Years ago at this commercial gym, I witnessed with mine own eyes something most would deem an impossible sight.
On one of those dip-chin-ab stations…
I saw a woman, mid 40s, fairly tall 5’7″ or so, doing neutral grip pullups.
Ok, so what? Women can do chin ups. It’s just rare.
Those women are generally either quite thin, lean, muscular, or a combination of thin and lean, or muscular and lean.
I’ve seen some fairly heavy VERY muscularly developed chicks do chins.
I’ve seen smaller sportily built chicks do chins.
That wasn’t the case that day.
This woman was a typical heavy American female in her 40s. I’d guess 200lbs, more or less. Not muscular, not lean, not thin. Big, carrying typical American female levels of bodyfat.
(She was also the moaning squat woman at that gym, likely not the woman you’d want to see/hear moaning like that.)
That my friends is tremendous upper body strength for a woman.
The female version of an old time Marine Corps term “super fat”, one who doesn’t look like they should, yet still can PT despite their soft bulk.
I was staggered at what I was witnessing. Curiousity took over. Naturally I spoke with her…
I complimented her on her ability to do pullups, told her I’d never have expected her to have the ability, and inquired as to how she gained it.
I’d witnessed her do 2×2 good strict reps.
She said she’d typically do 2-3, up to 4 sets of 2. Her PR was 3½ reps, she didn’t consider the 4th rep fully worthy of counting.
She used neutral grip because that’s where she always could get reps. That was her strongest hand position.
She said she had been doing this very consistently, clock work like a minimum of twice weekly for a few years at that point.
Her key from zero pullups to a few was bands.
She’d started with a massive amount of band tension, and as she became able, took as little band tension away as she could at a time.
(I believe it was when she’d get a set of 5 reps at a particular tension that she’d add resistance/take away band tension.)
That gym didn’t have more than a few bands. This implies when she set out on the mission to do chins that she invested in a bunch herself, she even opened her gym bag showing me her collection of bands, a full set or more of them.
It struck me that she’d treated this like a mission, and executed. And here she was a big girl doing chins.
It was a very impressive thing to witness. Probably the strongest pound for pound thing I’ve witnessed by a heavyweight of either sex in person.
(Another female heavyweight anecdote : I’ve seen a Samoan female, 5’10”, in her late 20s and the 220lb area while drinking Sonic Boom about 80 yards chasing a teenage male cousin that had pissed her off.
And Another : I’ve also seen a ~5’5″ ~250lb female Pacific Islander squat 225 for 25-30 reps.)
I’m sure there’s a lesson in here somewhere.
To anyone not good at chins think about it.
Persistence & Tenacity
(Note : YouTube for video do doodle of the concept, stick figure with long hair or something at a pullup bar.)