I like both weights and cardio, but I never tried to make myself into a gym rat beast. And cardio has always been my jam, even when I was a kid: let’s go to recess and play GI Joes, my friends would say. I would go do laps of the field or on the track.Originally Posted by GJM
@GJM what pull up bar did you buy?
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything." - Miyamoto Musashi
Yup. As a longtime cyclist and (now former) runner, 2-4 hours was my happy place. I've always struggled with upper-body strength but figured that the gym was for meatheads. Now that I'm 72 and sarcopenia has reared its ugly head, I've been going to the gym and one of my goals was to be able to do an honest pullup. My cycling coach is also a certified strength coach and she has me in there three days a week, with the workout being pretty much "do X, then (assisted) pullups to failure, then Y, then (assisted) pullups to failure" and so on. I finally met that goal last week, now I'm going for more than one.
As an aside, I've found that the gym itself has an impact. The first gym I belonged to was stuffed with machines and weight racks, and had a place for bodyweight work that was about 10'x10', and that space was often taken up by folks doing deadlifts. I really hated going there. The gym I belong to now has lots of space for bodyweight work and the equipment that goes with it (pads, Bosu balls, etc.).
"Everything in life is really simple, provided you don’t know a f—–g thing about it." - Kevin D. Williamson
I’ve done untold thousands across decades and continue to work them in weekly at 66.
Sometimes body weight, sometimes weighted. Big change in the last 10 years or so is my shoulders barking a bit from palms forward grip and WAY more comfortable with the neutral palms facing each other grip.
I’m convinced the best way to increase pull-ups is to work heavier slow negatives. The negatives build most strength fastest. If you work concentric pull-ups while you can, then with weight added do a few slow negatives (use step ladder or something) to lower the negative in say 5-10 seconds and you’ll torch that mid-back.
I’d strongly recommend a fair bit of upper back work like Kroc rows or pulls to the face. If the mid back gets too far ahead it can affect posture. BTDT.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
I’ve done…a lot of pull-ups. I had success with doing pyramids and alternating grips such as close grip, wide grip, etc. When I was teaching water survival in the Corps, my best was 35 overhand, no kipping. Just set up a bar and do a couple a few times a day. Then once you can do 5 or more without stopping, switch to pyramids and make sure you’re alternating your grips to work different muscles.
#RESIST
After a lifetime of never being able to do a proper one, I ordered a bar and affixed it to my son’s long abandoned swing set in the back yard.
I can now do one or two ugly ones. Work in progress.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CDC...b_b_asin_title
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
At home I’ve hung a pair of Rogue gymnast rings and they’re more difficult than a solid bar. At the gym bar handles.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
I really need a bar in the place I'm currently staying. In my other place, I wound up putting a bar up permanently in the center of the house, so I could just do like 1 to 3 reps whenever I felt like it while walking past. This resulted in me doing many, many reps in the day, but I never felt tired or sore or even challenged. My grip was way stronger than it is now. Eventually, on some days, I was probably doing over a hundred reps but didn't feel like I'd done any work.
This seems preferable to me, personally, for overall health than trying to do consecutive reps to failure. I think I may have gotten the idea from listening to that guy Pavel Tsatsouline (or whatever his name is). The idea was to maximize reps per day but never to feel sore or induce stress injury.
All this talk of pull ups yesterday, and me taking the day off was killing me. I just did eight now, but I tried not to look at the bar, so that may make it more like six, but then it was early and I wasn't warmed up so do I get to add for that.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
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