Pull-ups

It's probably safe to say everyone has a nemesis exercise.  Bishop really dislikes ab and core work, Tony Horton seems to whine with any exercise using balance on his DVD's, my mom cannot do yoga because she lacks the proper mindset (according to her, anyway).  For me, even though calf raises make me nauseated, I'd have to say pull-ups are one of my top nemesis exercises.  I've always wanted to be able to do them.  Back in elementary school when they were part of the Presidential Fitness Challenge (what? They still have it?!  Awesome.) and a friend of mine could bust out at least a dozen while I had to resort to the static chin hold I resolved to learn her secret.  Her answer?  She mowed the lawn.  Perfect, I thought, so I started mowing my lawn without thinking that perhaps having a gas powered mower wouldn't help my upper body strength like my friend's push mower helped hers (little did I know then how big a part of my life lawn mowing would become...).

Anyway, mowing didn't help one bit.  With the addition of strength training in late high school I worked up to 1, maybe 2 unassisted, but that was a huge stretch.  When I started P90X I resorted to either using a chair as demoed for support or doing the band modifications, neither of which I thought were really great substitutes for me.  P90X2 comes and Tony is still obsessed with pull-ups.  I took to skipping his back and base workout altogether because it simply alternates between a plyometric exercise and some death form of pull-up.  ENTER: pull-up max (thanks mom).  I'd known about it for a while but just hadn't thought it would be worth it or very helpful.  However, today I used it for the first time (on base and back - I couldn't resist) and not only was the workout totally exhausting and effective, but it was FUN and I'm confident I can up my reps.  And if I can't, I still get a really great workout doing pull-ups.  The world of pull-ups has opened up to brand new vistas of possibility.

Moral of the story?  Sometimes help is good.  Sometimes that help has been right in front of you while you were floundering about trying to build upper body strength mowing the lawn with a gas powered mower.  And, unlike a crutch which only helps bring you back to baseline, help can push you forward to actually make progress.

Now if I could only leave it out for use without having E try to dangle her little self on it...