Put the Pull Back in Your Pull-Up

Pull-ups might be the hardest body weight exercise that exists.

Not only does it challenge your back, arms, and shoulders, but the demand on your core is significant. Once you’re holding onto that bar and your feet leave the floor, gravity begins pulling your entire body down from your hands. Your torso is now being stretched and lengthening by your own body weight, constricting your abdomen’s free space, leaving your lungs struggling to fill up with air against the weight of your own body and gravity pulling everything down and tight.

I’ve considered for a while now that maybe one of the reasons people struggle with doing pull-ups is not just the lack of strength in being able to perform a pull-up, but from the panic signals being sent to their brain when the lungs suddenly begin to struggle to get oxygen. There are not many exercises that place this type of demand on your body and mind. So, we’ve come up with a routine to address building up both the physical strength needed to do a pull-up, as well as the mental fortitude needed to control yourself in that position.

Negative Pull-up

A good way to get started is by practicing the negative part of the pull-up, a.k.a. the lowering down part. This will get you more familiar and comfortable with your pull-up position while building up strength. You can use a Smith Machine or an adjustable squat rack and set the bar at shoulder height. From here get your hands just wider than shoulder width apart with your feet on the ground. Using a 5 count, slowly lower yourself down toward the ground, trying to use your legs as little as possible to support you. Once at the bottom use your arms and legs to stand back up again, and try to repeat for 10-12 reps, or as many as you’re capable of doing.

Seated Pull-up

Another good way to get better at pull-ups using a modification with a Smith Machine or squat rack is to do pull-ups from a seated position on the floor. This will be a more traditional form of pull-up except that you will primarily be lifting only your upper body weight. Adjust the height of the bar so that you can sit cross legged underneath it and you can reach up and grip the bar at arm’s length away.

Some key points to remember.

You want to follow a straight path up and down from the bar. The bar should line up over the top of your chest or just under your collar bone. And when you pull yourself up to the bar, you should follow that straight path up to the bar. You want your torso and your elbows to stay as vertical as possible. When you pull you should not have your elbows flaring out behind you, but pointing straight down toward the floor, and your hips should stay under you as well, not pitching out in front of you so you feel like you’re leaning back. This is where your core strength and control will come into play. Again, aim for 10-12 reps here or as many as you’re capable of doing.

Lat Pull Down

A very straight forward but effective way to build up basic pull-up strength is by doing lat pull downs, which basically mimics the movement of a pull-up. Try doing both the traditional wide grip, but also the closer, underhand grip, like doing a chin-up, to build up biceps as well. This obviously requires access to a lat pull down machine. But the principles are the same. Keep yourself and your elbows vertical and pull the bar to the top of your chest, just under your collar bone with your elbows tucked to your sides. Keep your shoulders from rounding forward and think about your shoulder blades pulling down and together in the back. This exercise will not do a lot for your core but it will most definitely build up your back, shoulder, and arm strength.

Rows

Another tool in your toolbox for getting stronger in general that will aid your pull-ups is doing any type of row. Seated row, TRX row, inverted row, bent over row, cable row, etc. The act of positioning and stabilizing yourself and accessing your back and arm muscles is key to being able to do pull-ups, but it’s also extremely important for back strength in general. Just remember to put your focus on your back muscles. Your shoulder blades and back muscles should be engaged and moving as you do rows, otherwise you’re just using your arms and basically doing a weird bicep curl. Posture and position are going to be key with all of these. Do not try to “over pull” so your elbows are way back behind you and your shoulders are rolled forward. Focus more on the pull starting from the back of your shoulders, and when you finish your shoulder blades should be pulled together and your chest and shoulders should be up and open, with the effort being on the muscles of your back.

Part of getting comfortable with your pull-up position is going to simply be getting used to the feeling of gravity pulling on you from that bar, so practice gripping and hanging from the bar. See if you can hang there, but then retract your shoulder blades down and together and engage your grip.

So rather than “hanging” from the bar you are actually holding yourself in position with control.

This is where you can practice breathing in the tight space of your abdomen as well has learning to control the small but deliberate movements of your shoulder blades. This will increase your grip strength but also get you more comfortable with that feeling of gravity dragging your torso down making it harder to get a good breath.

