One of the greatest signs of strength is someone’s ability to control their own bodyweight. Pull-ups may very well be the most difficult standard bodyweight exercise…People generally skip on pull-ups for one reason. They are hard. If you don’t have the pull-up in your workout routine, ADD IT TODAY.
It should be noted that all of these exercises begin with arms fully extended, and end with the chin passing above the bar without any stretching of the neck.
Here are 24 different variations of pull-ups you might want to try:
1. Strict pull-up: Plain old pull-up, no kipping, no wiggling, just chin over the bar.
2. Kipping pull-up: a pull-up, which uses momentum, generated with movement from the feet, shoulders, hips and torso (google: kipping pull-up for more definitions)
3. Chin-up: Similar to a pull-up but hand grip is reversed to palms face back toward you, rather than away from you.
4. L-Pull up: When hanging from the bar, lift legs up so they are parallel to the ground, if someone looked at you from the side your upper body would be perpendicular to your lower body. While keeping your body in the L shape do a regular pull-up bringing your chin over the bar.
5. Side-to-Side pull-up: Do a regular pull-up but at the top of the pull-up, while the chin is above the bar. Move your head over to your right hand, then back to the left over your left hand.
6. Crunch pull-up: While hanging from the bar bring your knees and feet into your chest so your body is crunched up into a ball, then do pull yourself up until the chin crosses the bar.
7. V-pull up: A variant of the L pull-up, bring your feet up almost to your hands so that your body is in the shape of a V.
8. One-Arm pull-up: Using one arm (with the other arm hanging), do a full pull-up. Sounds challenging, but it can be done.
9. Close Grip pull-up: Keep the hands close together.
10. Dyno pull-ups: One of my favorites. Do a pull-up, but as you get to the top of the pull-up, release one hand and reach up as high as possible (this works best if you have a target about 2 feet higher than the bar to reach for.)
11. Chest to Bar: Make sure the chest touches the bar on each and every pull-up. Discipline.
12. Plank pull-ups: Very challenging. Hold your body in a plank position so it is perpendicular to the floor and pull yourself up until your chest touches the bar.
13. Right-Side pull-ups: Hold the bar with each hand on opposite sides of the bar (Your body will be in position so that if you don’t move to the right or left when you pull-up, your head will hit the bar). Pull up and move your head to the right of the bar…go up until your shoulder touches the bar.
14. Left-Side pull-ups: Hold the bar with each hand on opposite sides of the bar (Your body will be in position so that if you don’t move to the right or left when you pull-up, your head will hit the bar). Pull up and move your head to the left of the bar…go up until your shoulder touches the bar.
15. Wide-Grip pull-ups: Use a very wide grip
16. Circle pull-ups: Starting at the hang position, move your body in a circle so that at the hang position that is the bottom of the circle, and the normal position at the top of a pull-up is the top of the circle
17. Thick Bar pull-ups: Do pull-ups on a much thicker bar than usual
18. Towel pull-ups: drape a towel over the pull up bar, grasp each end of the towel in a different hand. do pull-ups either straight up or side to side.
19. Fingertip pull-ups: Rather than taking a full hand grip of the bar, try using only your fingertips
20. Weighted pull-ups: use a dumbbell, kettlebell, weighted vest, or anything else to add weight to yourself.
21. Paused pull-ups: Pause for 3 seconds at the top of your pull-up
22. Mixed grip pull-up: One hand grips like a chin-up, one like a pull-up
23. Slow descent pull-up: Go very slow on the descent of the pull-up.
24. Resistance pull-up: Use a band or someone holding you as resistance to going up on the pull up
As I mentioned briefly above, there is only one real way to call something a pull-up. You must start the pull up with your arms fully extended, and end with the entire head above the bar.
Thank you to all who have been reading this blog so far. I encourage comments to start discussion , give feedback, or offer suggestion. If you like what you have read please use the “add this” bar to tell Digg, stumbleUpon, or any other site that you enjoyed the post. And again, thank you all for reading.
Flickr Credits: .B.P.M.
What to eat at McDonald’s
Normally I suggest that you avoid fastfood at all costs, but there are times when you are in a pinch, with no time for something healthy, or perhaps no healthier options available at all.
