So I've decided to finally get serious about getting a one arm pullup. I thought it would be fun to keep a journal of the process and I hope it will be interesting. Since I doubt it will be THAT interesting I will throw in other stuff along the way but this will mostly be about achieving a one arm pullup. And then more than one, lol.

Why am I doing this?

Why do we climb the mountain? Seriously, though, it's something that's been in the back of my mind but my obsession with heavy things has kept it on the back burner. Especially that damned deadlift.

Right now I have some setbacks. I have been layed off of training for a while but things are going well as far as getting back into it. However, overhead squats are presenting a big problem. My wrists are being killed by them because of the wide grip and my wrists being really bad in the first place. Problem is my shoulders will just not let me narrow the grip, right now. And even with moderate weights my wrists are ending up sore for days. I can't even do 80 or so without then screaming at me because of the angle. So I am going to have to buckle down and see if I can get the grip in, which means a whole long process and light weights. OH squat is important to me. I don't want to give it up without a fight.

Given that I needed something fun and challenging but that was a straight forward goal that I knew was well within my capability. I am very 'proficient' at pullups and I can handle 100 + extra pounds for a rep or two (not right now, laid off, remember).

So I will be doing my regular pullups getting my strength back as for extra weight plus getting the reps back up but that is the same old same old. So enter the one arm pull up.

What I plan is to talk as much about my mistakes as my failures. Since I am very advanced at pullups normally, it should be interesting to see how easy or hard this is for me. I don't know how many people go through the process of adding a whole lot of weight to their regular pullups before attempting the one arm pull-up.

I should note a little about terminology.

1. Although I'm saying one arm "pullup" really I'll be working towards what most would consider a one arm "chinup" which is with my hand suppinated or facing me. I'll probably use the terms interchangeably but for the forseeable future I will really be talking about a one arm chinup.

2. This is a one ARM ONLY pullup. This is not that thing where you grab the bar with one hand then place the other hand on the wrist of that hand. That may be a one HAND pullup but it is not a ONE ARM PULLUP. No, you cannot do 20 one arm pullups, 80% of bodybuilders on forums.

I leave this for the introductory post and make the next post about today's session.

For today I kept it simple. I used a towel draped around the bar as an assist.

First I should note something about body position. Right now I am addressing the pullup bar sideways. That is I am not facing it but turning my body sideways to it so that the front of my body faces the length of the bar. So when I grap it I am basically using what looks like a hammer or neutral grip. I have the cabability of twisting around at the top to face the bar. But I will leave that for later. The reason for this is to stave off elbow irritation until the elbows are a bit more conditioned. And it is easier. The basic goal is to pull my body up with one arm. I'm not going to quibble about body position. I have a strategy which will reveal itself as I go along.

So the towel goes on the bar in front of me and the non-working hand goes around the towel to assist. The lower down your grap the towel the harder it is as the less assistance you can give. But this method does give a lot of assistance in general, probably.

I use a 'hand-width" to keep up with the hand position on the towel and thus progress. Today I started with the assisting hand one hand down from the bar.

I did 9 total reps. Short rest in between for the most part. The first set was actually 2 reps but I stuck with one after that.

My plan was to warm up with some regular BW pullups but I made a rookie mistake and allowed myself to get distracted by a phone call. Then went right into the one arms without a warm up.

The first two were fairly easy with the assistance but my right bicep hollered at me a bit which is when I realized I has skipped the warmup. Hey, when you've done as many pullups as I've done it's easy not to notice not doing them, lol. That put the fear of whatever in me so I took it easy with one rep at a time.

As I expected it got easier as I went along until about the 8th rep. So I rested a bit longer and pulled one more and called it a day.

Next time I expect to be able to add reps to all those no problem. Then I'll move my hand down.

This is just soooo awesome you've started your own journal….!!!! :-)

It's just for the pullups, haha.

Actually here's something. Today was a big upper body day what with all the pullups and the OH squat. I also did dumbell lunge presses, lat pulldown and pushups.

You know that I do a lot of volume on pulling in general, not that today was really high volume.

Anyway on upper body days sometimes stretching the pecs out helps and especially before rows. Sometimes with really heavy days what I want is to keep the shoulders back and down rather than really stretch the chest. This helps keep the back feeling right and it helps the trap soreness I get which is an ache.

So in between sets what I will do is take a stretch band, grab it in the middle about shoulder width or so apart and bring it around behind me so that it is wrapped around my upper back. This forces my arms and hands back so that I am in a position like the bottom position of a pushup, except with a bit more stretch due to the band. The scapula are forced into passive retraction. I just let the band hold me that way and I also keep the shoulders depressed and get a bit of stretch in the neck. Then I just walk around that way between the set. Feels great and makes everything feel just so again.

Not much to report on one arm pullups right now of course but I figured an update on the overhead squat problem and the steps I am taking to solve it are in order.

First of all, although I said that the problem was "shoulder mobility" it's really not just the shoulders. Only a tiny part of it is the shoulders and it's really overall all upper back extension.

