In our last post, we discussed the the necessity and benefits of working your back muscles regularly, learning to do pull-ups, and why I’m just so in loveee with them as both a trainER and trainEE.
I hope I’ve convinced you to give this beloved exercise a shot. If nothing else for the confidence boost both inside (from knowing how dang strong you are!) and out (the upright “confident” posture courtesy of the lat muscles balancing out the over-worked anterior muscles). The super sexy back, and über cool points that it will get you with friends, family (especially the kids!) is just an awesome bonus. ;)
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been able to do a pull-up in your life, it’s never too late to start training for it. I was the wimpy (and proud) girl in gym class that participated in ZERO fit tests for fear of looking silly to my classmates (mainly one particular, future-hubs-classmate, if we’re being honest). I didn’t learn to crank out pull-ups until well into my adult years.
Side note: because of my shame over my past pull-up transgressions, my homeschooled son has never been able to escape my militant pull-up training. At 17, he can “jump and give me 10” no matter how long it’s been since he last officially “worked out.” (Just challenged him, pop-quiz style, yesterday because it had been about a year…”sooo how many pull-ups do you think you can do now?” He proceeded to crank out 15 with ease before tossing the smart aleck teenage smirk my way…whatevs).
Try hanging from the pull-up bar.
Jump up on a pull-up bar, or pull a step or dumbbell up to the pull-up bar and instead of jumping up, use a stool to boost you closer to the bar and release your feet to a hanging position once your arms are securely gripped. See how this feels. If this isn’t horrible, proceed to the next tip. If you struggle with this task, see part one of this series, and work on exercises listed there, as well as the following for at least a month and then try bar hangs again:
*Work on your back strength. Use various back exercises such as lat pull-downs, single arm cable rows, one arm dumbbell rows, bent over rows, etc. to test your strength gains.
*Work on your grip/forearm strength. Do open finger dumbbell holds, farmer carries and plate pinches.
Remember that the strength rep range is about 5-6 reps or less. If your strength phase proves nonproductive (your numbers are stagnant for 2-4 weeks), move to an endurance phase and then try again after a few weeks.
Try (a variety of) assisted variations.
*Vertical pulls – hold on to any vertical surface (bar, pole, door frame, etc,) and pull your body “chest to bar.” This may seem like a basic move, but building the endurance here will benefit later. Often we skip the exercises that seem “too basic” only to discover that we don’t have the base muscle strength/endurance to advance in the real move.
*Jackknife pulls or inverted rows – hold your feet out straight in front of you and lie under a bar, or chair. Pull your chest toward the bar, practicing both an over AND underhand grip position. Bend your knees as needed if you need to further modify this move.
*Move on to partner assisted pull-ups, not on a machine, but with the aid of a workout partner. Have your workout partner support your legs (bend legs at the knees) and help push your body weight up. You essentially need to take the majority of the weight yourself, but your partner can assist as needed and to the appropriate degree.
*No partner? Try band-assisted pull-ups. There is another variation of assisted pull-ups you can try that can be done without a workout partner and not on an assisted pull-up machine. This other variation involves using a thick resistance band. Hook the band around the top of pull-up bar/handles and let it hang. Hook your hands on the bar and bend your legs behind you, resting your knees in the band loop. It’s kind of strange to do these at first, as you feel like you have to really balance yourself, but you will catch on shortly.
The assisted pull-up machine is a great tool if you don’t have a partner. Just remember that the goal with this machine is to go *down* in weight over time — rather than up, like most machines. Using less of the machine weight means that you are pulling more of your bodyweight. ;)
Other assisted variations:
Chair Assist
Machine assisted
Go negative.
When you can do assisted variations with ease, start incorporating negative pull-ups. Negative pull-ups will develop your lat strength like no-other. They will teach you how to pull with your back (not your arms), and allow you to pull more of your own body weight each time. You can do either straight sets of negatives-only (3-4 sets of 1-6 negative reps), or incorporate them with your assisted pull-ups. Simply do as many assisted pull-ups as you can, then bang out another 2-3 negative reps. Or go up assisted, and come down negative with full body weight.
