Day 232 - Superman?!

nope, still not superman

I'm currently learning photography, Tai Chi, slacklining, skateboarding, and looping, together with following my Aged 50 Challenge Series, blogging daily, brushing up on my guitar playing, and being increasingly busy at work...so I have decided it's about time to add a new challenge to the programme! 

Whilst randomly browsing yesterday, I came across the Twenty Pull-ups Challenge.   

A pull-up is where you hang from a solid bar with straight arms (and critically, palms facing away from, not towards you) and feet off the floor, then pull your body upwards until your chin is above the bar, finally lowering back to straight arms again. 

Now I don't know whether you've ever tried pull-ups, but they're very hard.   Most men can only manage around 1-2 at best, and the vast majority of women can't do any.  I read a statistic once that said that the average number of pull-ups that a 20-25 year old woman in the US Military can do is...none!  It's all about shoulder strength, which gives men a distinct advantage...although its fair to say that many men can't do any either!  

A few years ago when I started doing weights, I also started trying to do pull-ups.  It took months of trying before I could get any upward momentum at all, and only then by starting with arms half bent already.

Over the 5 years or so since then, I've done them on and off, as they're clearly good for upper body strength...obviously this is very handy when climbing!

I think the most I've ever done is about seven, and it's only been in the last year or so that I've been able to do them with any sort of decent form, using full range of motion from straight arms to chin well above the bar (or head on ceiling, as it works out with the handy fingerboard I have mounted above a doorway at home).

To give some context on the subject of how hard it is to do 20 pull-ups, consider this:

The U.S Military tests it's Marines for fitness, and rates them in several categories.  For pull-ups, the highest achievable score is 20 or more. 

So the Twenty Pull-ups Challenge provides a 6-8 week schedule of exercise that aims to enable you to do twenty pull-ups by the end of the period - it's clearly a very challenging target!  

The first thing to do is to perform an initial test, which simply comprises doing as many pull-ups in one go as you can.   The number of pull-ups you can do dictates your schedule for the first three weeks of the challenge.  If you do less than three, then you have to do a full 8 week programme. 

Otherwise you do a six week programme, with the exact schedule depending on whether you did 3-5, 6-9 or 10+ on the test. 

Here's video evidence of my starting point:



So my score was six.  I might have done one or two more, but I knew I wasn't going to get to ten, and so lost motivation following the hard sixth pull-up!

Anna can do a few pull-ups (because she's awesome), so tomorrow we will start the six week programme, which will take us neatly up to our forthcoming trip to Fontainebleau. 

We just have to spend 15 minutes each Monday, Wednesday and Friday doing sets of pull-ups according to the schedule.

Hopefully it will lead to some good strength gains, and mean that our shoulders are in good shape for a weeks bouldering in La Foret de Fontainebleau!

I'll let you know how we progress...

B-)