In regards to shoulder mobility/flexibility itself I have ditched any efforts of forcing that issue using crap like 'dislcations' since this will absolutely disable my right shoulder and cause my left shoulder to at least take more than it's share of cigarette breaks.

What I do is what I've always done. I use the swiss ball against the wall to get into a very deep squat and then use a wooden dowel to work on the extension. I have all the hip mobility I need. It's just a matter of getting the full extension in the back and bringing the shoulders back a little bit with a narrower grip. Using this method there is no use for "in between grips" to my thinking. I'm using the grip I want to end up with, which is actually a little narrower than elbow width.

My grip before was wider than elbow width which is crappy, crappy, crappy. For me at least. Some snatch lifters do employ this ultra wide grip but I can't handle it. Other than then the wrist ligaments going crazy I also get irritation of the supraspinatus in my right shoulder.

While I'm on the subject, the 'snatch grip' is a misnomer of sorts, as I brought up in the Snatch Grip Deadlift Article. The snatch is the lift and most use a wide grip doing it but that does not define it. You could use a close grip for the snatch and still be doing a snatch.

I'll be hitting that a little later today again.

Using the swiss ball gives a means of outside stability so that I can focus solely on the mobility. For the most part, mobility before stability is easier. Of course both can be worked on together and/or separately but generally it's easier to go ahead and get that mobility and then work on fusing that new range of motion with stability.

Just because I can get full range of motion at the hips with the ball for support and then work on upper back extension in that position does not mean that I can achieve that range of motion with actual added weight. With that in mind I work it at different levels. Top, quarter down, half down, and full down…and anywhere in between I feel like. Turns into a real workout in itself.

This is one of those frustrating things that should make be better than ever in the long run. I will be able to use more weight with overhead squats since my wrists won't be bothered and I will be able to physically support more weight in the overhead position and keep that extended. So, even though I will have to work back up the weights on overhead squat, I should progress very quickly to where I was before and then have a much easier time going forward having solved this major limiting factor, which was my upper back and shoulder mobility in the squat position.

Sorry for the late update. The last (second) one arm pullup session I had to skip so there was nothing to report.

This one went okay. I didn't feel well during today's workout which I think was because of improper eating but I muddled through. I felt like I was having a sugar crash basically the whole time and wasn't able to shake it. Things went well considering I just ended up giving up on my lunge with unilateral dumbell press because it just wasn't happening.

I should have some terminology to list these workouts. So, as stated in the second post I'm using a towel for an assist with the nonworking hand. My hand is one hand width down from the bar. So assuming bodyweight, lol, if I say towel @ one-hand X number of reps X sets that means I did a certain number of reps and sets with the assist hand one hand's breadth down from the bar. Kapish?

So today:

towel @ one-hand X 2 X 4
towel @ one-hand X 1 X 3

That's up to 11 total reps from 9 the first time. But more importantly I doubled all the singles, so to speak. This is near maximal work so I was happy with being able to do that.

Obviously there is a lot of assistance from the towel hand but proprioceptively I certainly don't feel like the towel hand is doing much. I could pull harder with the towel hand..that is it's possible to get a lot of help from it but I'm really not even keeping a full strong grip on the towel. So next time I'll start at the same position to get started but then I'm bumping the towel hand down to a two hand depth.

No elbow problems. I think I'm ahead of the game being such a pullup fanatic and being obsessed with adding lots of weight to my body-weight pullups all these years. I have had really bad "tendonitis" in both elbows from attempting to do one arm negatives in the past.

Overhead squats? Meh. Not going great one that front. I'll report more later. I don't want to talk about it right now. Let me feel the one hand pullup thing, lol.

Lunge with Unilateral Dumbbell Press

I wanted to go further into that. I do this different than is usually described. The basic exercise is to take one or two dumbells in the front loaded position (ready for an overhead press). Perform a front or reverse lunge and as you return to the starting position simultaneously press the dumbell(s) overhead. If you do it unilateral you have the choice of the dumbell being on the same side as the working leg or having it on the non-working side which adds difficulty because it offsets the load.

All that is not how I do it. I usally go unilateral with the dumbell on the non-working side. But I don't press the dumbell as I return to the starting position. Using a reverse lunge I lunge back, pause in the bottom position and press the dumbell overhead. Then I keep it overhead while returning to the start. Basically like doing an "overhead lunge" except pressing the weight up and then back down once you are done which allows you to use more weight. This is MUCH tougher. And funner. You can end up going pretty heavy this way and you'll definitely feel the challenge in the stability department. Especially if you don't 'cheat' and put the dumbell on the working side.

Got a super bad cold that lingered and lingered so there has been nothing to report. I do not train while sick because I end up getting sicker. Back in tomorrow or next day. This keeps happening and I'm not sure what the prob is. Probably old age, lol.

Up all night last night with a wicked bad stomach thing. I'll save the gory details but once again my training plans are thwarted. Can barely walk today.

Tell me about it. My health isn't all it's cracked up to be. We'll see how next week goes. And welcome back to the site.

And welcome back to the site.

Yeah, welcome back to the site Pity.