re: Arkansas health and fitness thread

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What about for those of us who need a band on the pull-up bar to even complete a pull-up? Is this program for us?

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From what I've read, you can adapt the program to assisted pull ups and even flexed arm hangs (how the USMC tests women, although they're going to start testing women with pull ups in the near future).

From online discussions I've read about the program, if you're doing assisted pull ups, you should do those until you are able to do unassisted pull ups.

What I would probably do is use however much assistance is required for me to do 8-10 pull ups in one set, and I'd follow the program like normal. Once I'm able to do 12-15 pull ups in one set with that amount of assistance, I'd reduce the amount of assistance so that I'm only able to do 8-10 again. Repeat this until I'm able to do unassisted pull ups.

Once I get to 12-15 bodyweight pull ups in one set, I think I'm going to start adding weight.

edit: another thing you can try is to use a chair to step up to the 'top' of a pull up--where your chin is above the bar--and then take your feet off the chair and slowly lower yourself down in a controlled motion. Even though you aren't pulling yourself up, you're still conditioning and strengthening your muscles by resisting gravity on the way down. I did this in place of wide grip pull ups (what I'm training on) for the first 2 weeks to get myself to where I could do more than 2-3 in one set. I'd do sets of 5 of these down-only pull ups instead of sets of 2 or 3 'real' pull ups.

Guess I'll just make this my own personal fitness thread.



Last week was pretty good. PT session fell through, but Cardio Kickboxing on Saturday kicked my arse. Eating was pretty good, too. I'm doing a Paleo "light" program - mostly protein, fruits and veggies, but a serving or two of dairy and grain a week. Otherwise, someone would get seriously hurt.

Last year was bad, y'all. Real bad. Feels good to get back on track. Hubs is also committed to a weekly workout plan. For him, that's huge. You don't end up with a quadruple bypass at 46 by eating right and exercising.

Armstrong is legit. I went from 1 to 6 max in maybe two weeks, then up to 12 in another month. And I wasn't even all that consistent and never did the morning push UPS.

Nice. I just finished my third week. I've made solid improvements in my total number of pullups performed per session, and that's after gaining a few lbs. I weighed in at 160 about a month ago, and weighed in at 164 yesterday.

I've been doing the pushups every morning, but I'm considering moving away from max effort sets. I'm getting 26-32 on the first set (varies from day to day), 18-22 on the second set, and 12-16 on the third set. That's with pretty strict form, but I might cheat a little on the last couple.

My pushups have increased, particularly the last two sets, but I feel like I'm not getting as much out of it as I could be. I feel like adding some weight and doing 80% effort sets would be better. Maybe I could wear a backpack with 20-30 lbs, do a max effort set on Monday morning, then do three unweighted sets with however many reps I did weighted. For the rest of the week, I could do 80% of my weighted max with the same weight for three sets. So if I did 10 pushups with 30 lbs on Monday, I'd do 8 pushups with 30 lbs for three sets on TWThF.

Anyone have any thoughts about this? Is 80% effort for three sets too much to be doing it every weekday?

That's what I've always believed, but this Armstrong program has you doing max effort bodyweight pushups every morning. But I think the difference is that max effort/failure when you're doing 20-30 reps affects your muscles differently than max effort/failure when you're only doing 8-10 reps.

For instance... back when I had access to a gym, I'd never do squats with 80% of my max weight to failure for three sets ever. But I would entertain the idea of doing bodyweight squats til failure. It would suck but I don't think it would do harm like the former would.

edit: in hindsight, bodyweight squats til failure sounds like it would be a fricking awful idea How would I walk?

What if I do the Monday as I proposed, then bodyweight pushups Tuesday, maybe to 60% of my bodyweight max reps (so if I can do 30 before failing, I'll do 20), then on Wednesday do 80% effort weighted pushups, then Thursday same as Tuesday, and Friday same as Wednesday. Test my max again on Monday and repeat the week.

All workouts with three sets, except Monday has four total sets (one weighted max, three bodyweight 60% effort)

Maybe instead of testing weighted max every Monday, do it every other week, and on the off week, test my bodyweight max reps. So week 1 Monday would be weighted max test, week 2 Monday would be bodyweight max test.

I need to make an Excel file

I do V squats to failure, but only once a week. I"m sore for 3 days solid. that works for me.

For me and my body, it is all about a schedule and finding it can be hard. I know what it takes for my own body. Everyone's is different.

You NEED time to recover, though.

So what's gym etiquette about wiping down machines? I've been wiping any time I touch a machine, but most people don't seem to wipe at all! Grosses me out!

Arms, shoulders and abs this morning (yep, you read that right...actually got my arse out of bed this morning! )

I would carry a towel around and if I left sweat, I'd wipe it off. If it was dry, I wouldn't bother. I don't go around wiping off doorknobs after I touch them, so I'm not going to wipe off every little thing I touch in a gym unless I leave an obvious residue. Gym equipment is going to get greasy and sweaty and touch human bodies, and there's no practical way to disinfect everything before another person has the opportunity to touch it.

Running another Tough Mudder in May. Work has been so crazy I have unfortunately let myself get way out of shape. Ready to start training again, though.