Tying it all together: Pull-up Progression Schedule
If you’ve done all of the above, and allowed yourself to patiently progress through various stages, you should be ready to crank it! But if you’ve gone to attempt a pull-up again and still feel ill-prepared, try the following pull-up progression from one of my fave bodyweight exercise books: Convict Conditioning. It breaks down pretty much every bodyweight move and gives you awesome guidelines on how to progress from beginner modifications to the “elite” version of each (one arm push/pull-up, one-leg squat, etc).
Incorporate the following into your regular back workouts over the next few months. Start at the beginning of each “level” – once you work your way up to the “progression” amount, move to the starting amount of the next level. Do NOT rush through the progressions, but rather allow your body to acclimate to each level, so that you have the strength and endurance of the muscles needed to pull your entire body weight, with zero assistance: (see the playlist below for demo of each “level”)
Vertical Pulls: Start with 1 set of 10, work your way up to 3 sets of 40
Horizontal Pulls: (inverted rows): Start with 1 set of 10, work your way up to 3 sets of 30
Jacknife Pullup: Start with 1 set of 10, work your way up to 3 sets of 20
Half Pullups: Start with 1 set of 8, work your way up to 2 sets of 15
Full Pullups: Start with 1 set of 5, work your way up to 2 sets of 10
Regardless of which level you’re at in the process, continue to test and retest. Even if it seems like a shot in the dark, jump up ever-so-often, and give it a shot. Can’t do a full pull up? Can you bend your arms a bit more than last time? Eyeballs almost over the bar? Great! That’s progress. Keep executing your steps and retesting. Take every new milestone as a sign that you’re that much closer!
It should go without saying, but I figure I may as well address the elephant in the room. FOOD. If you’re still afraid of getting your grub on, don’t expect too much from your lifts. Gaining strength requires sufficient fuel, and you will often notice the difference in your level of beastiness based on your intake (amount AND type). I won’t go into much more detail, but just an FYI so you know where to look if you are doing “everything right” and still seem to be plateauing in your lifts — you simply may not be eating enough.
As with any progress, patience is key. Gaining strength and perfecting a new exercise, especially a difficult one, takes time. Focus on increasing your upper body strength and you will notice that other lifts will subsequently increase as well. As you become stronger in your journey towards perfecting a body weight pull-up, you’ll notice your lifts in general will take off in an upward trend. Before you know it, you’ll be showing up that guy that’s flailing around under the pull-up bar! And THAT moment…priceless. ;)
When did you first learn that you needed to eat more to reach your goals? What was your original response?
After hitting my weight loss goal with Weight Watchers in 2012, I was working out on average an hour per day, almost every single day, and feeling extremely hungry all the time. I felt like I was having to white-knuckle my eating in accordance with my exercise.
I couldn’t figure out why it was such a struggle to maintain my body weight. I started doing some research and found that, on average, I was eating around 1900 calories a day, maybe 2000 when you averaged it out over the week. I stumbled across “Eat More to Weigh Less” and some other blogspromoting the idea of eating according to your TDEE and activity level and I felt like a light bulb had gone off. I had been far under-eating for my activity level. I purchased a Body Media Band at the time and was astonished to realize that on certain days I was burning 2,600 to 2,700 calories a day, because of all my activities. I realized at that point that I was just not well-informed on how much calories my body required in order to maintain my weight. My dietary habits were based on a point system that wasn’t working for me anymore. Of course, my next response after this realization was thinking, “Yay! I get to eat more food.”
How did your body and scale in clothes, etc, react to the initial increase in calories?
I felt a little bit bloated around my midsection, and I did see an initial creep up in weight on the scale. I was maintaining my weight between 150 and 152 pounds. I noticed my weight would hit, at most, 158 pounds, but ultimately I just felt a bit more puffy from all the extra food I was eating.
Has your calorie intake changed over the past two years, and if so, how?
My calories really haven’t changed much. I’ve been tracking them as of late because I’m currently cutting again. What I have noticed is that they typically fall between 2,300 and 2,600 per day, depending on my activity level. In the last two years, for the most part, I’ve kind of stayed within the same activity range and thus the same calorie range. I would say that, over all, I think most people (especially fairly active people) are probably unaware of how much they are burning in a day.I know I was really shocked when I learned about my own caloric levels.
