Question for Blackbeard

Many gym rats who want to be human bisons (e.g. they train the biceps and chest and ignore legs) do not have pullups (or squats) featuring anywhere in there routine. I have not looked at your journal g8r80, for example but what do you do for vertical pull? Any pullups? Even without looking I would guess not.

People believe myths that they are too heavy to do pullups/chinups and that they should stick to the assisted pullup machine for life. Look at the stronglifts website and tell me if that is not a 310 lbs individual doing 21 pullups.

Compare the size of the lats and the size of the biceps, you have people doing 21 different types of bicep curls and zero/nothing for the lats - is that proportionate?

There are huge people who can do many pullups, which is even more impressive, but that doesn't mean that it's normal. 20 pullups is pretty rare (strict pullups, that is), nomatter how you twist and turn it.
 
There are huge people who can do many pullups, which is even more impressive, but that doesn't mean that it's normal. 20 pullups is pretty rare (strict pullups, that is), nomatter how you twist and turn it.

There are people who cannot squat or even deadlift their own body weight is it normal/abnormal? There are people who cannot do pushups or dips is it normal/abnormal? Nothing is normal or abnormal, your results will reflect the work that you put in.
 
There are people who cannot squat or even deadlift their own body weight is it normal/abnormal? There are people who cannot do pushups or dips is it normal/abnormal? Nothing is normal or abnormal, your results will reflect the work that you put in.

It's pretty normal to not be able to squat or dead your BW, a lot of people don't even work out or do squats and deads.

I thought you said that 20 pullups wasn't impressive, I said it was impressive and rare; I wasn't talking about normalcy, I was talking about the fact that not a lot of people can do 20 pullups. Of course it matters if you train for it or not. A lot of people could probably get 20 if they trained for it, but you're putting it up there as a standard thing one should do (or was it 10 pullups?) along with numbers in squats and deads, but that doesn't reflect what you just said. If you don't train for squats, then 1.5 BW is probably something you can't do, same with 2BW deads.. Does that mean the person is doing something wrong? Maybe squats and deads aren't his goal? Maybe they are, but he only has 2 hours a week to train.. maybe he's not as serious as everyone else? We keep forgetting that not everyone takes lifting as seriously as the tea-nation articles.
 
What are standards for? Why do we have BMR, BMI etc? It seems you want to be caught up in the semantics of it all, the Exrx site says they are standards (not norms). So yes (in your own thinking) it is "not normal" to be able to do squats or even deads because the vast majority don't attend gyms or engage in fitness activity.

So yes it is not compulsory (or the norm) to be able to do 10 pullups or even 1. If you cannot do pullups (or squats and deads for that matter), or jog around your block it is not the end of the world. Being a fitness apologetic is not my thing, you are welcome to seize that baton.
 
What are standards for? Why do we have BMR, BMI etc? It seems you want to be caught up in the semantics of it all, the Exrx site says they are standards (not norms). So yes (in your own thinking) it is "not normal" to be able to do squats or even deads because the vast majority don't attend gyms or engage in fitness activity.

So yes it is not compulsory (or the norm) to be able to do 10 pullups or even 1. If you cannot do pullups (or squats and deads for that matter), or jog around your block it is not the end of the world. Being a fitness apologetic is not my thing, you are welcome to seize that baton.

Who's caught up in semantics when you say it's the standards and not the norms? Maybe we should just say "if you're above or below a certain measure of the central tendency"? but then we'd have to argue what measure of central tendency we should use. My point is, who cares about what we call it, you know what I mean and I want you to answer my arguments instead of carrying on with something else.

BMI is to use on groups. And sure, you could send a questionnaire to about 100k gym members and ask about their numbers.. but I'm pretty confident you'd find that 20 pullups are rare (assuming they would answer truthfuly)

My point is that setting standards that are to apply to everyone is stupid. Everyone's different

And where am I being a fitness apologetic?

