[poll id=”35″]
This is just a small collection of videos that can help motivate the female readers. Also, I’m taking topic requests for this Monday column; I have a few ideas but my list doesn’t have much on it right now.
Edit: It was hard to find decent lifting videos of chicks when you don’t know names to search.
This first video is probably more for the fellas, but it shows some world class and American weightlifters:
This one is a random video of a Canadian gal who is doing a log clean and push press with 110 pounds.
This video is pretty good of a girl squatting 135kg weighing 56kg (embedding is disabled). And while we’re text linking stuff, don’t fucking drop your bar like this girl.
This chick squats up to 295×2 with a Gordon behind her and shitty camera work:
This one is more of what NOT to do, but it’s really good.
This is a girl squatting who ran SS for a while. The bar positioning is kind of off, but still pretty good squats:
Here’s a single at 495 by a Russian powerlifter. Yikes.
The poll question leads me to suspect you’re already working on this, but I’d like information on how a girl can get strong enough to do chin/pull ups. Specifically, how to program the training.
My fiance begins her 7th week of linear progress today. Her squats and deads have gone up 5 lbs/each time (so she’s almost to 135 squats and did 135 deads Saturday) and bench/ohp have gone up with just a couple missed reps/repeated weights.
I’ve had her do three sets of chin ups every other workout. For the first five reps she gives herself a little bit of a boost in the form of a jump then tries to pull herself the rest of the way. I stand below her and give her a little bit of a push to assist her. Then before taking a rest she jumps all the way up and does five “negatives” going as slow as she can. I read somewhere that negatives are a good way to get some muscle built up in that area for a person who can’t yet do full ROM. Needless to say she hates the negatives more than anything. She seems to be improving–I don’t have to provide as much force when I give assistance–but she still isn’t really close to being able to do a legit dead hang one.
She does three sets to failure of inverted rows on the non-pull up day(these things) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSpCs4m2n2g She’s getting stronger at those and can usually do 3-5 strict reps. When she first started she could hardly do one. She is 25 years old, 5’6″ 140 lbs.
I’ll probably do a post on this next Monday. Consistency is key without causing too much structural damage (I usually put negatives by themselves).
–Justin
No, but almost shouldn’t be an option. Either they can or they can’t.
Maslow, have her start elevating her feet on the inverted rows.
Am I insane or are most people seriously overcomplicating being able to do chinups? What I did was just try to do one until I could, and then try to do more until I could do more. I’ve seen this work with other people too.
Are you a female? If so, how tall are you?
–Justin
Maslow: Slow negatives worked for me. I did a shit ton of them, going as slow as I possibly could each time. And then, on one magical day, I got to the bottom and just felt like I would be able to reverse the movement and haul my ass back up. That, and lots of lat pulls.
Justin, please stop posting videos of girls squatting more than me at almost half my bodyweight.
Question about the barbell row – What’s the ideal grip width? I keep messing around with this. I started narrow like a deadlift but then I read that it should sort of mirror the bench, so I’ve tried a bench grip. I’ve also done more in between. Which is the better way? Plz respond
Am in love with the 295lbs squat girl
@Justin Not a female (though it did work for my younger sister) and 5’10”.
i like when the oly chicks get chalk hand prints on their butts.
that’s about all i can add to this conversation being that A) i’m not a girl, B) I’m single and have no girl friends :'(
So, the American Open was this weekend, and I was there as Mie Yoshinaga’s platform coach. I got to meet Cori and Ellee, so that was awesome! Anyway, there was a CrossFit “FIREBREATHER” Challenge going on as well.
They had a dead hang pullup contest going on. You could do chins. So, Mie and I went over and entered. We both did chins. I did 7. She did 16.
She won the contest. I thought that was kind of funny. It was a CrossFit competition, and a weightlifter came over and won. Jake Rubash won for the men. He’s also a weightlifter.
Draw your own conclusions.
Hey everyone, super long time lurker. 1st post here.
