My Current Fitness Mission
In addition to walking & running, I have two or three sessions a week of high intensity interval training style workouts, which I love. I’ve been doing this for over a year now and have made significant progress. The more progress I make however, the more my fitness ambitions grow.
Originally I wanted to be able to do “proper” man push ups. I can finally do these now, though they aren't pretty. Yet.
My biggest fitness ambition is to be able to do proper, unassisted chin-ups. I’d be thrilled to be able to do one, but ten would be incredible. I’ve been using an assisted chin up machine at the gym to help me achieve this. It has a counter weight, which you can gradually reduce – until the day arrives where no counter weight is required. The counter weights are gradually reducing – and my other strength routines are no doubt helping towards my aim.
My aim is to be able to do a few proper chin-ups by April – at PrimalCon 2012. That gives me six months to get stronger. I will conquer them!
Can you do chin-ups? Do you have any fitness goals that you’re working towards? Share in the comments, below
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I’m trying to get up to doing 10 unassisted chinups, can currently do 7, along with 100 man pushups, currently about 45 and benching a mere 50kg would be nice. still working at it!
7 – that’s fantastic! Did it take a long time to get that far? I bet you’ll be up to the full ten in no time at all.
Hi there! I just came across to your site from Marks Daily apple. Chin ups…. Oh the joy. I have found that i am getting much better at them by just doing as many as i can! I also find if i get myself into the different stages of a chin up and hold it for as long as i can has been greatly benificial to me. for example. 5 secs at the top 5 secs at the middle and 5 secs and the bottom of the movement. Even if you can just hang at the bottom for 5 secs will help. Hope this makes sense! good luck with them chins. Im sure you will smash them!
Hi Clint,
That’s a good idea – I’ve not tried holding them like that, I’ll give that a try! I think I need to start making a habit of doing them everyday too, that would definitely help.
I also came across your video at Mark’s Daily Apple and its good to see some Sydney-siders are living the primal life.
One thing I’ve found really helps with building up pull-ups is mixing up the different ways you work your back for example you can do straight pull ups one day, band assisted pull ups for max reps, Lat pull down for strength sets (3-6 reps) to build up your strength, and kipping pull-ups to round it all off.
Best of luck with your progress, I’m working on building my legs back up and doing some plyo training down at Coogee.
-Mike
Thanks for your ideas MIke, that’s a great idea, I’m not really varying it at all at the moment.
Great to see another Sydney-sider – hope to see you at next week’s Sydney Paleo meet-up, or one in the near future!
There’s a difference between a chin-up and a pull-up. When you grab the bar with your palms facing you that is a chin-up while your palms facing away is a pull-up. Pull-ups are much harder. I can do one chin-up but I can barelly lift myself while attempting a pull-up LOL. I don’t have a membership in a gym and don’t have a pull-up bar at home either so only time I get to try it is when I pass a children’s playground:-)
Have you ever heard about bodyrock.tv? I’ve been following it for some 6 months now and while the creators of the blog have nothing to do with paleo, the exercises are awesome. They’re based on short, very (very) intense HIIT and since I’m not a big fan of long hours spent in a gym, this is right for me. It helped me to gain strength (when I started I wasn’t able to do one man push-up and now there’s whole different story), fitness and although I still have a way to go, the shape I’m in now it’s the best I’ve ever been in so far (since I always was a couch potato before..and still am, sort of:). Have a look at their website, I can only recommend.
Your blog is awesome, btw. I’m sooo happy I found you on paleoHacks:)
That’s awesome you can do a chin-up Marrla – I’m a long way behind you! I think I’m mainly practicing pull-ups, so maybe that will make chin-ups easier, when I eventually get one!
Will have to check out that bodyrock. Feeling fitter and stronger is just the best thing isn’t it!
Hi, I just came across your blog from PaleoNonPaleo. So I realize this is an old post. I spent the first 6 months of this year increasing my chin up count. Started at one. Managed to get up to 20. I did it for a fund raising challenge, and since then I’ve not been practicing as much, – you loose it quickly- but cab still do 13 easily. Trying a new challenge now – pull ups! They are hard. Again- started with one – can now do three. I’m curious to know , as it’s two years since your post here, how are your chin ups going?