In the past they were simply called pull-ups, today they are experiencing a real boom as pull-ups. Those who care about their fitness can try the exercise with the pole. But women, in particular, fail. A field report.
I have been a happy recreational runner for many years. Being outside, breathing fresh air – wonderful. But unfortunately that’s not enough to stay fit all around. Muscle training is at least as important as endurance training. That’s why I practiced push-ups and sit-ups on the yoga mat in the living room for a long time. That was nice, but rather one-sided and eventually boring. So about eight weeks ago I started my “I need muscles” project. Since then, I’ve been going to CrossFit for an hour several times a week. Use high-intensity circuit training to train every muscle I’ve neglected for so long because I didn’t challenge them as a runner.
I can do most of the exercises. Swinging or lifting weights in the air. Jumping on boxes, burpees – a lot of things are exhausting, but I can do it. I fail miserably at one thing: the pull-ups! They’re now called pull-ups, and even as a teenager during basketball training I squeezed them. I certainly haven’t gotten any better since then. With a run-up and a lot of momentum, I can only get my chin over the bar once, and then it’s usually over.
But I am not alone in this experience. It is now considered well scientifically proven that women find pull-ups much more difficult than men. Why is that? Especially because of one or the other disadvantage that nature has given us women. Women have less muscle mass but more fat than men. For that reason alone, we have to train a lot harder to even be able to do pull-ups. Sometimes a lower center of gravity in women is considered an obstacle. Whether this is true is still a matter of debate.
Women can do pull-ups – with a lot of training
What is certain, however, is that arm length is also an important factor. The shorter the arms, the less force a person has to exert to heave their own body weight towards the bar. Incidentally, this applies equally to men and women. Because more than half of all women failed the required three pull-ups in the US Army recruitment tests, this exercise was dispensed with for a long time. You can now choose between pull-ups and sit-ups. But even with the voluntary decision, an above-average number of women compared to men do not do the pull-ups.
That doesn’t mean that women generally can’t do pull-ups. But even very athletic people have to train hard and purposefully. The good news: once you have built up the necessary muscles after a few months, they are just as powerful as the male ones. But the training is more like a marathon than a short distance. And because it takes so long to see success, many women still give up.
I will definitely keep practicing. Because I’m taller than average for a woman who is 180 centimeters tall, I have prepared myself for the fact that it will take me some time before I can successfully look over the bar. At the moment I still need a rubber band to support me. But I want to have it done in six months at the latest.
Source: Stern
