too many words by laura lemay

up up and away

I read somewhere that there are more than 6000 weight lifting exercises; someone has put them all in a book somewhere. One of the purest of them all, however, is the pull-up. Find a horizontal bar to hold onto, and lift yourself so your chin is over the bar. That’s it. OK, there are different variations of close or wide grip, palms in or palms out, but the general idea is the same: get your bulk up off the ground using just the strength in your arms and back. Its pretty basic: if you can do a pull-up, you are studly.

Women have a disadvantage with pull-ups because we just don’t have all that much upper body muscle mass to begin with. On the other hand, we tend to be lighter so we have less to get off the ground.

I’ve been working on doing a pull-up for eighteen months now. Eighteen months. When I started I used an assisted pull-up machine with 120 pounds of assist.

Today I did a pull-up all by myself for the very first time. And then I was so surprised I had done it I did another one. And then I got down off the bar and cried.

I am officially studly.