If you want to increase your pulling strength without much effort, get a pullup bar and put it in a doorway in your home. Then just make a habit of doing pullups every time you walk by. This is remarkably effective. I’ve been doing this for two weeks and have seen significant improvement.
It’s important to actually have it on a doorway at all times. Ours was sitting in a closet for several months, and during that time, I used it maybe twice. In the past two weeks, with it actually on a doorway and requiring no effort for me to set up and start using it, I’ve been doing ~5 chinups every day. (The number has been going up as I’ve gotten better at it; I’m looking forward to when I can actually do dead-hang pullups.)
I think a general policy of decreasing the startup cost of doing things you want to do is a useful one. Rewarding yourself helps too, but sometimes you just need to lower the activation energy.
I’ve done, recommended, and been recommended this before and am in wholehearted agreement. I would be remiss however if I did not share a word of caution: that model of pull up bar leaves black marks, and after extended use, will probably dent a wooden door frame. I do not know of a model of that type that does not share this design flaw.
I recall doing exactly that in junior high, and increasing my chin-up count from 0 to 12 or so within 3-4 months, without consciously worrying about it. My P.E. teacher was impressed. In retrospect, going through puberty must have helped, too.
I can’t do a full pullup either. A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t even really do a chin-up (though I used to be able to). I just did assisted / negatives, which for me means… Jump! Then lower yourself down as slowly as you can. And jump a little bit less every time until you can do it without using your legs at all.
And then once you can do it from standing level, you work up to doing it from a dead hang somehow. I’m hazy on the details there because I’ve never gotten that far myself.
Assuming you don’t have access to a gym, one thing to try is to obtain a strong theraband. Hold the band with both arms out in front of you, elbows slightly bent, and extend your arms out to your sides. You should feel this in the upper back muscles. If this gets easy, double up the band. Eventually that should provide enough upper back strength to try a pull-up. (You’ll also need to do some biceps training, which you could also do with an anchored theraband, or with household objects, if you don’t want to obtain dumbbells.)
If you have easy access to a gym with machines (e.g. if you are a student), one of those machines is hopefully an assisted pull-up machine which will let you add counter-weight as necessary.
I realize I got to this thread a bit late but here are two things you can do:
Pull-up negatives. Use your legs to jump up to the top of a pull-up position and then lower yourself as slowly as possible.
Banded pull-ups. This might be tricky to set up in a doorway but if you can, tie a resistance band at a height where you can kneel on it while doing pull-ups and the band will help push you up.
For those that don’t have a convenient place to hang a pullup bar, or as a general alternative/addon, I recommend dumbbells. I bought a nice set (2 x 20kg, 0.5, 1.25, 2, 5kg increments) for around $100 and cancelled my gym membership. They paid for themselves in 2 months time. Now I’m saving money and more fit then ever because I actually workout, instead of making excuses why not to go to the gym (it’s too cooold, it’s raaaining, I don’t have tiiiime, etc.)
Not sure if I can recommend this suggestion, because for me exactly the opposite worked out fine.
I never used fitness crap lying around my home regularly but once I started paying for a gym membership there was no way I would just stay at home and pay for nothing.
In other words I used the sunken cost fallacy for my benefit.
Once I was more advanced it wasn’t the money I spent on my membership that kept me going but knowing that I’ll actually get weaker if I started to only go 2 times a week instead of keeping up my 3 times a week routine. So every time I didn’t visit my full 3 days a week it felt like I essentially wasted a few of my last trips to the gym because I wouldn’t see any progress and at the very best just keep my performance at a plateau.
I trained quite hard for 1,5 years and missed maybe 4 training sessions, until a knee injury from squatting with too much weight coupled with moving to a new location put a stop to my training days.
So far not too much; I’ve been adapting some exercise routines from The 4-Hour Body which has a strongly minimalist approach. Shoulder Press (seated), Bench Press, Kneeling Rows, and Squats. Doing just the basics seems to be working!
Nick Winter used a similar scheme (albeit with a towel) & found that not only did he get better at pullups, his 1 mile time & bench press improved as well!
For someone who is overweight, and a lot of people are, losing weight is also a great way to increase your pullup quantity. (not to mention a host of other health benefits) Though, some would argue that it is easier to just gradually build your strength to do pullups than to drop 20-30 lbs.
you can get rings to hang from the pullup bar and be able to do dips. Or just do dips between two chairs if you have sturdy chairs. Between the two you have a pretty good upper body workout if you can’t get to a gym.
