My new old favourite exercise. It’s a compound exercise which works various muscle groups and means that you don’t have to do multiple upper body exercises to build strength and muscle. Because you’re working your back, shoulders, arms and abdominals simultaneously you can save a lot of time at the gym but reap as many benefits as if you were doing several exercises for those body parts.
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| The pull up bar Jarek recently installed on our bathroom door frame |
Some days it’s quite enjoyable to spend an hour or more at the gym weight training. The majority of the time however, time is of the essence and you want to be in and out within 20-30 minutes while still getting a full body workout. The pull up can be of great assistance here, with just one exercise you’re working four body parts.
The truth is, most of us ordinary folk have trouble doing just one proper pull up let alone fifteen of them. It’s a hard exercise but it’s a good one. Today, I can do one pull up, eight years ago a trainer trained me to do fifteen. I want to be able to do that many again.
My strength challenge for the month of March is to complete three unassisted pull ups with decent form. It’s a small number so I hope it’s achievable. Training so far has looked like this;
3 sets of 1 + fourth set where I pull myself up and hold the position for as long as possible which means just a few seconds at the moment with hope of improving in the coming weeks.
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| One down, a few to go |
The next two weeks will look something like this;
Fri – 1, 1, 1 + pull up and hold for 5 seconds
Sun – 1, 1, 1 + pull up and hold for 10 seconds
Wed – 2, 1, 1 + pull up and hold for 10 seconds
Fri – 1, 1, 1 + pull up and hold for 15 seconds
Sun – 2, 1, 1 + pull up and hold for 20 seconds
Wed – 2, 2, 1 + pull up and hold for 20 seconds
Fri – 3, 1, 1 + pull up and hold for 20 seconds
