Starting Resistance Exercise, Part 2

Let's add two more exercises to our list of low-equipment resistance exercises.

These are the two that us un-fit kids hated so much in PE as kids: the pull-up and the push-up. I remember struggling with pull-ups, and not being able to do even one, despite the yelling and abuse of the teacher. By the way, I've tried hard to forgive all my old PE teachers, and not to hold what they did against all PE teachers in the world. I also remember not being able to do a single push-up, despite the somewhat friendlier urging of the coach of the youth football team that I stumbled into for one year.

They are both actually great exercises. Together they make a pretty balanced upper-body work-out. One is a pulling movement, exercising the biceps and the muscles at the back of the shoulders. The other is a pushing movement, exercising the triceps and the chest muscles.

The pull-ups do require a bit of equipment, a bar. You can get comercially-made bars that mount in a variety of ways, but this one (http://www.amazon.com/Bars-Strength-Training-Equipment/b?ie=UTF8&node=3408471) is handy, since it can be placed in almost any doorway, and removed easily, without tools or modification to the structure. If you have a room with exposed rafters, you can suspend a bar made from a piece of pipe, broomstick or closet rod from a couple of lengths of rope. Or place the bar across a couple of rafters, and secure it in place with two nails on each side.

Ideal height for the bar is at the very extent of your reach, so that you can just grasp the bar firmly standing on tip-toes. If it is slightly higher but you can grasp it with a jump, it's OK. If it's lower that's alright, too. You just grasp the bar, then lower your body until your arms are fully extended, then bend your knees to bring your lower legs up behind.

For the technique, I'm going to take an easy way out, and give you a couple of links to blog posts by my friend Peter on his Strength Basics blog. The first one covers the basics, particularly how to get started if you cannot do a single pull-up. The second goes into different ways to vary the exercise to change the effect, make them more challenging or just for variety.

When you can do 5 chin-ups (with palms facing you) with a couple of minutes rest between each one, start to work up to 5 sets of 2 reps, then 5x3, 5x4, 5x5, etc. Someday I'll tell you what to do if you can do more than that.

By the way, I'll bet that I can do more chins now than the 9th-grade PE teacher could ever do in his life!


Push-ups are the other half of our upper-body equation. Most people have the basic idea of how to do a push-up. You get down on the floor with your hands on the floor a bit more than shoulder-width apart and the arms extended. The legs are stretched out behind so that the knees and hips are straight. Then keeping the knees and hips straight you lower your body to the floor, then push yourself back up. Simple, right? Well, maybe.

First of all, what do you do if you can't even hold your body straight? First, forget the knees. Lower them until they are resting on the floor and concentrate on getting your hips straight. Either have someone look and tell you if they are straight, or have your 7 year-old take a photo with your digital camera and look at it yourself. Of course, all the time you are working on this, your arms are tiring out, but that's OK. By the time you can't hold yourself up anymore, you've done enough for today. Try again tomorrow.

Once you can hold yourself straight for 30 seconds or so (remember this is with your knees on the floor), try doing a push-up from this position. If you can't make it, just do as much as you can. When your arms are too rubbery to go on, the exercise is over. Eventually you will be able to do several push-ups from this position.

By the way, we don't call these “girl push-ups,” no. They are “knee push-ups.” They are OK for men to do. Also, when ladies get stronger, they should do pushups on the toes.

Another easier version of the push-up is to do them with your hands higher than your feet. You can put your hands on a low step, on a chair, or even on a table. Find the level that allows you to be just tiring out after 8 to 10 reps.

Once you find the technique that you can do for 8 to 10 reps (whether hands-elevated or knee push-ups) do about 5 sets of 8 to 10 reps, and gradually increase it to 12 reps. Then graduate to a harder version, either moving your hands to a lower level, or changing from knee push-ups to toe push-ups.

Be sure, whatever form of push-up you do, to keep your hips straight and ridgid throughout the movement. Don't allow your bottom to “tent up”, or your hips to be flopping up and down during the exercise.

For now your goal is to do push-ups with your hands level with your toes. When you can do 5 sets of 12 reps that way, I'll tell you how to make them even harder!

See you on the road.
Doc