[Freebird Flying]

(11-14-2018 09:27 AM)Richard Turpin Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 02:00 AM)Freebird Flying Wrote:  

Zero!

I can run a 5k though...

How important is it to be able to do some pullups?

Maybe i can get inspired here...

@Freebird Flying, stick with the 5k runs as they are legitimately useful. But so are pullups, as you will see from reading this old Art of Manliness article;

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/...st-master/




There's more detail in the article but basically;

Quote:

In 1926, strong man and physical culture enthusiast Earle Liederman wrote a book called Endurance. In it, Liederman makes the case that every man should be physically fit enough to save his own life in an emergency. He sets out five fitness benchmarks that indicate whether a man is up to this task. None require you to be able to bench press 500 pounds or have six pack abs. Rather, the benchmarks focus on having the strength and endurance to run, swim, or pull yourself to safety. If you’re looking for a fitness goal, the five fitness benchmarks Liederman lists are a good place to start.

According to Liederman:

“Every man should be able to save his own life. He should be able to swim far enough, run fast and long enough to save his life in case of emergency and necessity. He also should be able to chin himself a reasonable number of times, as well as to dip a number of times, and he should be able to jump a reasonable height and distance.

You only have to imagine how massively fat people would struggle to get away from trouble when shit hits the fan; running at speed over distance while pulling yourself over walls and fences and climbing over shit is about as real-world useful as it gets I would venture.

Regarding the 'dips' in that old-time Lieberman book; I read this article years ago and used to struggle to think of the applicability of dips, until I next needed to climb some ladders and pull and push myself through the loft hatch! Mind you, I should really invest in some proper pull-down loft-ladders!

But yeah, I wouldn't feel comfortable having a fitness routine that didn't include pullups nowadays.

As an aside, I remember from my Judo days that pullups were thought of as being exceptionally good at building useful 'grappling' strength for rolling around on the mats. You can see from any wrestling/grappling/bjj/judo sites that pullups are ubiquitous in any of their training articles.

Stick with the running, but throw pullups in there too as they give back the biggest bang for your buck and won't interfere with running at all. I wouldn't worry about doing zero, you have to start from somewhere; try lowering yourself from the bar as slowly as you can to build up strength that way, you'll soon be able to get your numbers up.

I'm working on it. I need to cut my body fat and work my way up. If I could build up to 10 pulls up that would be a really nice achievement.