When I was 15 or 16 me and Big Jim (my step dad) were doing a job installing Spanish roof tiles. He had hired me and another kid named Todd to work with him that day. During our lunch break, Todd jumped up to one of the roof beams and started doing pull ups. Big Jim asked,"How many can you do?"
I told him I honestly had no idea I never really tried. I grabbed a beam and commenced to strain, grunt, and do everything I could to eek out a pull up....to no avail. I was still in an awkward stage in life where puberty had brought me everything but muscle. Jim laughed and said,"You work with me all summer and I guarantee you'll be able to do a pull ups."
We worked on tons of different jobs that summer. We built a greenhouse for an elderly lady in Ft Worth. We re-roofed some houses. Did some concrete work here, a little brick work there. It was all hard...but it still paid that sweet, sweet five bucks an hour. Anyways, Jim was right towards the end of the summer after digging holes and swinging hammers all day long, I found myself finally able to do a pull up.....hell not just A pull up, but LOTS of pull ups. I thought I was a stud.
Then life commenced and I moved away from home, became responsible for how I ate and how active I was...and as most of you know...I got a little hefty. Now that I have been working on changing all that I have wanted one thing back....my ability to do pull ups. Stacy got me one of those "hang from the doorway" pull up bars for my birthday in July. I was ecstatic, I sat on the floor like a little kid with a new toy putting it together, excited to assess my abilities since I had lost some weight. (By July I had already lost about 65 pounds.)
Remember when we had to do the different fitness tasks in PE when we were kids? Remember the kids that just hung from the pull up bar when the coach lifted them up to it? Well that was me. 29 years old hanging from a bar in the hallway, with no chance of lifting myself even an inch off the ground. I assure you I wasn't pleased with this outcome.
It's been just over 2 months since my pull up defeat. I've had to tackle this two different ways...
Step 1: Lose more weight so you don't have to pull up as much.
Step 2: Time to start adding a little more weight training to the workout regimen.
Right now I don't have weights or a gym membership so I've been doing different dumbbell workouts with Stacy's 2- 4lb dumbbells. I just hold them both in one hand and do as many reps as I can. Curling or Shoulder Pressing 8 pounds can make for a long set. I've also started doing more push ups and as you may remember from a previous post, running. I need to buy some heavier dumbbells and I also want to get a bench.
Anyways, yesterday after work, Stacy and I were weighing ourselves like we do....all the time...and the scale came up with my lowest weight to date......223!!!! As I stood there staring at the scale I thought to myself,"You can lift 223." Sure enough I was able to eek out a pull up! I had to grunt a little and my face may have gotten a little red...but I got my chin above that bar! I haven't done a pull up in 10 years. Many of my friends got a text that said,"223, and a pull up!!!"
1 down! Tonight we go for 2! It may have taken 2 months to get to 1....but I still got there!
Remember! It get's easier! Next stop a hundred pushups!
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