Hi guys!
I've been ill most of the weekend and was feeling pretty awful today in work but I got a burst of sudden energy this evening after cleaning the kitchen so I finally set up my pull up bar (Lidl) with resistance bands (Lifestyle Sports) so that I could attempt my first assisted pull-ups! The excitement!
I have been trying to use variations of pull-ups to progress to a full dead weight pull-up and I wasn't getting too far with it. Also, the machine in the gym I go to for doing assisted pull-ups isn't great so I stopped using that.
I had one low resistance band looped around my pull-up bar and it wasn't strong enough to help me do them by myself. I got about as far up as this:
So pretty much nowhere hehe! Himself had to help me instead by holding my knee and giving me a wee helping hand. This was handy but it stopped me gauging my own progression because I wouldn't know just how much help he was giving each time etc so I needed to be able to do them by myself. So he had the genius idea to use two resistance bands at the same time, duh right? :P So I looped both bands around and voila! It was finally strong enough to properly assist me and I did my first few today :)
I used a chair to stand on to get into the resistance bands, otherwise it would have been too awkward and knowing me, I would have hurt myself!
To get back into the swing of things, I took it easy being careful not to over-do it after being ill for the last few days. I did a few sets of pull-ups (averaging 4/5) and switching to chin-ups on failure, I incorporated the squat challenge doing 80 normal squats and some push-ups to finish the set. Hopefully if I'm feeling much better over the next few days, I can work my way back up to more intense workouts.
It may not sound like much to someone who can jump up and do 15/20 pull-ups without breaking a sweat but being able to do ONE single pull-up has been something I've been working towards since I started exercising properly about 2 years ago. I'm not there yet but I feel more accomplished knowing I'm taking the steps toward it. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, the goals you make for yourself are what will keep you motivated to make a better you. Even the smallest little thing like running half a K more in a week, doing a pull-up, perfecting your squat form or being able to deadlift 5/10kg heavier than you've done previously - when you do it, it feels great. And you feel great! You'll be surprised at how much your body can do, you'll love it and you'll want more.
If you want to see a video to see how to progress doing pull-ups with a resistance band, I found this Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9E4-wB7Em0
If you have any questions give me a shout on my Facebook. I hope you found this useful :)
Aoife xx
I had one low resistance band looped around my pull-up bar and it wasn't strong enough to help me do them by myself. I got about as far up as this:
To get back into the swing of things, I took it easy being careful not to over-do it after being ill for the last few days. I did a few sets of pull-ups (averaging 4/5) and switching to chin-ups on failure, I incorporated the squat challenge doing 80 normal squats and some push-ups to finish the set. Hopefully if I'm feeling much better over the next few days, I can work my way back up to more intense workouts.
It may not sound like much to someone who can jump up and do 15/20 pull-ups without breaking a sweat but being able to do ONE single pull-up has been something I've been working towards since I started exercising properly about 2 years ago. I'm not there yet but I feel more accomplished knowing I'm taking the steps toward it. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, the goals you make for yourself are what will keep you motivated to make a better you. Even the smallest little thing like running half a K more in a week, doing a pull-up, perfecting your squat form or being able to deadlift 5/10kg heavier than you've done previously - when you do it, it feels great. And you feel great! You'll be surprised at how much your body can do, you'll love it and you'll want more.
If you want to see a video to see how to progress doing pull-ups with a resistance band, I found this Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9E4-wB7Em0
If you have any questions give me a shout on my Facebook. I hope you found this useful :)
Aoife xx
No comments:
Post a Comment