Photo by uuzinger
I have never, in my entire life, done a pull-up.
This is not an easy revelation for me to make. The truth of the matter is that it’s downright painful.
Back when I was in Middle School (6th to 8th grades down here in Florida) physical education was a mandatory class that everyone had daily. For some kids it was an excuse to get outside and have some fun during the school day. For me it was a daily reminder of how much I sucked. It was an opportunity for me to get picked on for how slow I was, how much I was sweating in the hot Florida sun, how I was horrible at team sports, and how ugly I looked when I didn’t have my shirt on. The latter, of course, only happened on one of the very rare occasions when I would actually get up the nerve to “dress out.” When I didn’t, which was most of the time, I got picked on instead because of how badly I smelled due to not taking a shower after class.
The absolute worst humiliation I had to endure during that time, however, was a direct result of The President’s Challenge.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular method of degradation, The President’s Challenge is a yearly fitness challenge and evaluation that is sponsored by the United States government. To be completely fair the goal of the challenge (getting people to think about fitness) is a pretty decent one and part of our mission here at ShrinkGeek. Unfortunately back in my school days it was simply this thing that was forced down our throats every year with no training or goal setting. What I suspect is that at the time it was a required part of the physical education agenda and that the numbers had to be reported back to the school board. What I KNOW is that the process of gathering those numbers was done in a VERY public manner. As we went through all of the tests our coaches would yell out the numbers to assistants who jotted them down on a clip board, and my fellow (healthier) students got great joy out of standing around and watching me struggle through the tests. They would roll with laughter as the coach struggled to measure the rolls of fat on my belly with a caliper and offer me “encouragement” to try and jump further or run faster (“Come on Butter Ball! You can do it!”).
The fact that this went on was embarrassing enough, but the fact that it went on in front of my coaches just made it worse. There was an adult who was supposed to be there to help me get into shape who, by his or her inaction, took an active role into making me feel horrid about myself.
All of these memories blend into one very clear picture I have in my mind of my efforts to do a pull-up for The President’s Challenge. I tried. I really did. I’d been laughed at, prodded, and poked to the point of fury. I was angry, and I was going to show them.
Unfortunately my body would not cooperate.
The longer I hung there the angrier I got at myself and the louder they laughed. I’m fairly certain I even heard the coach laughing. I grunted and I groaned and I got angrier and angrier but my arms didn’t budge. Not an inch. Finally my arms gave out and I collapsed into an exhausted heap under the pull-up bar, evoking even more laughter from the peanut gallery.
Which is good, actually. It meant they couldn’t hear me crying.
This is the point in the story where the guy who is trying to sell you on how he can whip your ass into shape tells you he turned his life around. Not me. That rage died and turned into shame, and in order to make the pain go away I kept eating. As I got bigger the laughter got louder, but I compensated for that by becoming the class clown. If I could make fun of myself before you got the chance to it didn’t hurt quite so bad, and whatever pain I felt would go away when I got to eat again. I would be the biggest and loudest person in the room because if I knew you were going to stare at me anyway so I figured I might as well control the situation. I would make you pay attention to me so that you didn’t LOOK at me.
I’ve told the story of what eventually got me to really focus on getting in shape here before. Anger didn’t do it. Fear did. I didn’t want to die. More importantly, I didn’t want to die young and leave my son without a Father.
I am, at the age of 36, in considerably better shape than I was when I was in Middle School. Without tooting my own horn I’m in considerably better shape than a lot of adults that are my age. While I am still overweight I exercise rigorously on a daily basis, generally for an hour or more. Not only do I spend time on a treadmill, I also work on the 100 push-up challenge and the 200 sit-up challenge, I regularly use EA SPORTS Active, and I have just incorporated My Fitness Coach into my weekend routine to get some Yoga in there as well.
Despite all of this effort I still cannot do a pull-up.
I recently decided that I was going to defeat this demon. I did a little research, picked a few exercises, and added some upper body and back strength training to my routine. I even started drinking Muscle Milk (Light). I’m working on it, slowly and painfully. My progress is going to be gradual and, for the most part, private. While I may share my exploits with my friends online I refuse to attempt a pull-up where someone might see me and laugh. It’s bad enough that, where I work out, the pull-up bar is in front of a mirror and I have to see myself.
There is another reason why my pull-up attempts need to be private, though.
When I eventually hit my goal and do a pull-up I want to make sure that there is nobody around to see me crying again.
Motivation is a curious thing, especially when it comes to fitness. Some of us get motivated by anger (sometimes at ourselves, but often at a jilted lover), some of us are motivated by a desire to return to what we once were, some of us want to get into a really nice article of clothing for an upcoming event, and some of us would just like to get laid. While my initial burst of motivation came from the health scare I had, what is keeping me focused now is the hope that maybe, some day, I just might not hate myself quite so much.
