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Can you do pull-ups?
There's been a lot of hype recently about a new study which argued that it is extremely difficult for some people to do pull-ups, even though they are otherwise fit. In other words, the exercise may depend on individual anatomy, and may not be a great indicator of overall strength.
Here's a blog post summing it up: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/why-women-cant-do-pull-ups/
Personally, though, I've found that my ability to do pullups has tracked pretty well with my ability to lift myself up on the pole (climbs, pole holds, etc). So…I would love to hear from some other veeners….Do you find the pull-up to be a good exercise to train for the pole? Or…are there some of you who can do amazing aerial work, but not pull-ups?
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40 Replies
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I LOVE pull-ups. A year ago, when my boyfriend bought the pull-up bar, I couldn’t do a single one! Since then, I’ve upped it to 14 (on a good day) and if I take a 2 minute break I can do another set of at least 10. It feels SO good. I think it’s a great conditioning excersize for pole. I’ve also started to do v- ups on the bar. It’s awesome. My back is huge! I’m starting to bust out of bras though :/
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I can easily climb, have strong inverts, and have no problem with harder tricks like Extended Butterfly and Caterpillar, but I can not for the life of me do a pull up (on the pole or on a pull up bar), so this is good news for me! I am 5'9", with a somewhat unproportional leg/torso ratio (short upper body, long legs), and I have never been able to get close to a pull up, no matter how much I work at it..
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I do pullups – I don't know how many exatly. It depends of the hold – different holds work different muscles. When my palm is facing me ("women's hold"), I can do ~4 one-handed pull ups on my good side. At my best, I used to do 20 poleups on every hand (right hand higher and then the left), but I haven't done that in several months so I probably can't do it any more. I can also climb using my arms only on static as well as spinning pole.
All the intermediate-advanced girls in my studio do pull ups as well.
I believe that doing pullups will help certain pole tricks, but not all of them, and that doing other strength excercises is a must for most strength-based tricks. There are also so many other things one must work on to be good at pole – flexibility, technique, core strength, balance and control, that I find that my improvement with this pull ups alone hardly affects my overall performance.
I definitely don't think that one's ability to do pullups is the sole indicator of fitness/strength or anything else for that matter.
Everyone's anatomy is different – women tend to have weaker upper-body in relation to their overall strength than men, and strength in different area varies among women as well. I have strong upper body, but my calves are really weak. Other people will have strong legs, but weak arms etc.
In addition to that – it is silly to assume that if you practice in a certain way, your performance will improve in every concievable aspect. If I run, I will be a good runner – not a good weightlifter. If I do abs curls I will have strong abs, not strong legs. To be good at pullups – you need to practice doing pullups.
Strength doesn't "leak" from one part of your body to another.
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I can't do pull ups. I can't do things like scissor climbs and whatnot, and I've been doing pec and tricep workouts twice weekly for two months with no improvement what so ever, so I'd be relieved to hear that I'm not the only one who just sucks at pull ups. I can do aysha, aerial SM (in princess) and some other advanced moves, but if someone held a gun to my head and said "do ten pull ups or die", it wouldn't be a pretty outcome for me.
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@CapFeb – my point exactly. I've been working on my Ayesha for months and I can't do it for the life of me. What did I get from all my pullups?
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Gah….I just red something in the last 2 months about proper positioning for pull ups and for the life of me I cannot find it.
A few years back for the life of me I could not do a single pull up. I know I can now but not sure how many. Best way to train them for me was doing negatives. Have a stool to stand on then bend your legs and resist down.
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I can do 3 pull ups without touching the floor after that my arms give out lol..but I can do it.
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I also love pull-ups! After my beginner silk classes Im always asked what they can do between classes and the answer is always pull-ups. And if they can’t do pull-ups yet, I tell them to work on negatives. Or if you can do one and you have a pull-up bar at home, put it in a door that you walk through frequently and do a pull-up every time you walk through 🙂
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I can't do a pull up…yet. But I've been working through these, and it seems to be helping me quite a bit. I like how systematic it is. Baby steps, all the way. 🙂
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I have been wanting to invest in a pull up bar! I cant do any yet.
Any particular set up that you all can recommend?? -
I have no idea if I can. Gotta try at a playground or something. I had bought one if those doorway things, but my doorways are too wide!
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Pull-ups are great conditioning for a lot of things on the pole. I recently found out from some acrobat friends that when they were in circus school, they did four different kinds of pull-ups, two of which were new to me: palms facing away, palms facing towards you, palms facing away with hands next to each other, and mixed grip- one hand facing you, the other away.(This last one you would switch off which hand faces which way for even conditioning) Each version works slightly different muscles, as well as keeping you from getting bored if you're doing sets. (And man, are the hands together ones hard!)
Also, it was mentioned earlier that pull-ups didn't seem to help for building strength for ayeshas. My guess is that push-ups would be better, since it's closer to the pushing motion of the lower arm in an ayesha.
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Push ups definitely did help me more for aysha, I was just stating that I can do aysha (having a hard time doing it on chrome, though, my bottom hand has negative grip) and other advanced moves without ever being able to do a pull up. In essense, I was agreeing with LB that a pullup isn’t an accurate assesement of overall fitness.
I can do like, tiny tiny tiny pull up motions when attempting (and failing) scissor climbs, and I accept that I will probably never be able to do arms only.
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I can do what I call ghetto pull-ups where I stand on my toes and pull from there. Basically, pulling up but not from a dead hang. I also use my silk, instead of a bar, so I'm grabbing vertically instead of horizontally, kind of like pole-ups.
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Yep. Haven't been doing them lately but I will tonight to see how many. I hadn't been able to do pullups for a decade before poling. 🙂
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