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

[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 :)

[razz.livejournal.com]

Woot! You make me want to get a pull-up bar!