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What is one exercise, that every gym rat wants to be able of doing? Pull ups!
You can’t imagine how much time I’ve spent dreaming for the day when I will go to the gym, I will approach the bar, people will be staring at me, I will jump, grab the bar and pull myself up!
The problem is that I spent way too much time dreaming of it, but I always find an excuse. As you know I had a lot of problems with my shoulders, I’ve dislocated them 5 times, I’ve torn tendons,ligaments, the capsule and so on…
I remember the time when I started lifting weights and how everybody used to ask me how many pull ups I can do. It was tearing my heart to admit I couldn’t do a single pull up. I remember how I even used to dream at night how I am doing pull ups, and then I woke up disappointed that it was just a dream, but not a reality!
I had accepted the fact that every single attempt to pull myself up would end up the same way- I would grab the bar, everybody will be staring at me, I will give my best effort to at least pull myself up a little bit and at the end I will be hanging from the bar, like a t-shirt hanging from the wash-line and everybody would feel sorry for me!
The problem with accepting that limitations exist is that you never manage to reach your full potential. That’s why one day I decided to give it a try. No matter how long it could take me, I was determined to try!
Today a year later I am doing pull ups all the time. No matter if I am walking in the park, with a dress, jeans or sweat pants, if I spot a pull up bar, I never miss the chance to do a couple pull ups and feel proud of what I’ve accomplished with a lot of hard work!
That is why today I will give you a couple advices, how you could start doing pull ups. This is for sure not the only way to start doing pull-ups but it was certainly MY WAY!
As you know I am pretty tall (6’2’’), so that means I am heavier. This made pulling up even harder. That is why I took a lot of time to work on my back muscles and I did a combination of pulling movements in horizontal and vertical plane! If you follow my blog, you’ve probably read my post about how to structure your workouts! This is the way I work out. As pulling up, obviously is a pulling exercise, when structuring my workout program I used different types of pulling movements and I rotated movements in vertical and horizontal plane.
Here are the pulling movements I used: (more…)
