The build-up to a pull-up

I have spaghetti-arms. This is what a lifetime of dancing will do—you get really strong legs and little tiny toothpick arms. When I was in my early 30s, I couldn’t even do a single military press over my head with any weight. I had to just use the bar.

I’ve gotten better since I’ve been working out regularly. I work my biceps, triceps, shoulers and back on the TRX. I use my sandbells and resistance bands. I can actually lift things over my head now. But there is still one exercise I cannot do: the pull-up.

One of the difficult things about pull-ups is that you need to do them in order to get better at them. But if you can’t even do one, then you’re sort of stuck. It’s not really rewarding to say, “I did 20% of a pull-up on Monday, and 22% on Wednesday! I killed it!”

There are a few ways that fitness pros suggest you work up to a pullup. One is by doing lots of push-ups and lat pull-downs. But I can do scads of both of these exercises, and still no joy with the pull-up.

Modified pull-up with chair assist

Another suggestion is using a chair/stability ball and putting one toe on it to take some of the weight. If I use the chair method, I can do pull-ups like crazy, but only because my strong leg is overcompensating for my weak upper body, thereby defeating the purpose of the exercise. As you can see from this photo, in which I am hanging about mid-way through the pull-up motion, I am able to smile, which means I'm not really working all that hard (thank you, chair!)

At last, I devised a solution that worked pretty well for me. I use a rubber resistance band and loop the two handles around the ends of the bar. I put one foot in the band, and use the extra bit of resistance to assist me in the path of the motion.

Hallelujah. It worked. It is still an exhausting exercise and I can only do two sets of four (spaghetti arms), but this is still eight more quasi-pull-ups than I have ever been able to do in my life. 

Modified pull-up
with resistance band assist

The first few days I did this, it worked great. But then I made the mistake of putting both feet in the band. This worked for about five seconds, until I reached the top of the movement, and the resistance on the band slipped off behind my heels, smacking me first on the Achilles tendon and then firmly on the butt. (Maybe it would have helped if I wore shoes, but it's still a risk worth avoiding).

It was a little like getting paddled, which I guess is nice if you’re into that kind of thing, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for. My Achilles tendon still hurt the next day, too.

I would also advise guys to either be very careful when using a single foot in the band, or just not to do it at all. Because the fourth day I tried the band-assisted pull-up method, it slipped off my single foot and smacked me in the crotch. For me, it was a bit of a shock, but for a guy, this is unthinkable.

So what would I advise? Lots of pushups. Lots of lat pull-downs. Then probably try the foot-assisted chair method for a while. If you do try the rubber tubing assistance method, be very careful when getting in and out of the band. And consider having a buddy take pictures of you during the exercise. From this little photo session, I learned that my right shoulder is working way harder than my left (oh, the evil left side!)

I would also suggest that you try these adaptive methods at home. As potentially painful as a sound ass-smacking with a resistaband may be in your bedroom, at least it avoids the total embarrassment of doing it in front of the 6am crowd at the gym. Even better, lot of gyms have pull-up towers on which there is some sort of ledge where you can rest a foot, or even an assisted pull-up weight machine that is designed specifically to help you offset some of your body weight with the machine’s weight stack.

Whatever method you choose, you should at least try to do some pull-ups. Not only are they an amazing total-body workout, but if you ever find yourself dangling from a helicopter skid (which happens like, every day in the movies), then you will have a better chance of pulling yourself to a safer position and living to fight off all the zombies.