Have your fitness and health goals changed? For example, do you still monitor aim or maintain scale weight, or has your focus shifted more to performance or other goals?
I actually do both. I am working on gaining strength. I’ve increased my squats, dead-lifts, bench presses. I’ve been focusing on all that, but I also keep an eye on the scale for myself. Having battled my weight my entire life, I’m not completely comfortable not checking on it. I created what I felt was a realistic weight range for me, 150 – 160 pounds. However, I’m more focused on gaining strength and building muscle and less on just losing weight. As long as I honor my commitment to myself by not gaining back the weight I lost initially, I’m fine.
What has been the biggest revelation you’ve had since increasing your calories and lifting heavy weights?
That it all balances out. Your weight training really impacts your metabolism. I never understoodthis. It shocks me how much I can eat and still be able to maintain my scale weight, and it’s because I lift weights. I feel completely different on the days I lift versus the days I don’t. My hunger levels are different. The foods I can eat are different. I’ve learned I can eat a heck of a lot more and still lose weight. That’s because I have a healthy metabolism now. And I attribute this change to taking the time to learn how to better feed my body in relation to my activity level from wonderful sites like Eat More to Weigh Less and others.
What method device do you use to determine your caloric intake? If you do use a Body Media or Fitbit, do you find it to be fairly accurate in terms of how much you are able to eat?
Yes, I use a Fitbit right now; although, I’ve used a Body Media Band in the past. Both devices typically show my caloric intake around the same place, which is anywhere from 2,200 calories all the way up to 2,700 calories per day. Most of these devices do not take into consideration things like weight training. However, they do capture my overall activity level and I have found them to be fairly accurate. If I were to take a cut in my calories using my FitBit as a guide, I’d find I don’t have to go to an extremely low calorie range to start losing weight.
If I gain enough weight to put me out of my personal weight range and I need to cut back, I typically focus on removing 500 calories from my daily intake. If I find that my average calorie burn is 2,400 during an average 7-day cycle, I know that if I eat around 1,900 calories, I will be able to lose weight. When I do this I’ll typically lose about a pound per week. However, many people think 1,900 calories is what they need to maintain their weight. Understanding what I actually need to maintain my weight versus lose weight was extremely eye-opening for me.
Now that you’re in maintenance, how do you stay motivated each and every day?
I stay motivated because I typically share a lot of what I learn with other people. I’m here to help inspire, motivate women to not only lose this weight, but to find a way that they can keep it off forever. I also find that it’s really not as difficult as I thought it was. When I was white-knuckling it at the beginning, it was extremely difficult because I was hungry all the time. Now that I know how much I can eat and I found an activity I really enjoy, it’s really not as painful as I once thought it would have been. Overall, I guess I have found something that I can do for the rest of my life. I found that I can eat this way for the rest of my life, enough it makes maintenance really not as difficult as I once thought it would be.
Any parting words of encouragement for those who are new to eating more, struggling with the decisions to fuel properly?
If you’re maintaining your weight on a very low amount of calories, I highly recommend you take the gamble and do a reverse diet or metabolism reset. I always ask myself the question, “Can you continue to do what you’re doing for the rest of your life?” If I had to eat at 1,900 calories for the rest of my life, always feeling hungry, I don’t think I would have been able to maintain my weight loss.
So, if you were dieting down and eating 1,500 calories a day, and now you have to eat that amount of calories just to maintain your weight because your body has gotten used to it, I ask you, what other choice do you have? Well, you have two choices, actually. One, live with eating 1,500 calories for the rest of your life and be perpetually hungry. Or do a slow metabolism reset, where you increase your calories over time, and begin to let your metabolism repair itself from all the prolonged dieting you’ve done. Yes, you may gain a few pounds. My weight went up about 8 pounds total. However, I can honestly say it’s the best 8 pounds I’ve ever gained! It was a great experiment for me to learn what my body needed and how I could feed it more fuel so I could enjoy my life more. There’s no point in dieting down just to be miserable for the rest of your life.Find a way that you can eat and move that you love and that is sustainable for you for the rest of your life.
