Was i think Am I hanging from this bar?
I think I’m an ape. I think I’m a trapeze artist. I think I’m Jason Momoa. I think I am a 54-year-old man with a questionable shoulder experiencing, by the pound, by the ounce, the precise terms of my contract with gravity. That’s one thing you can always say about pull-ups: you’re lifting your own weight.
Its first cousin is, of course, the push-up. But the push-up does not have verticality. A blur of ground, or floor, bounces madly back and forth in front of your face. And also, your feet are bearing some of the load, so as far as body weight goes, that means you’re bearing (I just googled this) only 64 percent. No, for true self-carriage, the full load of who you are, has to be the pull-up.
You do pull-ups alone, very lonely, but maybe a couple of your pull-up brothers are there too, grimly contemplative, walking in loose circles around the bar, shrugging and sighing. The pull-up talk is minimal and poetic. The other day I asked a big guy if he could jump between his sets. He pulled out an earpiece as he repeated the question. “Do it,” he said. “Get a little on.”
Wondering how many can I do? I can do eight. I can do 60. I can do 102, in 13 sets, over a two and a half day period: sets of nine, sets of four, sets of zero. As far as technique, I have invented my own grip, I call it the French press. The point is that I do them. I do push ups and they never get easier. I continue with the same flutter of dismay as I stare at the metal bar. Still the same twisted brain cell sensation as I jump, grab, and throw.
But the pull-up heals me like no other exercise. It lifts me from my stews and stagnations. It dramatizes my rise above. Do you need a mood changer, a circuit breaker? Do pull-ups. And do them outside. There’s nothing against gyms or a pull-up bar set up on your driveway, but for the real pull-up effect, you’ll want to reach for the sky. At the moment of maximum effort, you want to be silhouetted against infinity.
Then you fall to the earth, the solid earth and always supportive. There it is, and there you are. Clever.
This article appears in the December 2022 print edition with the title “Ode to pull-ups”.
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