Tag: fitness

Pull-ups Update

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

One of my annual goals was to make one pull-up. The last meaningful update on that goal was in March, when I made 3 reps with a neutral grip. Since then, I struggled with injuries and gained a few kilograms of weight. So it didn’t look like I’ll make progress past three.

In order to address the pain while not giving up on the goal, I lowered the intensity of my exercises, increased the frequency, stopped making them from a full hang, and ditched the neutral grip in favor of the standard semi-false grip. I now do 1-4 series almost every day, depending on how I feel. I also introduced non-standard push ups with various difficulty.

After 4 months of that, my forearms no longer hurt as much as they did in March. They still do, I sense a bit of pain even as I type this, but it’s okay. Not something that would take the peace of my mind.

So, today, I showed my kids how to properly hang on a bar. And the bars in the school where we played have one that’s significantly higher than the one I regularly use. I can’t even try making a pull-up without fully hanging first. I tried doing pull-ups there, and made 4 clean reps.

Four is the new record for me. It took me roughly 4 months since the previous record of three, and it happened almost by accident. But at the same time, I exercised every day since we came back from Sozopoli, so maybe not that much of an accident after all.

Would I do 5 soon? Who knows. It can happen tomorrow, in another 4 months, or never. Doing this at 47 is tough and it hurts. Lots of things are pulling me down. Maybe the right way to get to a higher number of repetitions is to eat healthier food.

Long-term plans

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

There’s an old saying that says “when humans plan, God laughs”. Yet, I believe in long-term planning. I know, it’s often just nonsense. So many things can go wrong. You can be struck by lightning. The path can lead to some other place. You can lose the ability to execute it. Things can go wrong. I get it. It can be a bad plan. The longer a plan takes, the less likely it should be to accomplish it.

But there’s a trick with long-term plans. Essentially, keep showing up. Like a drop falling over and over at the same spot until it carves the stone. Showing up changes things. That’s something we can normally do. We can manage ourselves, we can be the drop no matter if it will eventually carve the stone or not.

And while you keep showing up, you learn, you set the bar for persistence, you give an example, and you may add 0.01% to someone else’s inspiration. If you do that a hundred times, the 0.01% becomes a full unit of inspiration. Just like reverse-buying chocolate. Bring that home, eventually everyone will eat it. Don’t bring that home, who knows. Maybe nobody brings it home today.

If the goal is worthy, the world becomes a better place even if it’s not fulfilled.

Speaking of goals, despite the series of injuries, I’m still showing up to the pull-up challenge. I started taking selfies on day 18, missed some. This screenshot is also missing some. But it captures my general belief.

Three

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments

The morning was unusually cold. There’s fresh snow on Vitosha, the kind that seems to freeze the whole city. It was so cold even the Devil stayed indoors. His horns get brittle from the wind.

It was my last chance to set a monthly pull-up PR. I’ve been taking it easy lately, working around a few aches and pains. But this was my last chance for the quarter. I sucked it up, stripped off the frost protection – no hat, gloves, and removed the contents of my pockets, like if the car keys mattered, and gave it a go. What followed could generously be called three reps.

Two Reps

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments

This is my first documented pull-up with my feet not touching the ground even slightly. When I set an annual goal of one pull-up, it felt like a stretch goal. Doing it in 2027 was quite fine for me. I haven’t been to the gym since 2019, more than 6 years ago. I haven’t done any upper body training other than carrying kids since then. I’ve also gained weight.

But while I wonder if I should update the goal or blame the steps, here’s a video.

Rep

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments

I set myself a goal to do one pull-up by the end of the year. I made some progress yesterday. My one rep is not a clean pull-up. The grip is neutral, and my legs are touching the ground from the moment I started pulling. I didn’t jump, but it’s not entirely clear from the video if I really pulled all of my body weight completely unassisted by my legs.

In any case, I’m not too far off. So far, the number of injuries exceeds the number of pull-ups. Honestly, I didn’t believe I’d get that far, let alone so soon. I was hoping I could achieve something within a year or two. Achieving a somewhat recognizable repetition in less than two months of practice is a big surprise to me. I’ll think about adjusting the goal once I do a clean rep.