So when confronted with this situation here are some (relatively) healthy options for what you could eat at McDonalds.
Breakfast
Egg McMuffin- The Egg McMuffen is probably the healthiest option on the breakfast menu. At 300 calories/10g of fat/18g of prtein/29g of carbohydrates it is a relatively balanced (cringe) meal.
Scrambled Eggs: You can get two eggs scrambled at McDonalds…while probably not all that filling, it is probably the healthiest item on the menu at 170/11/15/1 (calories/fat/protein/carbs.)
Lunch/Dinner
Premium Asian Grilled Chicken Salad- This salad without any dressing comes in at 300/10/32/23. Go with either the sesame ginger dressing or better yet…the balsamic vinaigrette.
Hamburger - The question of whether or not it is real meat I will leave for someone else, but the 250/9/12/31 isn’t too bad.
Grilled Chicken - The grilled chicken sandwich is high in carbs (420/10/32/51), try to leave off the mayo (maybe try some mustard) and ditch half of the bun if you can manage (get rid of the whole bun to be real healthy! (120/2/3/22))
Snacks
Apple Dippers (less the dipper)…so I guess it would be more like apple wedges?- This is easy, it is just fresh apples, you don’t even have to clean or cut, they were gracious enough to do it for you (35/0/0/8)…only 6grams of sugar as well.
Ice Cream Cone- Being that my one real weakness is ice cream, and everyone loves ice cream!…I feel like this is one cheat I can squeeze in every once in a while, at only 150 calories (150/0/4/24). It is still high in sugar, coming in at 18 grams.
Flickr Credits: ctk, ninjapoodles
First off, let me define “diet”. Diet does not refer to a week long, or two week long starvation. Diet here is your daily intake of food. It is what you eat throughout the course of a year or a lifetime. It is not “the grapefruit diet” or “the water diet”, this is meant to be followed each day. So yes, if you eat ice cream…that is part of your diet.
Often times those of us that follow a healthy diet are chastised for doing so. But my question back is, why is eating terribly and slowly killing your body celebrated…and eating healthy is ridiculed. It is interesting. Heart Attacks and heart disease kill more people than airplane crashes do, but people will not fly on an airplane because it is dangerous. However, people will eat a Big Mac which may eventually lead to a heart attack or heart disease. Interesting.
I provided some guidance on what food to keep on hand in your kitchen and pantry, but that leaves the question…What do I eat on any given day? The subject of nutrition is hotly debated, and there often times appears to be no clear-cut answer. In my experience, In actual practice I have found the best results coming from a diet that is made up of 30-40% protein, 30-40% fat, and 30% carbohydrates. I also provided some scientific support for the lower carbohydrate diet in the post: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Depending on your age weight, activity, gender, body-type, and metabolism, everyone has a different amount of calories they ideally consume in a day. Me personally I am 5′10, 170 pounds and extremely active…I generally consume about 2,500 calories in a day. The best way to see how many calories you really need in a day is to try a site like Calorie-Count.com. Calorie-Count asks you for a bunch of information then gives you what you burn in a day without activity. You can then add in whatever exercise you did in a day to give you your approximate “calories burned” number. The site also allows you to input what food you have eaten in a day (it will assign a grade, and recommend food alternatives as well). As a general guideline most moderately active men and women fall between a requirement of 1,500 and 3,000 calories a day. For information these calories should come from…check out the previous post http://theblogformen.com/a-healthy-mans-ideal-shopping-list/
How to Lose ONE POUND!
A quick lesson in Calorie math
There are 3,500 calories in 1 pound.
In theory, the way you lose weight is to eat fewer calories than you take in…This is called a calorie deficit. It is not really safe to have a calorie deficit of more than 500 calories in a day. So lets do the math now. If you burn 3,000 calories in a day, and you eat 2,500 calories, you have a calorie deficit of 500 calories. If you have this deficit every day for a week you have a total deficit for the week of 3,500 calories. Congratulations you have lost one pound. (Keep in mind that your day-to-day weight may fluctuate based on your last bowel movement or even your last meal…so don’t worry to much about day-to-day weigh-ins).
Comments are encouraged! Also, please use the AddThis toolbar to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc.. And as always…please let me know if you have additional questions.
Flickr Credits: ~3sweets~