And, again, you're not really answering my posts. I'm writing arguments against your points, but you just keep talking about something else. Do you really not think that individuality matters here? If you're a soccer mom lifting for fun and to get some exercise, a serious student who just wants to stay in shape and look a bit better for the beach, someone who trains for numbers and is really serious but doesn't compete and someone who competes at a high level..?
 
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I think it's impressive to do even one pullup. I can tell you I have never seen anyone at my gym do a pullup, ever. So just seeing a person do just one is most impressive, at least for me. But 20? That's like holy cow. I can top about 8 at once.

However at a 5k run-swim-run, they had a "pull up challenge" at the end where if you can do 20, you'd win something. Nearly everyone who tried, managed to do 20 and this was a range of about 15 people. For women, they only had to do 10 over or under to qualify and nearly everyone who tried managed to do it.
 
It's pretty normal to not be able to squat or dead your BW, a lot of people don't even work out or do squats and deads.

I thought you said that 20 pullups wasn't impressive, I said it was impressive and rare; I wasn't talking about normalcy, I was talking about the fact that not a lot of people can do 20 pullups. Of course it matters if you train for it or not. A lot of people could probably get 20 if they trained for it, but you're putting it up there as a standard thing one should do (or was it 10 pullups?) along with numbers in squats and deads, but that doesn't reflect what you just said. If you don't train for squats, then 1.5 BW is probably something you can't do, same with 2BW deads.. Does that mean the person is doing something wrong? Maybe squats and deads aren't his goal? Maybe they are, but he only has 2 hours a week to train.. maybe he's not as serious as everyone else? We keep forgetting that not everyone takes lifting as seriously as the tea-nation articles.
I'm not far from squatting 2x my body weight :D
Dead lifts, it's honestly been a while so I have NOOO idea,,,

And I can do damn near 20 pull-ups on a good day. I usually shoot for 14-15 in my first and second sets (usually do 3-4 if I'm doing pull-ups), but I bet if I really push myself I could do 20 :rolleyes:

But I'm also pretty small (5'3 and 130-135 lb) so I imagine that's why I can do as many as I can. But when it comes to things like push-ups, I can't do sh!t compared to some people I know.
 
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I have not looked at your journal g8r80, for example but what do you do for vertical pull? Any pullups? Even without looking I would guess not.

Wow - introspective! What basis are you "guessing" that on? Answer that and I'll answer your question.
 
I'm not far from squatting 2x my body weight :D
Dead lifts, it's honestly been a while so I have NOOO idea,,,

And I can do damn near 20 pull-ups on a good day. I usually shoot for 14-15 in my first and second sets (usually do 3-4 if I'm doing pull-ups), but I bet if I really push myself I could do 20 :rolleyes:

But I'm also pretty small (5'3 and 130-135 lb) so I imagine that's why I can do as many as I can. But when it comes to things like push-ups, I can't do sh!t compared to some people I know.

Congratulations: BlackBeard thinks your strong.
 
Many gym rats who want to be human bisons (e.g. they train the biceps and chest and ignore legs) do not have pullups (or squats) featuring anywhere in there routine. I have not looked at your journal g8r80, for example but what do you do for vertical pull? Any pullups? Even without looking I would guess not.

People believe myths that they are too heavy to do pullups/chinups and that they should stick to the assisted pullup machine for life. Look at the stronglifts website and tell me if that is not a 310 lbs individual doing 21 pullups.

Compare the size of the lats and the size of the biceps, you have people doing 21 different types of bicep curls and zero/nothing for the lats - is that proportionate?

Wow - introspective! What basis are you "guessing" that on? Answer that and I'll answer your question.

You never answered my question, but I'll tell you my numbers:

9 chinups, 35 consecutive pushups, 7:30 mile, 22mph avg in time trial bike race, half ironman triathlon in 6:33 (all done this year). What have you done?
 
Wow - introspective! What basis are you "guessing" that on? Answer that and I'll answer your question.

