Two Weeks of This Workout Brought Me Closer to the Perfect Pull-Up.
I did that chin-up routine that we published two weeks ago, and you know what? It works . In the beginning, I could do about half of the pull-ups, but now I can pull my nose up to the bar. I’ve also more than doubled the amount of time I can hang from the bar with my arms bent. This is how I did it.
The plan requires you to do a specific workout two to three times a week. I chose three, so I did it six times. Full details of the workout can be found at the link above, but here’s a rundown of the movements:
- Wall slides , just to train properly to activate the shoulder muscles
- Scap pull-ups to work out the bottom of the pull-up.
- Wood saws with carriage feet
- Chair Pull-ups : The real thing, except you put your foot on the chair. This way you can maintain as much weight as you need.
- Croc Row , when you bend over and pull a heavy dumbbell to chest level.
- Pull-ups with tape , performed with an elastic tape looped around the bar.
I did this workout at home because I already had a key piece of equipment: a pull-up bar installed in a door frame. If you don’t have one, this type of rod can be hung on the door frame without special equipment; You can also look for a suitable bar on the playground, or simply head to the gym.
The workout also requires the use of several other pieces of equipment: an expander, a pair of sliders that you can place under your feet, and a good heavy dumbbell or kettlebell (I used 30-pound dumbbells). If you are used to studying at home, you probably already have these things. If not, then a shopping trip awaits you. Each item is fairly cheap, but expect to pay $ 50 or more, not counting the ingot.
After the first week, I began to worry that these exercises were exacerbating an old shoulder injury. So I was sliding up the wall in the air and not the wall and that seemed to help. I paid even closer attention to my form on the sawmills and replaced the Croc deadlifts, where you jerk the weight, with a regular dumbbell row at a steady pace.
The only thing that was annoying about this workout was that it took a very long time. It took me three to five minutes to fully rest between sets of deadlifts or pull-ups with an assistant. In total, this simple workout took about half an hour.
results
Don’t expect “hanging out like a bag of meat” to achieve the perfect pull-up in two weeks. Since you can’t count reps if you can’t do pull-ups, the workout creators offer you three ways to test your strength. You will do the same test again at the end of the program. Ask someone to spend time with you, or better yet, film you doing what you can:
- Dead Hanging: Just hold onto the bar for as long as possible.
- Hollow-body dangling: Hold on to the bar, “lower your shoulder blades into your back pockets” and tighten your abs.
- Hanging on a bent arm: Start in a chin-up position (jump on it or climb up there with a chair) and stay in that position for as long as possible.
Before starting the workout, I tried hanging on a bent arm and lasted 8.4 seconds. In comparison, I was able to do about half of the pull-ups with my arms raised about 90 degrees, and I could almost raise my forehead to the height of the bar while pulling up. (The difference is that your palms are facing away from you into the chin up, but up towards you, into the chin. The chin up is easier.)
After two weeks of training, I gave myself a day off and then got tested again. My bent arm hung more than double, from 8.4 seconds to 20.7 seconds. (My form looked better too.) I tried to pull up, and although I couldn’t do a full rep, I was almost ready – I pressed my nose against the bar. But the main winner here was my pull-up:
Yeah, this is a full pull-up from the chest to the bar. This workout pays the bills, folks.