My wife struggled for a while with dead hang chins and pullups. What helped her the most was kipping to the top then doing a negative down, but only as low as she could go knowing she’d be able to pull back up. At first it was a just a couple inches, then elbows to 90degs, then almost all the way down. pretty soon after that she could get a nice pullup from the bottom. There’s something to be said for moving your own bwt unassisted even if it’s only a couple inches at the very top.
quick question for Justin and anyone else: i have been training for about 2 months now, and my press has just stalled at 125 for about a week now. i can’t seem to get it. i am 18 years old, 155lb power clean, 205 squat, 170 bench. can anyone tell me why this is?
Long time lurker. First post – I was obsessed with getting a pullup for a long time so I just kept trying (like Justin said) and I got it. I’m pretty big (some might say huge) for a female – I am 5’10” and 195 on a lean day. I can bust out three pullups now and usually do three sets of three at some point during my workouts. I’m pretty sure that if I can get a pullup, anyone can if they work toward it.
@TBone
That’s because it was a “dead hang” competition and they couldn’t seizure their way to victory with their “higher power output.” Good job for the lifters that won especially since I disdain the “Crossfit it the only way” mentality. Strength is the most important thing.
I realize Justin is probably going to do a post about girls getting strong enough to do chin-ups/pull-ups, but I’ll chime in with my 2 cents worth anyway.
At the high school where I teach and coach, we’ve had good success with frequency method pull-ups and negatives. We program pull-up work into the regular lifting, but for those who really want to get better at pull-ups, I recommend FM (this is actually why we finally installed a bar outside the weight room – students can drop by during a passing period or during lunch and do some FM pull-ups without someone having to unlock the weight room).
Suppose “Jill” can’t do a pull-up – we use FM negatives in this case. The first week, Jill might do 3 sets of 3 negatives spread throughout the day – perhaps using a mental count of 1-2-3-4 for lowering purposes (she’d do this for 5 days out of the week). The next week, she’d do 4 sets of 3, then 4 x 4, then 5 x 4, etc.
In this process, about once a week, Jill will usually attempt a pull-up to see how things are progressing. Eventually, she nails one. We usually wait to use an actual pull-up in the FM work until she can do 2-3 pull-ups, and then it’s something along the lines of 4-5 sets of 1 pull-up, and each set includes a couple of negatives afterward.
This has worked well for us, and we use it with any guy or girl who wants to improve their pull-ups. It should probably be noted that our students have access to a pull-up bar pretty much all day at school – this is not usually an advantage that most people possess. Also, as has been noted elsewhere, negatives have to be used carefully – we don’t use them with someone who just drops down from the top of the bar. (there’s always ring rows, bar rows, etc.).
This was far longer than I had intended – my apologies.
TIL
girls not being able to do pullups is a thing.
Well I found this post enjoyable. Justin getting hits by posting things about women with asses.
fuck i need a lot more urban camo clothing like that Gordon in the third video.
What’s with the goofy ass dudes standing behind these girls “spotting” them when they squat. Fuckin just let em squat.
@ngalfano1: A 125 press is actually pretty good when you are only benching 170. It’ll go up as you get bigger and stronger at everything else. My press is usually about 2/3 of my bench.
Yes, I can do a pull-up (several actually). What helped me a lot in addition to negatives and just holding myself up was using those long rubber exercise bands. I got a bunch & wrapped them around my pull-up bar. Eventually I was able to get one. I can do more chin-ups (7-8) than pull ups (4-5) so I still have a ways to go.
Why do the Oly lifters (eg Julia Rohde, Maria de la Peuente) make it a point to yell “Heh!” right before they bend down to grab the bar? I assume it’s some requirement by the judges…
Pingback: Heavy Overhead « « Adapt CrossFit Adapt CrossFit
Pingback: » Q&A – 9
Any woman who can do pullups is good in my book. In the Marines women have different standards as men, I think that’s BS, they should at least be held to do the same exercises, if not all the same times and reps as well.
Pingback: » Developing A Pull-up
Pingback: » Programming Pull-ups