You said If you are an adult and can do 20 chinups or pullups, that is impressive and rare and yet many workout programs feature pullups. On some of these programs, one is supposed to switch to weighted chins/pullups after doing 15 on your own.

If you are of the opinion that 20 chinups is impressive and rare, you would not have people (on strength training not skinny bas***** in school) progressing to weighted chinups/pullups.

I cannot run 2 miles or 3 miles because that is not part of my workout program. Pullups/chinups are however. I would regard anyone who can run the as impressive and rare because i don't do a lot of running.
 
If you are of the opinion that 20 chinups is impressive and rare, you would not have people (on strength training not skinny bas***** in school) progressing to weighted chinups/pullups.

I cannot run 2 miles or 3 miles because that is not part of my workout program. Pullups/chinups are however. I would regard anyone who can run the as impressive and rare because i don't do a lot of running.

I say 20 chins as impressive due to the majority of the population that don't perform chins/pull ups. Now I have a number of high school kids that weigh a huge 130 pounds that can do in the range of 15-20 chins/pull ups. However, I don't see a lot of 200+ pound guys that can do high rep chins.

Now I don't see running 3-5 miles as all that impressive since I see the cross country team running 10+ miles every Sat and doing 3+ nearly every morning. So I see a lot more people pumping out miles on the street than hitting high rep chins.
 
However, I don't see a lot of 200+ pound guys that can do high rep chins.

evo i'm 220 so i'm curious, is it possible for someone who is heavy to reach a high number of chins/pulls eventually? or is it impossible with such high weight?

I'm doing 3 sets of 12 right now with 80 lbs ASSISTANCE, this is definitely something I am interested in improving A LOT tho.
 
evo i'm 220 so i'm curious, is it possible for someone who is heavy to reach a high number of chins/pulls eventually? or is it impossible with such high weight?

I'm doing 3 sets of 12 right now with 80 lbs ASSISTANCE, this is definitely something I am interested in improving A LOT tho.

Only someone with the mentality of a weakling will think that 200+ lbs guys should not be able to reach 15 (or 20) pullups/chinups and then progress to weighted pullups/chinups. Look at the stronglifts website and tell me if that is not a 310 lbs individual doing 21 pullups. Why can't you do 20 at only 220 lbs?

Cheers,
BB.
 
Only someone with the mentality of a weakling will think that 200+ lbs guys should not be able to reach 15 (or 20) pullups/chinups and then progress to weighted pullups/chinups. Look at the stronglifts website and tell me if that is not a 310 lbs individual doing 21 pullups. Why can't you do 20 at only 220 lbs?

Cheers,
BB.

Maybe because he's just starting or has responsibilities that don't allow him to train > troll > repeat, like you obviously do.
 
evo i'm 220 so i'm curious, is it possible for someone who is heavy to reach a high number of chins/pulls eventually? or is it impossible with such high weight?

The answer to this is, yes. If you train with your body weight (appropriately, and assuming one is healthy physically), there is no reason why someone couldn't improve to perform 20 pull-ups/chin-ups on an appropriately progressive training program. Additionally, "weight" can be misleading. It can entirely depend on the individual (say a obese individual, weight disposition, i.e. fat to muscle, focus of diet/fitness, etc, etc), and how long this can take.

A lot assume that the "less" you way the more you can do, and this is simply not "entirely" true.

I'm doing 3 sets of 12 right now with 80 lbs ASSISTANCE, this is definitely something I am interested in improving A LOT tho.

The key here, is to be progressive. Always strive to perform more than you did last time. If on the first set you performed 12 (full), and still have enough left, still try to pull that 1/2 one up (not quite 13).

Next time on the first set, focus on getting 13 (and if you can do more, do it). If you do not, pause 5 to 10 seconds, and push it out (as an example). Same with the second, and third: try to increase at least one rep each (if not more).

There are many ways to force progression, and this is just an example.


Best wishes,

Chillen
 
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