I had never been able to do one either, though at least no one expects girls to be able to do a pull-up for the President’s thingie – we just had to hold ourselves up after someone else helped us up. I took up gymnastics at age 28 in an effort to get into better shape and have some fun. One of the things I did with my gym time was work on getting myself to the point where I could do a pull-up. I started by getting on my knees in front of the lower uneven bar and simply trying to pull my knees up off the ground 10 times underhand and 10 times overhand. Nothing happened for the first couple of weeks. But then I could pull my knees up once, then twice, and the longer I kept at it, the more times and the higher I could get my knees off the ground each evening, and the less and less weight I kept on my toes. Eventually I worked up to doing something like 5 full-weight pull-ups in a row! 5 doesn’t seem like much relative to someone like Rafe, but for me it was a huge deal. You’ll get there. Don’t let the lack of movement get you down. Every time you try, you’re building muscle and you’ll be that much closer next time. Good luck!
Mike er Michael (guess I did not get to hear whether you liked one or the other),
I was not able to do one until last summer (I was 31 then). I can tell you that I admire how far you have come and your dedication to getting what you want. I too felt nearly all of the same, up to including getting my shorts shanked during gym once or twice (and the resultant “Weird Science” moment. I remember “running” an 18 minute mile in high school and feeling like I was going to die. I remember the presidents challenge and the “good work fat boy” coming from the coach.
I of course did lose weight, but only by doing Dr. Garcia diet after not being able to break the 220’s no matter what I did. They taught me how to eat, and that has made all the difference in my world.
I will never forget the day in May last year when I did my first pull up. I think what you’ll find is that the day you do 1 – that wont be the only one you do!
If I have any advice for you, one thing that I did that helped was that I used a door gym (like you see on tv. I hung that up and started in the Up position (like I had done a pull up) and then slowly lowered myself down (bending my knees behind me) until I was all the way down (thus doing the negative of the exercise). This really helped strengthen my sides and shoulders quickly and led to me being able to do many (not quite Rafe, but 8-10 without a problem).
Try it at work, put the weight bench a little behind the bar and boost yourself up. Then slowly lower yourself down (take about a 30 seconds to a minute) and you’ll see 🙂
At any rate, from one coworker to another, I am proud of your accomplishments and happy to see your passion and dedication to your own self improvement!
I did try pulling off one of the negative ones, but I used the step instead of the bench and came pretty damn close to putting my foot through the mirror there.
God, how I hated the President’s Challenge. Girls had to do the arm hang and I could not do it for even a second. I was also always the last person to finish running the mile (I think I took so long they gave up on timing it.) You’re a bit older than me but the public humiliation – replete with calipers – was still going on well into the 1980s. Way to make kids even less inclined to be physically active.
Anyway, I commend you for trying to conquer the pull-up. That will surely be a sweet victory when you do it!
Gym class is a great idea that seems to have resulted in pretty much universal horror for kids. I’m 27 now, and they still did most of those activities (not that I could) when I went through public school in the Midwest.
I started working out for the first time in my life last summer and just recently stumbled on this website. I’m very impressed with it! It takes real guts to even admit to yourself when you are trying to accomplish a goal that you felt you “Couldn’t” for so long. I’ve always felt the same about push ups (Still working on that one! Eventually, I’ll get off my knees.)
I’m trying to remember if we did this when I was in high school. I know there was a pullup bar mounted to the wall, and we’d use it every so often (back then, I wasn’t strong, but had the “advantage” of being both short and scrawny – not far to go, and not much to have to move). I spent so much time swearing at the cinder track my HS used to have as part of running for the cross country and track teams, it all kind of blurs together now, so it’s possible we had to do that, too.
I do remember in middle school (6-8th grade) that we were timed in the incredibly arbitrary distance of 600 meters (which was the perimeter of the athletic field, I guess); there was something very Ferris Bueller-ish about that particular run.
Since I keep getting invoked as some sort of Patron Saint of the Pull-Up, I feel the need to point out that when I started going to the gym four and a half years ago, I think I could do maybe _three_ of the ugliest chin-ups you’ve ever seen.
I am where I am because of the same kind of long-term effort and dedication moses, Mike and James have put in to getting where they’ve gotten. If I can get here, being as fundamentally lazy as I’m capable of being, y’all can, too. 🙂
Patron Saint of Pull Ups
BWAHAHAHAH
I want a festive hat.
And minions.
Well, what can I say? I want lats to go with the abs and pecs, and this is the simplest way to get there. I *did* say I was lazy.
I know what you mean, the presidents challenge is one hell of a challenge, while im not overweight, just really tall and lanky ( with hardly any muscle ) I opted to do the less challenging national standard ( arm hang for, I think it was like 10 seconds ) and I could hardly do that 0.o so when I had a chance to work up the courage to try the pull-up, alas I couldn’t even do one! Now that gave me the motivation to start going to the gym, and think I’m gonna start going to the local gym sometime soon 🙂
*shudder*
Wow, I feel your pain. All my high school nightmares just came flooding back. Cripes, I hated gym.
I was always a chubby kid, so I couldn’t even do one back in middle school. Never had to do them in high school, thank God. When the Patron Saint of Pull Ups got ahold of me, I could barely do one if that. Through working with him I can do almost 10. I’m sure I could do 10 if I was a *bit* more dedicated to the gym. Doing negatives first definitely helps alot. Then when you can do 1, do 5 sets of 1. When you can squeeze 2, do 5 sets of 2, etc. You’ll be doing 10 in no time. The PSoPU is a great motivator when you are comfortable to do them in the gym.
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