After totally getting slammed the last few weeks, I’ve been trying my hardest to get back into the swing of things this week with my running and CrossFit. In light of this, I headed to Big Horn today without looking at the workout on schedule (FYI: This never happens. Usually I pull Will’s phone from his hand right at 8pm so that I can see the WOD right after it is posted on Facebook. I’m a real treat!) When I got there, I saw that the initial strength component was 10 minutes to work on your strict pull-ups, whether they be weighted or not. Since I hadn’t done a legit pull-up since the fifth grade, I wasn’t even contemplating weighted pull-ups! I just wanted to see how far I could get with the resistance bands.
For those of you unfamiliar, CrossFit prides itself on being universally scalable to any person of any ability. This applies to pull-ups, too! If you’re a beginner, CrossFit coaches will likely put you on ring rows until you feel ready to work on actual pull-ups. When you get to those, there are multiple options available also! Most gyms use resistance bands that help support varying amounts of your body weight. You loop them over the top of the pull-up bar and then put your foot into the hanging portion. You do your pull-ups just like normal only the band is carrying part of your body mass.
At Big Horn, we have black, green, blue, and purple bands, ranging from the easiest (most supportive) to the hardest (the least supportive). Up until this morning, I have been solidly sitting on the blue band, without any purple bands on my horizon!
You see, pull-ups are my nemesis y’all! In fact, they always have been. Remember earlier when I said I hadn’t done a pull-up since fifth grade? I am totally serious! It was actually during the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge in elementary school (remember those?!), and the only obstacle standing between me and my damn patch were pull-ups! At the time, girls of my age needed to do three pull-ups to get the award, and seriously…this was about as likely to happen for me as walking on the moon. I just couldn’t do them! I had easily covered all of the other requirements to get the certificate, but the pull-ups continued to elude me. I have no idea why I cared so much, but my gym teacher had me come in before school every day to work on that exercise. Finally, on the very last day before the awards were given out, I knocked out my three pull-ups like they were no big deal. I got my award….and haven’t been able to do a pull-up ever since!
Naturally, you now understand why I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of pull-ups! Regardless, I hopped on the bands and hoped for the best. I looped the blue band up since that is the one I use on all of my workouts, and did 5 strict pull-ups very easily. Since I was trying to establish a max, or a breaking point, for myself, I took off the blue band and replaced it with three purple bands. You see, I’ve used the purple bands before and they are like nothing. I put my body weight into the band and my foot hits the floor! They are truly for people who almost have a strict pull-up, so I thought I’d loop three together. This was less resistance than a blue, but it still seemed doable. I did two pull-ups without much problem, so I dropped the resistance down to two purples. After doing a couple pull-ups, I got excited because I realized that I may be able to do a legit pull-up on just one purple band. Y’all, that has never happened before!
I wore my new Reebok Bonded Racer Tank for the first time, and I actually was nervous that it was too tight and thought about exchanging it. Now I’m just convinced it gives me magic!
After knocking out a fairly easy pull-up on a single purple, our coach, Kari, suggested I take a few minutes to recover before coming back to try a strict pull-up. I had just watched another guy in our group complete his first strict pull-up, so the adrenaline was definitely flowing! I hopped back on the bar, and officially completed my first strict pull-up in almost 20 years!
When I was raving about my accomplishment on Instagram today, Ericka asked me a good question: what pushed me over the edge to finally get there today?
Y’all, I have no idea. Pull-ups are always so freaking hard for me and I literally wrote them up on the “Goal Wall” at Big Horn not too long ago (along with my first marathon!) I was hoping to get one strict by the end of 2013, and I never in a million years thought it would happen this soon. I haven’t even been able to progress to the purple bands, so how in the heck did I jump over that step straight to a pull-up? And the $1 million question: will I be able to do it again?! Man, I really hope so!
I have no idea how it happened today, but I’ve seriously been on Cloud 9 ever since. For so many people, I realize pull-ups aren’t a huge deal. However, it was such a personal goal for me and I’m beyond ecstatic that it finally happened and I love those little benchmarks that show me I am actually becoming stronger and improving. Now, where to go from here? Onward and upward, baby! I need to string those suckers together!
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What is your most recent personal accomplishment? A new PR?