Pull-Ups are Really Hard

And in other breaking news, scientists have recently discovered that water is wet.
I don’t know why I thought it would be easy to learn how to do pull-ups.  The fact is, I’ve never done a single one in my entire life.  Last year, after UltraIronHubs gave me the indoor pull-up bar and assistance band for Christmas, I tried for a few weeks to work on it, but really wasn’t very consistent.  I got a little better, but, you know… they were HARD.  So that petered out.  Every month or so I would hop up and do a few, maybe five or ten, but they were HARD.  Which is why it really, really shouldn’t surprise me that I’m struggling with them again this year.  I don’t know, I thought maybe all the weights I’ve lifted this year would have translated into some sort of pulling strength, but whaddya know?  In order to do a pull-up, apparently you have to actually practice pulling up.  (Seriously, this whole post is like a great big “DUH!”)
So, here’s my year of progress so far:

Day One – Inverted Rows on my outdoor parallel bars.  These were tough, but I managed a few of them.  Actually, I managed quite a few with my feet on the ground, but only a handful with my feet elevated like this.

Day two.  Yes, you can see on my face just how much I am enjoying these!

I hopped up on the assistance band for day five.  The band didn’t offer me enough assistance to do more than about six of these bad boys.

And that brings us to today.  More inverted rows, more grimacing.

Just for your enjoyment, here’s a video of me falling ass-over-teakettle while attempting a handstand outside: