How to get started with running (as someone who hates it)

For pretty much my whole life, I’ve hated running. I tried playing soccer when I was young and gave up because the running part was awful. For years afterward, I couldn’t even run a full mile. I could hike for hours, but the act of running was just so unpleasant that I couldn’t go more than a few minutes before quitting and switching to walking instead.

My dislike of running really frustrated me. It seemed like a great cardio workout and everyone kept talking about the health benefits, but every time I tried to make myself run I could only stick with it for a week or two before giving up or being forced to stop due to injury/strain. 

But within the last few months, I’ve finally cracked the problem. I can now run straight through a 5K without stopping and I’m continuing to increase my distance over time. It only took a few small adjustments to get there.

If you are facing the same issue–you want to start running, but just can’t seem to get over your dislike of it–I hope that the tricks I’ve learned can help you out as well!

Here is what I changed.

1. I signed up for a race to give myself a goal to work toward.

[Signing up for a race is a great way to give yourself an external motivator to get running! (Though as you’ll see shortly, this is not necessarily the type of race I would recommend)]

Every time I started running in the past, I did it without a goal to work toward. One day I would just decide “I’m going to start running now” and then I would do it. I never set myself a goal of a distance or mile-time I wanted to achieve, and I never had the pressure of a deadline (the date of an event) to get me motivated to keep running. 

Without something to work toward, the “I hate running” side of my brain took over and always convinced me to quit because I wasn’t really losing anything by doing so–I wasn’t failing a goal of any kind and letting myself down–but I was losing a lot by forcing myself to do something I didn’t like. So why keep going?

Once I signed up for an event, this changed. I had a date and a distance goal set–and since I’d already spent money to hold my spot, I felt pressured not to waste the opportunity. If you are a goal oriented person like me, signing yourself up for an event dramatically helps with concrete goal setting and can give you the push that you’re missing if you just jump into running without any specific outcome in mind.

There are a ton of different events out there, and making the right choice can affect your motivation to keep running and improving. I didn’t just choose something randomly, but made calculated choices to help give myself the best chance at actually sticking with running and being prepared when event day came.

I chose an event that would make running more fun.

There are lots of pure running events out there–a standard 5K for example–but if you’re someone who hates running, signing up for a 5K doesn’t exactly seem like a fun idea. Rather than signing up for a normal running race, I decided to pick something that involved running, but where it was not the sole purpose: obstacle course racing. 

[Obstacle course races are a great way to get into running because they distract you from the actual running part! Highly recommend.]

In an obstacle course race, you run a set distance and encounter fun obstacles along the way–a mud pit, monkey bars, a giant slide, or a jump over fire, to name a few (you can read more about what you might see during one of these races in the article I wrote about obstacles here). The obstacles are the main part of the fun, and running is just a way to get you between them. Races like this help you get your mind off the discomfort of running because it no longer is the only thing you are thinking about during the race. Instead, you’re thinking about the awesome slide you’re about to fly down. I did my first race last year (and wrote about what I learned), and the experience made me so excited to keep going–something I’ve never felt with traditional running races.

If normal running doesn’t sound fun to you, pick a more activity-focused race like an obstacle course that breaks up the running with other things. In my experience, it is way more fun.

I signed up for that event with someone who is a better runner than I am.

To help increase my motivation to prepare for my obstacle course race, I signed up do to it with someone who runs regularly. This provided another external source of motivation–I wanted to be able to keep up with (or at least not completely drag down) my teammate. If I didn’t prepare for the race, I would not just be letting myself down, but I’d be letting someone else down too. This made me try much harder than I would if I were just doing a race on my own. 

I picked a race that was within my ability.

If you’re starting from nothing, like I was, the biggest thing you can do for yourself is set a reasonable goal. If you set your sights too high, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I have seen some people jump from not running at all to saying they’re going to try and run a marathon. Going from 0 to 100 may sound like a fun idea (who doesn’t want to be able to run a marathon?), but for most people, your body is just not going to be able to do that.  

Instead of making a big step, start small and work your way up. Sign up for a 5K before you sign up for a 10K. Then, if you get comfortable with these, you can start considering longer races like half marathons. Starting small helps you start to see your potential. As you complete these smaller steps, you can start to build confidence in your abilities, which will make it easier to complete longer and longer runs. If you start with something big and can’t finish, it is much easier to lose motivation and just give up.

I set myself a reasonable timeline.

When I signed up for my race, I scheduled it for a good 7 months or so away, giving myself ample time to prepare. If you are new to running, it can take you a while to get used to it and push past the discomfort stage, so you don’t want to sign up for a race that is only a few weeks away. 

When picking a race, give yourself a few months to prepare, but not too long. If your race is a year out, you may feel like you have ages to prepare, so won’t feel motivated to get started. 