Grip Strength

If you notice that grip strength is more than a small issue for you try doing a couple of sets of Farmer Carries in between other exercises. These are pretty straight forward. Grab a pair of heavy dumbbells, and with a straight back and engaged arms, shoulders, core, and hips simply carry them around the gym until your grip begins to give. When it does just put the dumbbells down, give your hands and forearms a quick rest and then do it again. These can be worked into any exercises and be used as an active recovery until your grip strength improves.

Assisted Pull-ups

Lastly you will need to begin practicing your actual pull-up by using a resistance band for assistance. By this point you should be comfortable with the form of your pull-up and have attained the grip strength necessary to hold yourself on the bar. Find a band that provides enough support where you can do between 5 and 15 reps. Attach the band to the bar and use a box, step, or bench in order to safely get your foot into the band before you step off and practice your pull-up. Once you get comfortable with these it’s time to get rid of the band and try a full body weight pull-up, and by this point you should notice a significant increase in your strength and your ability to perform a pull-up. Thanks for reading, and please follow up with any questions!

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What Does It Mean to Hip Hinge: An Introduction to Deadlift

A Breakdown of Hip Hinge and Deadlifting

Successfully executing a deadlift is akin to having all the stars align. For anyone who has struggled with this form and mastered it, you probably know exactly what I mean. For whatever reason this movement seems to come very easily to some people, but for others it is weeks, if not months, of practice. Part of this problem is due to tight hamstrings or hips, leading to difficulty in sensing the lengthening and shortening of that muscle group. Another obstacle can be underactive glutes, or a lack of glute strength, that also leads to difficulty in sensing the movements and engaging with the muscle group. Both of these are pretty straightforward fixes: stretch, foam roll, activate, and strengthen these muscle groups. The more active muscle fibers you have operating, the easier it is for your brain to communicate with them and vice versa.

Outside of these basic obstacles though is probably the biggest one of all: understanding what it means to hip hinge. I’ve mentioned before that sometimes terminology can sound good, but not carry any actual meaning for people. In other words, if someone asked you to explain what it means to hip hinge, could you? If not, or if you just want to double check your own understanding, keep reading.

Hip Hinge. It sounds simple enough. But a combination of tight or weak muscles, and a less than complete understanding of how to produce this movement can lead to a lot of frustration. So let’s break it down in the simplest terms. The main area being affected are your hips, so there’s the hip part. And in the same way a hinge on a door functions that gives us the hinge part; your hips are hinging. In my view the confusion mostly tends to rise out of one particular area: your back. Let me quickly explain.

If you simply looked at a hinge on a door you would see two flat, metal pieces, joined in the middle by intersecting, round pieces that form a cylindrical tube, with a pin that inserts into that tube to hold the pieces together. The center tube with the pin through it allows the two metal pieces to pivot off of one another, so when attached to a door and the frame, the door can open and close. Right now you’re probably about to stop reading this article because, duh Jamie, we know how a door works. But hear me out.

With your body, your thighs are one metal plate, your back is the other, and your hips are the tube in between with the pin through it. Your thighs, or more specifically the femur bone in them, are hard and strong and straight just like the metal plate. Your back on the other hand is ribs and spine, which not only is made up of interlocking vertebrae that can bend and move, but your spine itself is curved as it travels through your torso and inserts into the back of your pelvis (the SI joint). Therefore, maintaining a straight, flat back that might resemble a solid metal plate is going to depend entirely on your muscles to maintain control, stability, and straightness.

You can probably look around your local gym or almost anywhere on the internet and see people rounding their back as they perform a deadlift. This is generally a lack of awareness but can also be from a lack of strength, or trying to lift a weight that is too heavy for them. Or all of the above. The point is though: don’t be that person. Using a mirror at first is a great way to ensure that you are maintaining a straight back as you hip hinge. But beyond that it is pretty essential that you know what it feels like so you can ditch the mirror. In my view the easiest way to familiarize yourself with a hip hinge is to imagine you’re doing a hamstring stretch, except you have to keep your back completely flat and straight as you push your butt out behind you. Holding a broom stick or pvc pipe on your back as you do this and maintaining full contact with it along your back can help. As you do this you should feel the muscles of your hamstrings begin to lengthen and stretch. Stop before you get to a point where you can no longer control the stretch because the next part is important. In the same way your arm does a bicep curl, the bicep muscle lengthens when the weight is away from you, then the muscle shortens and contracts to “curl” the weight in, that’s basically how your hamstrings operate too. From that lengthened position, with your back straight and your butt pushed out behind you, pull yourself back to an upright position by contracting and shortening your hamstrings. The pull is through your glutes and hamstrings, not by arching and pulling through your low back. This is essentially a hip hinge.

