In October of last year I made a goal to be able to perform an unassisted pull up by the end of 2025. 2026 is here and *Spoiler Alert: I didn’t reach my goal and still can’t perform an unassisted pull up (yet). However, I learned a lot during this endeavor and here are some of my takeaways.

I feel stronger, more toned, and more in control of my muscle movement than ever before. Breaking down the pull up into other strengthening exercises helped me to isolate muscle groups and to feel when they were engaging through the pull up motion.

Muscles used in a pull up: Lats, biceps, forearm flexors (grip strength), deltoids, pectorals, and core. Try these exercises to increase your pull up form and strength!

1.) Lat pull up from floor – get those lat engaged by gripping a bar and pulling up from sitting on the floor. You should feel like you are trying to crack a stick in half over your head. You should feel your scapulae rotate with this movement.

2.) Bicep curls – grab some weights and bend your elbow with palms up – this should be slow and controlled with both bending and straightening your elbow.

3.) Grip strength – grab a bar and hang! Thumbs should be over the bar, not under and you should control your posture and scapulae should be retracted, no rounded shoulders with this exercise

4.) Shoulder abduction – get your shoulders down and back and raise your arm out to the side with a weight. No trunk leaning!

5.) Core – hollow holds are a great way to engage your core. Lay flat with your arms overhead, brace your core and lift your head, shoulders, arms, and legs. Try to hold for 30 seconds.

Movement begets movement. Doing daily exercises made it easier for me to keep doing different exercises and get other muscle groups engaged. I didn’t focus only on upper body strengthening but incorporated lots of core and leg exercises too. 

Let go of perfection and just keep at it. (This does not include form.) There is a saying that anything worth doing is worth doing “half-heartedly.” What does this mean in this case? If I missed a day of exercise, I let it go and picked back up again the next day or occasionally even the day after that. Some days I did just one or two exercises and called it a day. I dismissed the mentality that if I missed a day I was “off track” or I messed up. Life happens and sometimes intentional exercise doesn’t. I kept going back to my exercises and challenged myself again after missing a day or two and still managed to get stronger than I have ever been. 

Benefits of my resilience: Improved posture, groceries feel lighter, my daughter is exercising and trying to do pull ups, flipping my mattress – piece of cake, and overall I feel good. So don’t worry if your New Year’s resolution didn’t go exactly as planned. Just keep jumping back in, that’s the only real change I made this time around, I keep jumping back in.

Accountabili-buddies: 

Seeing my daughter start to work on exercises daily after I did was a huge motivator to keep going.

Sharing my experience with my patients and hoping they will do the same and keep doing their exercises and not giving up after missing. 

Denise Smith checking in and encouraging continued good form, tips and resilience.