Grade Indoor
Problems doing a pull-up - can't seem to go more than half-way.?
I can't seem to do a pull-up. I get half way and it starts to feel all wrong, my biceps start to really hurt, but not in a good way, more in an I'm going to damage my muscles way. So any tips on how I can get past this to do a pull-up.
I'm a fairly fit girl, and fairly strong too. I do a lot of rock climbing and can climb to a decent grade, both indoor and outdoors. A lot of my climbing is done on an overhanging wall. So i'm used to pushing myself and my muscles but for some reason I still can't do a pull-up. As i've already said, it just feels wrong. So any advice on what muscles are used for a pull up, how they're used i.e. angle, etc, would be greatly appreciated.
Pull-ups are difficult. I know 500-pound, power-lifting gorillas at my gym who can't do 2 in a row. So what to do? Two ideas.
1. Get a box or some kind of stand so that you can get in the contracted motion without actually contracting (meaning you need a way to lift your way up into the position which you would normally do by actually pulling up--you're cheating, but that's cool). 2. Just work on lowering yourself, albeit slowly. These are called negative reps. Do this as much as you can for a month. Then get back to the pullups.
2. Or look at this for another, and different, take on it:
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/jumping-pull-ups.wmv