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The Invisible Druid can do Half a Pullup
Not true, I can do a pull up (but only one or two tops). But whenever you talk about them, most people will say something like that. And since there's nothing else worth reading today thanks to the SOPA and PIPA blackouts (which always combines in my mind to sopapilla) I'll tell you why.
It's because you're only DOING half a pull up. Or less.
How do you work a pull up? Probably, you grab that bar and you pull as hard as you can and you make it up a few inches and you do it again the next day.
If you're smart, you do them with bands or with another reduced weight method (like with your legs partially assisting you). What you've probably been doing is the fitness equivalent of making dough. You had the ball and you've been working the bottom half of it for a long time. Now the bottom half is ready to be bread, but the top is still lumpy and you're not sure why.
Unlike, say, a bench press or an arm lift, a pull up is not one muscle group doing it's thing. It's a lot of them. You start my engaging shoulders, and biceps or triceps to get going. Then the muscle group works toward the big angry muscles of the back: muscles that get shit done. But towards the top we're looking at forearms, your fiddely lats, and some more shoulder. And unless you have been going hard all the way up, you have not been working those muscles to get from 0% to 50%.
How do you fix that? Well, your best bet is to realize that the last 50% is the hardest part. When you pull up in practice, don't be satisfied with halfway. if you are using a band, really make sure you're up over that bar. if you're using your legs to assist, there will be the urge to kick them in at the last second to just get the thing over with. But that last few inches is where you really need to let up with the leg and do the work yourself as much as you can.
And don't be afraid to work just that part if you need to. Get a chair or ladder under that bar and work from the midpoint up. Do reverses down. If you have rings, do just the top half of a pullup to get up and then do a reverse pullup to let yourself all the way down as slow as you can.
In the end, it's a little more work, but you will end up as a proper ball of dough, not just a half formed one. And then, when you have that ball of dough ... throw it out and go eat some meat.
