Do you do strength training too?

[swordofthejedi.livejournal.com]

fantastic!!! i've never been able to do one...unless you count the weight-assissted machines at the gym, which i don't :-)

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I count the assistance machines one...but I count them as assisted pull-ups :)

[vereorc.livejournal.com]

I totally meant to reply back when I first read this, but I have such a big backlog of posts to reply to! Anyway, my husband has been trying to follow the fitness program on crossfit.com for a few months now. And everytime I think about his doing that, I automatically think of you. Whenever I glance over his shoulders at his screen when he's watching one of the video demonstrations of the fit girls at crossfit, I think of you!

Anyway, just thought you might want to check it out.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointer! There are a couple folks on my f-list who do CrossFit and they've been posting some pretty impressive gains in strength. So I've been doing a few CrossFit-like workouts here and there. I don't follow the WOD that they post online because it's way too hard for me though there is another site that posts scaled-down versions. Mostly I don't follow any certain regimen because I haven't committed to it yet. How has your husband been doing with CrossFit?

[grapefruitgirl.livejournal.com]

im not sure if i can do a pull-up or not. i dont have a bar/place where i can try. but...i have an idea/suggestion that will definitely help you. in addition to your pull-ups, do push some push-ups each day. this will build your arm strength that will help with your pull-ups. if you can't do a full-on push up, then do then modified type where you put your knees on the floor and cross your feet in the air, and then do the push up that way (hope that description makes sense). this'll certainly help you when it comes time to do your pull-ups ;)

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Pushups are key I think. I try to at least do pushups and situps whenever I don't make it to the gym or go running. I do pushups with my feet up on the bed. I can't get the hard modifications still though. (one-armed, hands close together, or handstand pushups are in my mental list of things I want to do some day)

[canyoncat.livejournal.com]

LOL! I don't think I've done a pull-up or chin-up since high school. I doubt I could do even one of either.

Good for you!

[mavx.livejournal.com]

Actually, try turning the fold in your body into an L-shaped pull up. There's videos of this on www.crossfit.com---it's a great way to work different muscles in your arms as well as tone up your abs.