If you don’t have access to a gym, a playground may also suffice. Although I suspect steroids mays also be involved in this case (it gets particularly insane around the 3 minute mark).
I don’t know about you, Romeo, as far as I can tell comparison to pornstars are also problematic for men, even discounting the roided to the gills gentlemen of the pornstar persuasion.
I completely agree with that. I like looking at the exercises for possible inspiration; I’m not interested in comparing my body to his body. (Also, FWIW, I’ve been asked if I’m on steroids before, despite never having used them. Appearances can be deceiving, though that seems highly unlikely in his case.)
Is that a normal playground? I’ve seen pullup bars at a few, but I’ve only ever seen those walk-across-on-your-hands bars at fitness-oriented playground-type things.
Yeah, that looks to me like an outdoor fitness installation, not a playground. Those aren’t too hard to find, though, at least around where I live; most high schools or colleges of any size have one, and I’ve also seen a few near practice fields or parks popular with runners.
Back in the Seventies there was a fad for public fitness trails with a lot of the same equipment, which might do in a pinch. Those will be a lot more spread out, though, and a lot of them are in pretty bad shape four decades on.
Edit; misread this. Even regular playgrounds are good for workouts though, plenty don’t have pullup bars, but monkeybars can perform the same function. I use a playground for my own workouts.
Couldn’t say; I haven’t been there. (If you see videos more recent than that one, since H4K became sort-of-famous, he actually outfitted his playground with all sorts of interesting stuff that wasn’t originally there.)
But a pull up bar (or a swing set) and parallel bars (or any two parallel objects you can hold onto) are enough to do a variety of interesting exercises. (BTW, I assume you know that if you take the Iron Gym you already have and put it on the floor, you can actually use it to do triceps dips as well.)
If you want to increase your pulling strength without much effort, get a pullup bar and put it in a doorway in your home. Then just make a habit of doing pullups every time you walk by. This is remarkably effective. I’ve been doing this for two weeks and have seen significant improvement.
It’s important to actually have it on a doorway at all times. Ours was sitting in a closet for several months, and during that time, I used it maybe twice. In the past two weeks, with it actually on a doorway and requiring no effort for me to set up and start using it, I’ve been doing ~5 chinups every day. (The number has been going up as I’ve gotten better at it; I’m looking forward to when I can actually do dead-hang pullups.)
$20 on Amazon.
I think a general policy of decreasing the startup cost of doing things you want to do is a useful one. Rewarding yourself helps too, but sometimes you just need to lower the activation energy.
I’ve done, recommended, and been recommended this before and am in wholehearted agreement. I would be remiss however if I did not share a word of caution: that model of pull up bar leaves black marks, and after extended use, will probably dent a wooden door frame. I do not know of a model of that type that does not share this design flaw.
I recall doing exactly that in junior high, and increasing my chin-up count from 0 to 12 or so within 3-4 months, without consciously worrying about it. My P.E. teacher was impressed. In retrospect, going through puberty must have helped, too.
What if you’re not capable of doing a pullup? (I’ve never been able to do one.)
I can’t do a full pullup either. A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t even really do a chin-up (though I used to be able to). I just did assisted / negatives, which for me means… Jump! Then lower yourself down as slowly as you can. And jump a little bit less every time until you can do it without using your legs at all.
And then once you can do it from standing level, you work up to doing it from a dead hang somehow. I’m hazy on the details there because I’ve never gotten that far myself.
Assuming you don’t have access to a gym, one thing to try is to obtain a strong theraband. Hold the band with both arms out in front of you, elbows slightly bent, and extend your arms out to your sides. You should feel this in the upper back muscles. If this gets easy, double up the band. Eventually that should provide enough upper back strength to try a pull-up. (You’ll also need to do some biceps training, which you could also do with an anchored theraband, or with household objects, if you don’t want to obtain dumbbells.)
If you have access to gym equipment, then pull-downs with a lat bar and bent over rowing train most of the muscles you will need.
If you have easy access to a gym with machines (e.g. if you are a student), one of those machines is hopefully an assisted pull-up machine which will let you add counter-weight as necessary.
I realize I got to this thread a bit late but here are two things you can do:
Pull-up negatives. Use your legs to jump up to the top of a pull-up position and then lower yourself as slowly as possible.
Banded pull-ups. This might be tricky to set up in a doorway but if you can, tie a resistance band at a height where you can kneel on it while doing pull-ups and the band will help push you up.
