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.

[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!)

[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.

[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.

[mylkqueen.livejournal.com]

Thats beyond awesome!

Envious!

[manley1.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the newfound strength!

[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.

[alchemi.livejournal.com]

Kick ass.

[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

[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.

[faustin.livejournal.com]

Ummmmm... for the record, the kip I'm describing is the traditional swing kip. Some crossfitters call it the Eva T kip (after Eva Twardokens).

There's another kip, which I use, which gets called the butterfly kip, BFK, or even AFT kip (after the guy who first demo'd it with huge power and speed in a competition). But... one thing at a time. The trad kip has been around longer and has a lot more how-to developed and people using it, so start there. The butterfly kip (it looks like a butterfly swim stroke) is more difficult.

Both kips work by translating lateral motion to vertical motion. The traditional swing kip gets the lateral motion from the whole-body swing. The butterfly kip gets the lateral motion from a really powerful leg cycle as you're dropping down from the bar and uses the cycle to rebound the body back up.

But damn I say too much. Pardon.

[dg76.livejournal.com]

on the contrary! i'm finding this all very fascinating. thanks for sharing. are you a trainer?

[faustin.livejournal.com]

Yes, trainer. I think fitfool was partly inspired by this entry I wrote a while back: http://www.vcrossfit.com/200805/developing-your-first-pull-ups/

Listen up. DO NOT be embarrassed or ashamed to use the gravitron / pull-up assistance machine.

The gyms are packed with losers who let what-other-people-see influence their workouts. The winners are people who don't give a damn what all the spectators see, but simply do the work necessary. The necessary work is often unglamorous, and EVERYONE could be embarrassed by it. We have such strong sensitivity to glamour and looking good! And judged by glamour, true work rarely makes the cut. But it's the true work which pays off in the end. Worrying about what other people is the worst handicap you can impose on yourself. The ignorant will judge you by glamour, I suppose. The knowledgeable and the true will judge you by performance and hard work, and will be able to recognize it.

The gravitron or pull-up assistance machine can help you.

A fixed plan, which you *stick to* when you go into the gym, is also a key to success. If you don't have a fixed plan which you actually force yourself to complete, you'll try a pull-up or some other accessory exercise, then walk away -- because it's tough.

[dg76.livejournal.com]

oh, i definitely don't have any delusions of looking glamorous at the gym! haha. i'm all about getting down to business... but when it comes to strengthening the upper body i don't always know what i should be doing. and i have never been able to do a pull up, or used the gravitron, so i don't want to do things all wrong... but you're right... i should just ask someone who works there for the right way to use it and get me started.

[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.

[jazzbird.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[shelikesclots.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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?)

[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.

[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

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Oh and if you want to get a starting idea, try searching for "assisted pull-up machine" and see if any of the photos or videos look like what you have at your gym. Here's one

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

*grin* Thanks!