The Cornerstone of Upper Body Strength: The Pullup

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  • RoseDarrett
    RoseDarrett Posts: 355 Member
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    Great post!!! One of my big goals s to be abe to do a proper pull up.

    This may be a silly question but how much core strength do I need to be able to achieve this?
  • jimmmer
    jimmmer Posts: 3,515 Member
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    Great post!!! One of my big goals s to be abe to do a proper pull up.

    This may be a silly question but how much core strength do I need to be able to achieve this?

    There's a massive amount of core involved in pull ups.

    It's what makes it one of the truly great exercises - it hits so much in the upper body. Once you nail them, you can do them all kinds of ways to hit different bits of your upper body more/less.
  • SteveJWatson
    SteveJWatson Posts: 1,225 Member
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    This gives some great ideas how to increase your strength. I would only add that I was able to do my first unassisted pull-up years ago after concentrating on building strength with the...ahem...assisted pull-up machine. It might not be the best way to do it, but I don't think you should tell people to completely stay away from it either. I just used less and less assistance each week until I was finally able to do them unassisted.

    Me too - can now do pullups and chin ups unassisted - I do them for fun at home now, but I use the crosssbeam of my kids swing in the garden. I spent almost a year using the assisted machine...seemed to work fine for me.
  • ashleen7
    ashleen7 Posts: 258 Member
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    Tagging for later
  • RoseDarrett
    RoseDarrett Posts: 355 Member
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    Great post!!! One of my big goals s to be abe to do a proper pull up.

    This may be a silly question but how much core strength do I need to be able to achieve this?

    There's a massive amount of core involved in pull ups.

    It's what makes it one of the truly great exercises - it hits so much in the upper body. Once you nail them, you can do them all kinds of ways to hit different bits of your upper body more/less.


    Thanks for that. I'll keep at it !!! I CAN NOT wait to be that fit and do pull ups with relative ease :)
    Appreciate the reply.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    This is mostly the reason why boot camp in the military they test you on pullups.

    The only branch I know of which requires pullups for the Physical Readiness Test is the Marines. Good or Bad. US Army is 2 mile run, X Pushups in 2 minutes, and X situps in two minutes depandant on age and gender. Whoops never mind they have just recently changed the test requirement that includes pull ups.

    When I joined 20 years ago (Canadian Military) for my trade I had as a female had to do at least 4 chin ups as part of our physical fitness test I did 7 easy (male standard)

    Now for the man on page 1 who said these are definately man exercises...really???? Granted they are harder for woman to get there but they are by no means IMO a "mans" exercise
    I mean......................Opinions can vary on this. Chinups and Pullups are a mans exercise no doubt.

    Happier note glad I found this thread makes me remember how good it felt to be strong enough to do them...anothe goal for this woman.
  • husseycd
    husseycd Posts: 814 Member
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    Do aerial silks! Or lyra, or trapeze, or corde lisse, or pole... But talk about gaining grip development, back development, the ability to not only pull your body weight up, but upside down as well!

    I love the comment about the zombie apocalypse. I always joke if I'm every dangling from a cliff and someone has to throw me a rope, I'll have no problem climbing to the top. I can even do it several different ways, rest in the middle, maybe toss in a pose...

    Or if I'm hanging from something and need to flip my body over the top, I'm on it!

    Most teachers I've seen start people in silks with bent arm holds and then lowering from bent to straight arm to develop pull-up strength.

    On the other hand, my "pull" strength is much better than my "push" strength. Something I definitely need to balance.
  • PicoJulie
    PicoJulie Posts: 35
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    Hi husseycd!

    I just got an account and I'm trying to figure out how to enter things. How can I enter in aerial silks? I suppose it is strength training? And since I'm there for 1.5 hours, but I am probably on the silks for ~.7 hours, do I put in the latter hours?

    Sorry if these questions are annoying! I just don't know what I'm doing here yet, but am trying!

    - Julie (I should have picked a better username - I didn't realize I could have a "shown" name :P).

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