[Whatever you do, don’t sign up for a marathon next month!! Just don’t do it!!!]

2. I decided to run less often.

This one is perhaps a bit counter intuitive at first. The more you run, the better you’ll get, right? That is perhaps true once you are experienced, but it is the opposite of what you want when you’re starting out. 

Going too hard is the easiest way to burn out and injure yourself. 

This is what happened to me in all my previous attempts to get over my hatred of running. Each time I wanted to try running again I’d try to run every day and I always ended up feeling winded after a few days or developing shin splints or some other pain injury. This then made it impossible to keep running, so I’d quit.  

This time, I decided to run way less often–I only run twice per week, usually about three days apart. This schedule has been much more sustainable. I have plenty of time to recover in between runs and haven’t faced any injuries yet. 

It also frees up my time, allowing me to keep my other days for exercises that bring me more joy, like weightlifting or rock climbing. 

When you are just starting, running can feel like a bit of a punishment. Doing it less often dramatically reduces this issue and can help sustain the habit long enough to reach the point where it can actually start to become enjoyable.

3. I found a way to limit excuses getting in my way.

I am someone who is prone to allowing excuses to get in my way of exercise, so to help myself stick with running, I decided to eliminate one of the excuses that was getting in my way the most: weather.

Unlike many other gym activities, running is very weather-dependent. It is very common to run outdoors, and if the weather is bad, you’re not going to want to do it. If you live in a cold or rainy climate, as I do, this can be a huge problem. Who wants to run when it’s pouring rain, snowing, or freezing? If you let those things get in your way, there will be a lot of days when you maybe should run but you don’t.  

[This person has way more willpower than I do. Can they teach me their ways?]

As someone who lives somewhere very cold and snowy, I knew I had to eliminate this issue for myself. I decided to find a gym that had an indoor track and decided to run there when the weather was bad. I would still run outdoors if it was sunny and warm, but otherwise the indoor track would be my go-to. 

After that, I never found myself quitting for weather except for when snowstorms made it physically impossible to get to the gym. 

If you live somewhere with good weather most of the year, this change might not help you much, but it is worth considering other areas where you find yourself regularly making excuses to get out of a run. Perhaps an excuse you use often is “I’m too tired to run after work,” in which case you could try running before work instead. It could be something else entirely–we all have different things happening in our lives–but whatever your excuses may be, it is worth taking time to consider how you might limit their effect.

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Making these small changes has led to a huge shift in how I view running. It is now just a normal part of my workout schedule, I don’t find it miserable anymore, and I genuinely look forward to some of the races I’ll be completing.

If you’ve found yourself hating running and want to give it a try, hopefully my experience gives you some inspiration to get started and stick with it.

[FAFQ] How Do I Stop Feeling So Out of Breath After A Workout? – The Science of Breathing

If you’re like the vast majority of the population, you’ve probably experienced the feeling of being winded after a workout. Riding along on a stationary bike, gasping for air. Panting after jogging half a mile when you haven’t done much running before. Feeling like your lungs are burning during a kickboxing workout. You get the idea.

It’s a really unpleasant feeling and it also limits you from reaching your full potential. If you’re winded you can’t keep trying your hardest, because to catch your breath you need to slow down. It can be a really frustrating feeling, and sometimes it can feel impossible to overcome. But thankfully, the solution is simpler than you think.

To get at how to solve the problem, let’s consider why you might feel out of breath. It’s likely one of two reasons, or a combination thereof:

1. You’re out of practice with exercise and your body isn’t used to managing so much exertion
2. You’re not breathing correctly

Let’s consider these each in turn:

1. You’re out of practice with exercise

When your body isn’t used to exertion, and you suddenly start exerting yourself a lot, your body doesn’t know what to do. Your lungs haven’t been used very much, so they’re likely smaller than their optimal size–and it hurts to stretch them–so you’re limited physically in what you can accomplish.

To get around this, the easiest solution is just to do more exercises that involve a lot of help from your respiratory system. This means don’t just lift weights–as this mostly strains your muscles, not your lungs–but also do some intense cardio for short bursts. Try biking or running up a steep hill, or maybe some kickboxing. It doesn’t need to replace weightlifting, but you will need some of it to help you expand your lung capacity.

(This is pretty much what I look like after I try to run any more than about half a mile as a complete non runner. Clearly I need to practice more! I look a lot more put-together after kickboxing, though, where I’ve put in a lot more reps.)

2. You’re not breathing correctly

Even if you’ve built up some breathing strength from consistent practice and working out–and you don’t think reason #1 is the cause of your breathlessness–you still might be doing something wrong. Something as basic as breathing!

It turns out there is a right way and a wrong way to breathe.

