The 1 Month Pull-up Challenge

Once a week I engage in the exquisite torture that is "The Pull-up." I both dread this day in the gym and look forward to it. It is the very definition of a "love-hate relationship." I love it because I picture myself as Linda Hamilton in Terminator or Demi Moore in GI Jane (I prefer Demi to be honest) as an ass-kicking, bad-ass broad. And... I hate it because I've yet to be able to get my chin above that bar unassisted and I feel like a real candy ass for that.

Last week upon lamenting to the man, "I truly don't know that I'll ever be able to do an unassisted pull-up," he very assuredly (and with a level of cockiness I'm not sure I appreciated at the time) responded: "I can get you doing a pull-up in a month." I told him to put his money where his mouth was: I put in the time, he develops the exercises and we've got exactly 30 days to make this happen.

Today was day 1.

Besides for doing my usual, Monday upper body routine: 3 sets, 6-8 reps of bench press, barbell row, skull crushers, dumbbell shoulder press and barbell curls. We incorporated a few additional exercises:

• 3 sets of 3 pull-ups on the Smith Machine (rack set as high as I could reach with feet on the ground, knees bent with legs behind me, Jake providing the extra oomph assisting my ankles to get me over the hump when I started to stall)
• 3 sets of 5 single arm, isolated rows
• 3 sets of 5 single arm, cable lat pull-downs

A few things... I've always had a thing against couples that work out together. I realize I've turned in to one and in the worst way, we're now spotting each other. However, having the BF back there behind me did motivate me to work a little harder and I appreciated the boost, literally and figuratively.

Anyone with additional tips or words of encouragement hit me up! I'll keep you posted on how the progress continues and hopefully in 29 days I'll be posting my success story. To be continued...