Help, I am WEAK!

[Damarenp]

Hi everyone. I recently bought a pull up/chin up bar. I am 47 years old and pretty out of shape although lost 13 lbs in the last month so trending well. I tried to do one pull up and couldn't. So embarrassing but it is what it is. Can anyone help me with the best exercises or weights exercises to help me achieve my starting goal of 1, then 5, then 10, etc?  Thank you so much all!

Paul. 

[BarkingBoyInOz]

Hi Paul - hats off to you and a good choice of exercise, but they are brutally hard to do, especially for us older guys!  I'd recommend a couple of things - I find that a hand position of palms facing you with hands about 6-12 inches apart gives you the strongest mechanical position to start with.  As you get stronger you can move your hands further apart and switch to palms facing away.  But even to work up to one rep - you could try doing negatives, which is where you start in the top position and just lower yourself down slowly, and then jump back up and repeat the process as many times as you can.  You can also purchase something resembling a giant rubber band in sports stores which you secure to the bar and then put one or both feet in to take some of your weight - this should allow you to do multiple full reps.  That's a couple of good starting options that should allow you to start gaining some strength. I find consistency is also very important - ideally try and do chins/pulls on 3 non-consecutive days per week and eventually try and work up to maybe 20-30 all up in each session in whatever set/rep schedule you can manage (I can't do many at once so sometimes I'll do things like 4 sets of 5 or 10 sets of 3 reps)  That's 60-90 reps per week which is a decent amount of volume for us average Joes, especially if you can work up to doing them unassisted.  If i don't do them that regularly I find my strength can quickly drop off - even after a week.  Only other tip is to warm up well before each session as elbows/shoulders and a range of other body parts are vulnerable if not.  Balance it out with some pushups and bodyweight squats (maybe on the in-between days) and you've got a pretty good all-round program. Hope that helps - there are also heaps of articles and videos online that will offer advice.

[A_Lurker]

This link is primarily for women, but should work for all.  I've still got too much bodyweight to do this in 6 weeks, but the basic concepts are solid.

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/chin-up-challenge-workout

[Damarenp]

Thank you so much guys. Really appreciate the feedback so far. 

[emili]

I know how exciting it is to be able to pull yourself up. But in my opinion and its just my opinion, chin ups are for those who already have developed muscle and decreased body weight to continue building on the strength. I never saw it as a beginner's move. Assisted chin ups - yes. pull ups using a bar with you under it at a 90 degree angle- yes. rep after rep of push ups-yes.

Congrats to you on the weight loss and all the things you are doing and aiming for- please don't let me kill your joy- I just wonder if its realistic..

[Damarenp]

I appreciate all the feedback I do. Thank you so much! I will keep going for it.

Sent from my iPhone

[Dominique]

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@Damarenp wrote:

Can anyone help me with the best exercises or weights exercises to help me achieve my starting goal of 1, then 5, then 10, etc? 

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First of all, congrats for getting a pull-up/chin-up bar, it’s great to have one at home! You already got excellent advice (negatives, assisted). Just search YouTube (e.g. pull-up progression) and you’ll find plenty of videos showing you how to do it.

I’ll comment on your goal:  once you can do about 10 pull-ups with your own body weight (don’t worry, that day will come, maybe faster than you think), you may want to consider adding weight instead of reps. This is what I did one year ago. I started doing 5 sets of 3 reps with 15 kg, 4 sets of 4 reps with 10 kg and 4 sets of 8 reps with 0 kg. One year later I’m at 19 kg for 5 x 3, 16.5 kg for 4 x 4 and 8 kg for 4 x 8.

It’s a bit like with pushups, planks etc.: once you can do 15 pushups, or hold a plank for 2 minutes, there isn’t much point in going beyond that, as you are working mostly endurance, not strength.

[Damarenp]

Amazing thank you! And wow you must so strong now to do that with weights!

Sent from my iPhone

[Dominique]

I’m only 63 kg (139 lb) at the moment, so I don’t have too much dead weight of my own to lift .

[Dominique]

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@Damarenp wrote:
you must so strong now to do that with weights!

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For me, the ultimate challenge would be to be able to do a one-arm chin-up. I saw that video tutorial some time ago that mentioned you should be able to lift an additional weight equivalent to 70% of your body weight before even considering trying it:

With my current weight, it’s 63 x 0.7 = 43.4 kg, so I’d still need to gain a lot of strength!