Most people breathe through their mouths, instead of their noses, which is suboptimal for many reasons:

• Mouth breathing leads to issues with sleep–such as snoring, sleep apnea, and dehydration levels–which can have a big impact on workout performance, as sleep is key to recovery and muscle group.
• When you breathe through your mouth, you do not produce Nitric Oxide (NO) the way you do when you breathe through your nose. NO helps regulate blood flow and blood oxygen levels, and can help get more oxygen to your muscles during a workout. When you breathe through your mouth, your muscles actually get less oxygen from each breath, which can lead you to fatigue quickly. But when you breathe through your nose, you’ll get maximum oxygen levels and can potentially perform better.
• Nasal breathing activates the part of your body that’s relevant to rest and recovery rather than the part associated with fight or flight, so nasal breathing can help you relax and perform your workout for longer.
• The posture required for optimal nose breathing is optimal for reducing injury, because it forces you to position yourself more upright rather than hunched over.
• When you breathe through your nose, you are able to perform fewer breaths and maintain a lower heart rate, which means you are able to sustain exercise for longer (increasing your endurance), and with less strain put on the body.

(Nose breathing can help with endurance and keep you going strong!)

How Do You Fix The Problem?

Now that you know that nose breathing is better than mouth breathing, how do you go about shifting the breathing habits you’ve had for your whole life and find a better strategy?

Here’s a few steps that might help:

1. Start by being aware of your own breathing. Notice when you breathe through your mouth or through your nose. What seems to be triggering the switch between the two? Are you mostly breathing through your mouth or through your nose? Is this the same when you work out? Different for different exercises?
2. When you catch yourself breathing through your mouth, try to stop yourself and switch to your nose instead. It will feel really weird at first, but if you practice (see step 3) it will start to become more normal.
3. Practice doing small nose breathing sessions for a few minutes at home, not under the stress of workout conditions. Take 5-10 minutes and just practice breathing in and out at a steady rate using only your nose. Keep your mouth shut the whole time. Some people swear by physically taping their mouths shut, and you’re welcome to try this if it helps you! Just be careful not to do it to an extreme.
4. Attempt to incorporate nose breathing into your workouts. The next time you’re doing cardio and start to feel out of breath, try to take longer, slower breaths through your nose instead of panting with your mouth.
5. As this gets easier, lengthen your practice sessions and make nose breathing a bigger part of your workout until it becomes second nature!

(Make sure to practice nose breathing in a non-exercise, breathing-focused situation before you integrate it into your workouts! Setting up a meditation-like session is a great way to do this!)

Nose breathing may feel uncomfortable at first, mostly because sometimes it can feel like you are not getting enough air. But realistically, you almost certainly are! Your body is just not used to the action, and nose breathing can feel like it produces a lot of resistance if you’re just getting started. But stick with it if you can. There’s a lot of science, dating back hundreds of years, that backs up the benefits of breathing through your nose.

How To Learn More

If you want to learn more about the importance of breathing through your nose, and how to train yourself to do so, I recommend the following books:

Breath: The New Science Of A Lost Art – James Nestor [Link]

“There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing…Yet as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it…Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.”

Summary of “Breathe”, as written on the inside of the book’s jacket.

The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter – Patrick McKeown [Link]

“In The Oxygen Advantage, the man who has trained over 5,000 people—including Olympic and professional athletes—in reduced breathing exercises now shares his scientifically validated techniques to help you breathe more efficiently. Patrick McKeown teaches you the fundamental relationship between oxygen and the body, then gets you started with a Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT) to determine how efficiently your body uses oxygen. He then shows you how to increase your BOLT score by using light breathing exercises and learning how to simulate high altitude training, a technique used by Navy SEALs and professional athletes to help increase endurance, weight loss, and vital red blood cells to dramatically improve cardio-fitness.”

Amazon book overview for “The Oxygen Advantage”.

So what are you waiting for? If you’ve been feeling out of breath, start looking into how you breath, and how often you do it! Just a little bit of work and focus and bring you a long way in the right direction.

[FAFQ] How Do I Fit Exercise In On A Tight Schedule?

If you’re a full time student, work a job that has a demanding schedule, have a lot of parenting responsibilities, or have any other limitations on your free time, you’ve probably struggled trying to fit exercise in alongside everything else. You know it’s important–but it just feels so hard to find the time to get it done.

Know you’re not alone. I went through four years of an incredibly busy undergrad–working the majority of the day 7 days a week while trying to maintain a 4.0 GPA, conduct research, have a social life, be part of clubs, and work a part time job. Now, I work full time in the tech industry and am adding on some grad school classes to that workload. My life has been incredibly busy for a long time now, and at first, I had no idea how to make it all work. Exercise fell to the wayside as I prioritized my work. Slowly but surely, though, I found a way to fit exercise into my tight schedule.