You can find out more about me and all the different things I have going on at HalfSizeMe.com. And be sure to check out my podcast, The Half Size Me Show, which is available in iTunes and Stitcher radio. I also have a Facebook page where I post videos and other content to help people. I’d love to connect with you on any social media platform.
After spending most of her life since childhood overweight or morbidly obese, Heather Robertson finally resolved to lose the weight. It took five years, during which time she had three c-section pregnancies and a double-hernia operation, but she managed to lose 170 pounds. Over the past three years since reaching her goal weight, she’s learned the importance of developing a maintenance mindset.
She founded the Half Size Me Community with her husband, who also produces her popular podcast, The Half Size Me Show, which was recently listed on The Huffington Post as being one of the 19 Best Health/Fitness Podcasts.
Heather’s driven to teach others how to live healthier, happier lives. She does this by hosting her podcast, working with the Half Size Me Community, and as a Life Coach who specializes in weight loss, habit change, and self-acceptance.
EM2WL: I understand you suffered from disordered eating in the past. What was your “ah ha” moment where you decided that things had to change, and how did you start working on changing how you looked at exercise and eating?
Nia: The problem was, I knew for years things needed to change! I was unable to do so. I went to three different counselors, read numerous books, and tried other suggestions. However, none of those things worked. It wasn’t until I did things my way that it all started to improve. I stripped nutrition down to the bare essentials (eat mostly real foods, don’t have any forbidden foods, eat my favorite “treats” when I craved them, listen to my body and eat when I’m hungry and stop eating when satisfied). I also made my workouts exclusively about what my body could do. My goal was to improve my performance and get stronger.
E: Many clients find EM2WL after years of extreme dieting and/or exercise. What would you tell a woman that is looking for quick results? How do you convince them that the long slow road is the way to go for maintainable results?
N: Anyone can hop on the latest diet craze or fad and lose some weight. But I’d say 99% of the time people gain back what they lost, with interest, simply because it was unsustainable. The goal shouldn’t be to lose the max amount of weight as soon as possible. The goal should be to build a simple, sustainable, enjoyable lifestyle you can maintain long-term. After all, wouldn’t you rather be able to maintain your results 1, 5, and 10 years down the road instead of constantly yo-yo dieting?
E: What do you tell women who are feeling “stuck” but seem to be doing all the right things – eating an adequate amount, and lifting weights, but feeling discouraged with what seems like a lack of progress? Especially when the scale is not moving.
N: Get back to the basics. Oftentimes people are trying to do way too much all at once. Focus on just the few BIG things that will have the greatest impact and forget about the rest. Make sure you’re eating mostly real, delicious foods. Make sure you’re using the best exercises and focus on getting stronger.
And be honest with yourself. Are you really doing what you think you’re doing?
But when in doubt – keep it simple. Choose just 1-3 things to focus on exclusively for 4-8 weeks and track your progress.
E: For women that are looking for fat loss they are often surprised when strength training is recommended. Can you explain your philosophy behind using strength training as a method for fat loss?
N: Strength training helps burn fat and build muscle. Period. That’s what helps people get the “toned” look they desire.
But more importantly, strength training boosts self-confidence and body-image. It’s fun, motivating, and reveals to women the true strength they possess. I find that THOSE are the things that keep people coming back for more. And consistency is what really produces long-lasting fat loss.
E: Why do you feel that strength training is so important, especially for women?
N: Because of the additional benefits it provides that most people don’t even think about: improved self-confidence and body image. It’s a way of revealing and allowing women to appreciate and be proud of what their body can DO instead of obsessing over how it looks.
E: So, lastly, I have to ask, are you still moonwalking? I’ve checked your technique and it is flawless!
What lift/exercise is the ultimate test of strength?
Depending on who you ask, you’ll likely hear different answers to the question. Most trainers (myself included) will agree on the basic beasty moves as gold standards of testing strength: bench, overhead press, barbell row, squat and deadlift. But when I see someone (man OR woman) squatting, benching, rowing or deadlifting massive amounts of weight, then flailing like a fish out of water trying to pull-up their own body weight, it makes me wonder if the pull-up is the ultimate strength test exercise. Not only do pull-ups require well-developed back strength, but they also require grip, forearm and core strength, too.
