First, I looked into at home pull-up bars. Luckily, while we were in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, Tommy found his old over the door pull-up bar that he bought in college, so I was able to save myself my money there. Next I needed to find something that would help me actually do a pull-up. I saw that Corrie Anne bought the Rage Pull-up Assist Bands, and they were the closest thing to the bands we use at Crossfit, and weren’t ridiculously expensive. The bands give me 90 pounds of resistance and so far I need to use all of them, but I can get about 10 pull-ups out at a time.

I set up my little station in my basement and I’ve been practicing my pull-ups on the days that I don’t go to Crossfit. I’ve also taken the pull-up assistance bands to the park where there are pull-up and dip bars, and they work great! Overall I feel myself getting stronger and my pull-ups getting easier. My Crossfit coach always told me that the only way to get better at pull-ups is to practice them and he was so right. It is really amazing how quickly out bodies adapt and how much easier a move gets when you do it on a regular basis.

My goal is to be able to do an unassisted pull-up by the end of the year and I’ve got a bit less than 5 months to accomplish it. I think I’ve got this!

What’s your “weakness” in the gym? Can you do pull-ups?

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I am kind of convinced that Crossfit is just a big playground for adults. Case in point: Wall Climbs. When I read that I was like what they heck could that be, but it’s just what it sounds like. You back into the wall and climb up. So much fun, even when I fell on my face.

The next morning I walk into the box and take a look at the whiteboard. The WOD sounds intense, but what the heck is HS Walking. I scan through a list of things that HS could stand for, but never does handstand enter into my mind. I didn’t actually get to handstand walk, but I did get a lot of practice of kicking up into handstand pose. This was SO.MUCH.FUN! And then Cindy kicked my butt. Actually, she handed it to me in a sweaty mess of a bag. When I laid down after I finished with just a few minutes on the clock, I left a huge sweat imprint of my body. I now regret that I didn’t photograph it for posterity. Next time!

Yesterday I surprised myself with double unders. I was able to go single, double, single, double for a whole bunch of times in a row. I lost count because I was so exciting to be doing it and I felt awesome when one of the guys told me that he’s been practicing double unders for a year and can’t do what I did. Major ego boost! I also learned that when they say you’re going to play a game in Crossfit, it’s not going to be too fun. We did 10 minutes of pull ups, with one pull up on the first minute, two on the second, three on the third, etc. I lasted until 8 min and did a total of 36 pullups, which blew my previous record of zero out of the water!

It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been a blast and a kick-ass workout. I am super excited to see what else Crossfit will bring and I cannot wait!

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