Wide push-ups will get you partway there, which the same tool is actually pretty good for (flip it over on the floor).
For those that don’t have a convenient place to hang a pullup bar, or as a general alternative/addon, I recommend dumbbells. I bought a nice set (2 x 20kg, 0.5, 1.25, 2, 5kg increments) for around $100 and cancelled my gym membership. They paid for themselves in 2 months time. Now I’m saving money and more fit then ever because I actually workout, instead of making excuses why not to go to the gym (it’s too cooold, it’s raaaining, I don’t have tiiiime, etc.)
Not sure if I can recommend this suggestion, because for me exactly the opposite worked out fine.
I never used fitness crap lying around my home regularly but once I started paying for a gym membership there was no way I would just stay at home and pay for nothing.
In other words I used the sunken cost fallacy for my benefit.
Once I was more advanced it wasn’t the money I spent on my membership that kept me going but knowing that I’ll actually get weaker if I started to only go 2 times a week instead of keeping up my 3 times a week routine. So every time I didn’t visit my full 3 days a week it felt like I essentially wasted a few of my last trips to the gym because I wouldn’t see any progress and at the very best just keep my performance at a plateau.
I trained quite hard for 1,5 years and missed maybe 4 training sessions, until a knee injury from squatting with too much weight coupled with moving to a new location put a stop to my training days.
What do you do with the dumbbells? I’m curious because I only know a few things to do with them, and they’re all mostly upper-body.
So far not too much; I’ve been adapting some exercise routines from The 4-Hour Body which has a strongly minimalist approach. Shoulder Press (seated), Bench Press, Kneeling Rows, and Squats. Doing just the basics seems to be working!
Hold them and do squats, hold them and jump, do either of those on one foot rather than two. Thosr are passable lower body barbell exercises.
Nick Winter used a similar scheme (albeit with a towel) & found that not only did he get better at pullups, his 1 mile time & bench press improved as well!
For someone who is overweight, and a lot of people are, losing weight is also a great way to increase your pullup quantity. (not to mention a host of other health benefits) Though, some would argue that it is easier to just gradually build your strength to do pullups than to drop 20-30 lbs.
you can get rings to hang from the pullup bar and be able to do dips. Or just do dips between two chairs if you have sturdy chairs. Between the two you have a pretty good upper body workout if you can’t get to a gym.
If you don’t have access to a gym, a playground may also suffice. Although I suspect steroids mays also be involved in this case (it gets particularly insane around the 3 minute mark).
Learning to not compare yourself to roided to the gills gentlemen for men is similar to learning to not compare yourself to pornstars for women.
I don’t know about you, Romeo, as far as I can tell comparison to pornstars are also problematic for men, even discounting the roided to the gills gentlemen of the pornstar persuasion.
Well sure, porn is problematic for both genders in that it causes weird ideas about what constitutes good sex.
I completely agree with that. I like looking at the exercises for possible inspiration; I’m not interested in comparing my body to his body. (Also, FWIW, I’ve been asked if I’m on steroids before, despite never having used them. Appearances can be deceiving, though that seems highly unlikely in his case.)
Is that a normal playground? I’ve seen pullup bars at a few, but I’ve only ever seen those walk-across-on-your-hands bars at fitness-oriented playground-type things.
Yeah, that looks to me like an outdoor fitness installation, not a playground. Those aren’t too hard to find, though, at least around where I live; most high schools or colleges of any size have one, and I’ve also seen a few near practice fields or parks popular with runners.
Back in the Seventies there was a fad for public fitness trails with a lot of the same equipment, which might do in a pinch. Those will be a lot more spread out, though, and a lot of them are in pretty bad shape four decades on.
Yeah, there is one of those trails (somewhat) near where I live! That was what I was thinking of when I saw the video.
Edit; misread this. Even regular playgrounds are good for workouts though, plenty don’t have pullup bars, but monkeybars can perform the same function. I use a playground for my own workouts.
Couldn’t say; I haven’t been there. (If you see videos more recent than that one, since H4K became sort-of-famous, he actually outfitted his playground with all sorts of interesting stuff that wasn’t originally there.)
But a pull up bar (or a swing set) and parallel bars (or any two parallel objects you can hold onto) are enough to do a variety of interesting exercises. (BTW, I assume you know that if you take the Iron Gym you already have and put it on the floor, you can actually use it to do triceps dips as well.)