My clients know that I’m a stickler about tackling pull-ups, no matter how weak they feel they may be in their upper body. The guys may feel like it has nothing to do with the overall chest/abs/bicep physique they covet, while ladies tend to be afraid of getting a “wide” back (v-taper) for fear of looking too “manly.” Instead of bicep curling into oblivion, many men would be fairly impressed by the bicep development they would get from merely tossing a few sets of chin-ups into their arm routine. Ladies would do well to know that it’s VERY hard to develop a v-taper without properly periodized nutrition and training for that precise purpose. Not to mention that developing one would actually give more women (especially pear shapes), a MORE feminine, hourglass shape. Whatever the case for not wanting to do pull-ups, the benefits of developing this skill go far beyond the physique changes.
Most women are inherently weaker in the upper body when compared to the lower, and in the back side of their body when compared to the front. We ladies tend to spend most of our lives in anterior or “forward” motion: we push strollers and shopping carts, nurture children in our wombs, hold babies, pick our toddlers up and down, type, text, have boobs, etc. Essentially, we are always pushing, holding, handling weighted objects, or attending to general business on the front side of our bodies.
The repetitive motion of these movements causes the muscles at the front part of our bodies (pecs/anterior shoulders) to tighten (shoulder to shoulder across the boobs), and the muscles across the back (shoulder to shoulder across the upper back) to become lax from under-use. Going into the gym and regularly maxing out on your bench, with little attention to the back side of your body, can horribly exasperate the problem. This leads not only to increased shoulder pain, but also to a forward rounded shoulder (the dreaded “hunchback” look) as we age. Exercises such as deadlift, row, and yes – pull-ups, that challenge your back from all angles is essential to a well rounded routine and an upright body that screams confidence!.
Put in pull up practice…everywhere!
Pull-ups are NOT easy!
Back in the day (can’t believe I’m old enough to say that! LOL) pull-ups were part of our education. They weren’t necessarily mandatory, but we were tested on them at least once/year and it was generally accepted that it was something that most boys should be able to do with ease. Girls were often graded by how long they could “hang” on the bar. With the more relaxed Physical Education requirements in recent years, it’s not uncommon to see boys become men who can’t even do one pull-up (my husband cringes at the sight of my nephews’ attempts at pull ups). If men are struggling with pull-ups, it’s no wonder us women tend to be, too. Simply jumping up to a pull-up bar and hanging on for dear life can seem more taxing than it was in our youth, but learning to do body weight pull-ups isn’t impossible!
But it DOES take patience and persistence, which our generation seems to have lost…
The amount of time it takes to learn to do a pull-up will vary – depending on factors such as current fitness level, consistency, body weight, etc. Obviously, the more you weigh, the more you have to pull-up, and vice versa. But don’t get tempted to use your weight as an excuse (“I can’t do pull ups, I’m too heavy!” …”when I lose weight I’ll learn” or “but they’re so light, it’s easy for them!!”), start practicing NOW. Pulling your body weight is pulling your body weight… per capita, it’s tough for everyone. Take your time, be consistent, and build up your strength. You CAN eventually do a full pull-up.
Then 2…4…10 and so on!
Ready to dive in?
Let’s talk equipment.
Simply hanging from the bar is the first and hardest step!
If you have a membership at your local gym, they should have you covered (in which case, feel free to scan/speed read through this next bit).
If pullups aren’t currently a part of your routine, you may not have an actual pull-up bar, or even access to one. I highly recommend ultimately investing in a pullup bar like the iron gym or similar apparatus (they’re fairly cheap), if you plan on working out at home exclusively. I’m a home exerciser myself, and my bar is worth it’s weight in gold!