While practicing this you’ll probably discover that there are various iterations of a hip hinge. Technically, when you squat you are performing a hip hinge. You load your glutes and hamstrings for stability as you lower into the squat, but then due to the flexion of your knees it becomes more of a push movement through your quads and glutes to drive back to standing. Similarly, with deadlift you might have been practicing a straight-leg deadlift in order to familiarize yourself with a hip hinge, but in order to generate more power and strength in a traditional deadlift, there is going to be some degree of flexed knees in order to create a higher concentration of overlapping muscle fibers in the hamstrings, leading to a stronger pull. If that’s confusing, think back to doing a bicep curl. If you had your arm completely straight and you put a heavy dumbbell in your hand, chances are you’re going to struggle to curl that dumbbell in from a straight arm position. But if you bent your elbow slightly and then put that same dumbbell in your hand, it would be much easier to curl it due to the extra overlap of muscle fibers. If you want to learn more about that, do a search on the actin and myosin filaments in a sarcomere.

 Hopefully this has cleared up any confusion about what it means to hip hinge and how the movement applies to lifting and really, picking up anything in general. If you can master the hip hinge and apply it appropriately to deadlift posture when picking things up, you’ll end up engaging your back in a position of stability while your glutes and hamstrings are the muscles that actually lift whatever it is you have off the floor, or out of the back of your car or truck, and basically anything of that nature. Understanding and mastering this movement will save you a lifetime of back pain and strain, and make your glutes and hamstrings strong, functional, and sexy!

Core Strength and Crunches

When basic crunches aren’t enough for your workout routine let’s look at some alternatives that will optimize your core strength and increase your balance and ability to generate power.

*And if you want to do crunches, think about your back staying straight and sitting up onto your tailbone.

By now you probably know that your core is more than just your abs.

It’s the trunk of your body that both stabilizes you and also allows you to rotate around with control. And applied correctly your core also braces your spine to protect it from any unsafe movements that could harm your central nervous system. Another thing I think is important to understand about your core is that it is the foundation that all of your extremities attach to. So while your legs allow you to run, and your arms are swinging a golf club around, these extremities attach to the trunk of your body and need its support in order to move effectively. These extremities are attempting to generate power when they do certain things, whether it’s kicking a ball, swinging a bat, or throwing a Frisbee; and the strength of your core will determine how much power they can generate and then transfer to your movement.

Planks

A staple of core strength is going to be a plank. Whether it’s performed with your hands on the ground or your forearms on the ground, a plank is a straightforward way to assess core strength. But once you’ve gotten control of your plank it’s important to start implementing the variations that will keep you getting stronger and also from getting bored. Side planks, performed on one arm or hand and with the hips facing out instead of down, are a great way to kick up the challenge level and add balance into the equation. From here you can then try tapping your hip to the ground to see if you can maintain your balance and control while moving. Try tapping your hip to the ground twice and then holding a side plank for two seconds, with a goal of being able to do this ten times on each side.

Dead Bug

Dead Bug is a great flip on the traditional plank for people who are beginners and can’t maintain a plank, but also for people who struggle with stabilizing their back and keeping it from arching or rounding. Appropriately named for the way dead bugs tend to look, you lay on your back with hips and knees bent to 90 degree angles. With your arms pointing up to the sky, hold an object against the front of your knees; a stability ball, a big pillow, whatever you can get your hands on and hold against your knees. Maintaining your back flat against the ground, extend an opposite arm and leg out away from the ball as far as you can control them before bringing them back up to the ball and switching sides. A good goal here is to be able to do this 20 times on each side.

