Upper body strength...

ChaleGirl

Ladies, how long did it take you to be able to do exercises such as pull ups.
I haven't been training very long, but have started working out with a trainer. My bottom half is quite strong, but I feel like I really struggle with all the upper body exercises. I can't even lift my own body weight. I also struggle with some of the arm movements when I am working out, and just wondered what time frame it took some of you to develop more upper body strength?

krokador

Well, I've been weight training for over 3 years (started doing workout videos / bodyweight training about 2 years prior to setting foot into the gym) and I still can't do a pull-up, but that might be due to a combination of me actually gaining weight in that time period, and getting injured on a few occasions, because I came close several times.

BUT, I would like to think I have actually gotten stronger on my upper body vs my lower body in that frame of time. Lifts like the overhead press took a while to settle in, but now it's the one I seem to progress the fastest at (at least ratio-wise, haha).

The more you do them, the better you get at them. There is really no secret to it, and everyone's rate will vary, depending on what exercise selection they perform. I'm getting stronger at overhead stuff because I have been doing almost solely standing work (strict press, push press, push jerk, snatches, cleans, american KB swings, etc).

As for the "arm movements" (I'm guessing that's biceps and triceps isolation work?), I was never really good at them to begin with, and I don't really do them. I throw in some curls from time to time to avoid elbow tendonitis, but the rest of my arms get plenty of work doing other things and I'm really not worried about isolating them. Depending on what your goals are, you may not need to as well. There's probably a compound exercise you can integrate/modify a bit, that works those muscles with something else at the same time (IE: close grip bench press will work your triceps a bit more than a wider grip would, but you still get decent chest activation, too. Doing rows with the palms supinated (facing away from you) will include the biceps a lot more, allow you to move more weight, and give your lats just as good a contraction.)

The tl;dr: stick with it and progress will come. It is normal for women to be weaker in the upper body vs lower body when comparing with men. Don't worry about where you started, just keep looking ahead

ChaleGirl

Thank you that was really helpful to read!

tcunbeliever

I don't have a pull-up bar, I have bands, I would say I increase upper body weights about every 4-6 weeks...mind you, for bands that means moving further away from the anchor, so the increase in resistance is not a huge amount...moving from a single band to two bands probably took more like 12 weeks...I'm still moving away from the anchor on 2 bands, so not yet to a point of 3...I don't know what that means in terms of actually doing a pull-up, I'll have to try one when I get to a playground or somewhere there is a bar...

Keep in mind pull-ups are a back exercise, not an arm exercise, that's where you should feel the work, and for me it always helps if I make sure my core is engaged when I start...that just seems to make the back get with the program...but maybe that's just me.

I'm always happy if I struggle with the exercises - the whole point is to workout as much as you possibly can, that's how you progress as much as you possibly can - if you finish your workout and you didn't struggle, then you maybe didn't gain as much as you could from the workout. So don't feel like struggling is bad, struggling is doing it right...push the limits, just don't get injured.

OrdinaryDude300

Bottom line the longer you work the area correctly the stronger you will become. Taking over a year to get some strength in a area that has been in a weak state for years is not unusual. My GF still don't have a lot of upper body strength after almost two years but she has certainly increased it by a at least 70%. Like you she already had a fairly strong lower body and she has really worked on this area a ton so she has become pretty darn strong there tripling where she started