But until then, enjoy homemade versions, and the great outdoors… always keep your eye out for pullup “bars” hidden in plain sight to work on perfecting your craft ;)
Some places you can practice your pull up skillz:
monkey bars
stairs with no riser (like in outdoor apartment buildings)
under chairs/tables
Beginner Pull up Prep
The biggest mistake that most newbies make with pull ups is simply walking up to the bar, attempting a pull up, and walking away discouraged. No one can/should expect to dive right in to doing pull ups without first having a base strength/endurance levels. If you currently can’t even hang on the bar for an extended period of time, do NOT attempt pull ups just yet.
Here are a few exercises that you can start doing now to build up the lat strength to be able to do a pullup:
Dips (best if they are done on parallel bars or positioned between two chairs in this manner, to fully involve the lats)
Elbow Presses (on a wall, or on the floor with elbows in at your side for more challenge)
Vertical pulls (use any bar or wall alternating hands at different angles)
Once you have sufficient strength to perform those exercises, you should be able to move into a basic pullup progression.
Whatever your starting point, just start. Take on the challenge! If you’re completely lost for where to start, there are a few steps you can take and exercises you can add into your weightlifting routine to get one step closer to being a pull-up princess. In the next part of this series, we’ll go over a few tips on how to bang out that first pull-up.
Until then…
~Kiki :)
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Do you alternate between “perfect” eating and stuffing your face? Not sure how you can ever accomplish your goals, when you don’t wanna give up your fave foods? Always feeling like it’s all or nothing (chicken breast and broccoli OR chicken fingers and cheesecake?)
With the explosion of social media, and being able to (supposedly) see what everyone else is doing, thinking, and eating and drinking – it can sometimes cause conflicting thoughts. The virtual celebrity or fitness model you follow/admire seems to subsist on tilapia and asparagus, but those IRL (in-real-life) peeps at home are hollering for nachos and wings. You live in the real world, and sometimes life takes over and you find yourself falling headfirst into a box of Krispy Kreme. Part of you wishes you had the willpower of that fitness model, but the other half secretly screams “why can’t I just eat junk and lose weight?!”
We don’t feel that you should be forced to waste your tastebuds on (what you perceive as) mediocre-tasting foods, just for the sake of fat loss. But, be sure to call it both ways. There are just as many bad tasting junk foods as there are bland-tasting health foods. There are also total yum versions of both. If you really want to eat what you love, then DO it. An eating style that doesn’t includes foods you love is doomed to fail. BUT…make sure that you aren’t including your “default” foods (easiest, habitual, most convenient) in the list of things you don’t wanna give up. Especially if they aren’t even good TO you. Get back into the habit of actually tasting your food, and use your tastebuds as the measuring stick for what you “can’t do without.” There are plenty of more, nutrient dense, foods that can make better use of the cals your “so-so” foods are taking up. It’s perfectly legit to stop ordering the fries at your fave burger joint if the fries just don’t knock your socks off like the burger does. Eating fast food isn’t the end of the world, but step away from the combo meal mentality to see if you even WANT everything that you typically default to eating together.
My motto: “If I’m gonna eat, it’s gonna taste good. If I’m gonna ‘waste’ cals on ‘so-so,’ best believe it’s gonna be a macro powerhouse ‘so-so’ “
This way of thinking takes some being honest with ourselves, though. It’s so much easier to just claim not changing on “oh I just can’t…I like food too much…” or “I don’t wanna eat food that doesn’t taste good” – not realizing that often the stuff we are eating out of convenience isn’t all that great-tasting either. If it’s TRULY yum, eat it. If it’s not, why waste your taste buds on mediocre AND nutrition-less? Keep things you LOVE in your diet, and slowly work to swap out “meh” items for just-as-convenient, equal-or-better-tasting foods with higher protein and fiber. Even better, keep these items on hand for mindless munching moments, or to hold you over until you get to the meals/foods that make your heart melt. Matters of taste can’t always be changed, but matters of convenience…can. Sometimes we are just fighting the wrong battle.
While you may not be able to only eat junk and lose weight, you should be able to find a happy medium that includes a hefty amount of whatever floats your boat. Though it seems new-agey to say “be present” when you eat, it’s the first and biggest step to having more yum in your life. This video talks more about default eating and learning how to dissect your meals so that you can hit your goals while still eating the YUM foods you love.
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