Cable Rotations

If you have access to a cable machine then you can work on generating power as we mentioned earlier in more specific movements. In the same way you would swing a golf club or baseball bat, doing cable rotations will help you increase core strength and generate power in your movement. You will want to start off standing perpendicular to the cable machine, both hands gripping the handle and holding it at arm’s length in front of your chest. Keeping the handle out in front of your chest will help ensure that the emphasis is on your core and isn’t being taken over by your arms and shoulders. It helps to imagine that you’re in a glass tube, so you can’t rock forward or lean backward, you can only rotate around. Your goal here is to rotate your torso around pulling the cable with it and then controlling it back to the start position. Pick a weight that will allow you to do 20 to 25 reps on each side, each one mimicking the way you would swing an object, focusing on your ability to generate strength and power in that rotation.

There are probably hundreds of ways to train and strengthen your core, with crunches being just one of them. Just remember, core strength is about control and stabilizing, so you can protect your spine but also generate force. If you want to do crunches, think about your back staying straight and sitting up onto your tailbone. Rounding your back, the way most crunches are performed, is the opposite of how you want to train your body. Like always, know what you’re trying to do, focus on the muscle groups you’re trying to use, and don’t sacrifice your form and ability to keep yourself stable just to get in a few more reps. Quality over quantity will win out every time.

Intro To Running

Going for a run is one of the most common forms of exercise.

Whether it’s for stress relief, weight loss, competition or just enjoyment, we have friends, family, and clients that run on a regular basis. So we thought we’d offer some insight on how to approach running and ways to avoid injury so you can get the most out of your run, no matter what inspires you.

One of the main things we want to impress upon you is the fact that everyone is or has the potential to be a natural born runner. But running has to be treated like any other physical activity, you have to train for it. If you’re someone who goes running periodically, meaning you take months off at a time, and in between you randomly go for an aggressive 3 mile run, then it shouldn’t surprise you when your feet and shins hurt the next day and your hips feel like they’re locked in a vice. If you hadn’t done bench press for 2 months I doubt you would go into the gym and attempt your last PR. And if you did you’d be paying for it. So running is no different. If you want to be a healthy runner you need to put in the time to practice and prepare your body for the demands you are asking of it. This includes taking time in the beginning to acclimate your body and giving it time to get strong enough to handle the 3 or 5+ mile run you might just be casually trying to do every few weeks or couple of months right now.

But regardless of whether you are a casual runner or someone who starts every day with a morning run, we want to offer some tips for keeping those joints working smoothly and those muscles operating at their optimal capacity.

If you break down the movement of running it’s pretty straightforward: it’s the constant flexion and extension of multiple joints while balancing from foot to foot. It may not feel that way when you’re moving so quickly through the motion but feet, ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders are all repeatedly flexing and extending. In order to meet the demands of this locomotion it helps to prep your body and check the mobility of each of these joints. A great way to check this is by performing a bodyweight squat. This will test your ability to comfortably flex and extend both your hips and knees, as well as test the flexion of your ankles, which is referred to as dorsiflexion.

Some questions to ask yourself.

Can you comfortably perform a proper squat? Are you able to maintain hip tension and stability through the entire range of the squat? Are you able to maintain balance and keep your whole foot on the ground with center of gravity in the front of the heel and an arch in the middle? Being able to do this will ensure that all of your energy is being spent on an effective run, and not wasted on trying to keep your balance or hold yourself up due to a lack of range of motion or hip drive.

With regard to mobility the last two things you want to consider are back tension and your ability to have proper shoulder extension. Sitting all day often leads to low and mid back tension and poor posture, which can easily affect your ability to rotate through the trunk and create core stability while running. This will most likely reveal itself with pain or stiffness in the low and mid back as you run.

While performing a dozen or so squats is a great way to warm up and check your mobility, also consider adding in a couple minutes of jump rope. This will get your feet and ankles ready for your run, warm up your balance, and give you a chance to engage your back and lats for good posture, as well as working on maintaining a neutral hip position with engaged glutes. Once you know your glutes are fired up and you have good mobility through your joints, do several short distant sprints and jogs to get everything primed and ready, and then start your run.

In no way is this a comprehensive list of all the things you should or need to be doing. It is more of a guideline as to how you should be thinking about running and how you approach getting yourself in the healthiest physical state to have successful and pain free runs. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or set up a consultation to discuss any particular obstacles or issues you might need help with. Thanks for reading!

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