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

[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.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

The main thing that's keeping me from doing full kipping pull-ups is lack of coordination. (well that and the bar isn't ultra stable if I swing on it) But I've watched some of the 'hot to do a kipping pull-up' videos on youtube and haven't gotten it yet. I do hope to be able to do both the kipping pull-ups as well as the dead-hang style. (and way far in the future, some of the other show-off moves like somehow doing pull-ups at a 45-degree angle to the ground)

I've got no beef with either of the two approaches to building strength.