I never found that much helpful guidance on the Internet while I was going through my own struggle with this, so I wanted to share some advice on what worked for me in the hopes that it will help you out.

1. Prioritize Your Health

The most important factor for me was prioritizing my health. The only way to reliably ensure that I got my workouts in was to tell myself that health matters more than the other tasks on my plate.

To be optimally equipped for whatever is taking up all of your time–and to live a happy and fulfilling life–you need to be healthy. Taking the steps to ensure that your body is in good shape–even if it can feel like a waste of time in the short run–is going to be a much better investment than spending that time on, say, adding the finishing touches to your essay for school.

I found that my performance in school and work did not diminish at all when I prioritized my fitness and made an effort to ensure I was getting adequate exercise. In fact, it actually seemed to increase because I felt like I had more energy, better focus, and fewer depressive thoughts.

So take action to prioritize your health. Rather than staying late at work, take 30 minutes to go on a run. Rather than perfecting your powerpoint, go lift some weights. Put exercise at the top of your priorities list and things will start to get easier.

One way to help make sure this happens is to physically add your exercise time into your calendar! This will help make your brain think it is on the same importance level as the rest of your appointments and calendar items.

2. Pick A Strategic Time To Work Out

I’ve found that the timing of exercise plays a big role in getting me to stick with it. If I try to exercise at the end of the day, I’m usually exhausted. I work extra hard to find myself an excuse not to go. But if I go first thing in the morning, before I head to work or school, then it’s way easier. I can cross it off the list and don’t need to think about it again.

What works for me, though, does not work for everyone! Some find it easiest to work out on a lunch break, in the mid afternoon, or even late at night. You should test out a few different times until you find out which time has you wanting to get out of it the least often.

To make this process even easier, I also recommend strategizing so that your timing fits with the location of your fitness activity in a way that promotes maximum convenience. What does this mean? For example, if you go to college, scheduling your gym workout right before/after class so you can just do the gym and class in one trip rather than make yourself have to take a separate trip for your workout. Or if you work an office job, find a gym between home and work and go on your way there or on your way home. This decreases mental resistance and can also help build in a routine if you stick with the same schedule.

Decrease resistance by scheduling your exercise alongside other trips, such as on the way to/from work or school.

3. Find Some Form Of External Accountability

Fitness classes are a great way to motivate you to stick with your workouts.

Some people have really strong internal motivation and discipline and–all on their own–can make themselves exercise every day even if they don’t want to. But for most people, it’s not that easy. External accountability can be a great way to get that extra push if you can’t motivate yourself.

Two of my favorite ways to promote external accountability are: 1. Find an accountability buddy, and 2. Sign up for a paid class.

The idea with the first is quite simple. Find another person–a friend, a coworker, or a family member–who is also interested in working on their fitness and agree to hold one another accountable. Tell your buddy your exercise goals and ask them to check in with you to make sure you’re achieving them and actually doing your workouts like you say you are. That can mean agreeing to share pictures from your workouts, having your buddy text you a reminder to go exercise, discussing your exercise plan for the day, or anything else you come up with. If negative reinforcement works for you, you can also ask them to tell you to do better when you fail. In exchange, agree to do the same for your buddy.

I’ve found that having someone else check in on me makes sticking with my habits really easy, because when I fail, I’m no longer just letting myself down–I’m also letting someone else down–and that provides a lot of motivation to keep me going.

Another option is to use a fitness class–particularly a paid one–as external motivation. The great thing about fitness classes is that they are on a set schedule. If you miss one, it’s over. You can’t make it up, unlike a normal workout that you might complete alone. That by itself can be a great motivator to exercise. You don’t want to miss out, so you take the extra effort to make sure you make it to the class. If money is involved, this motivational power is much stronger (at least it has been for me). If you pay $150/month for a class that happens twice a week, each class costs you nearly $20! If you don’t go, it feels like you’re just tossing a $20 bill down the drain. You want to get your money’s worth, so you’ll go to class even if you’re not feeling it. If it weren’t a paid event, you’d probably skip.

The one place you need to be careful with this strategy, though, is to make sure you don’t pick a class that’s too time consuming. If you sign up for a two-hour class three times per week, that’s a pretty big time commitment and will form a bigger mental block in your head than something shorter. If you’ve had. a busy day and don’t have much time, it’s going to be way easier to do some kickboxing for 45 minutes than to do a 90 minute weightlifting session. In my experience, the optimal class time is 45-6- minutes, no more than three times per week.

4. Use The 2-Day Rule For Habit Formation

In order to fit exercise into a tight schedule, it’s important to make it a regular habit–to integrate it so that it just becomes a normal part of your schedule.

One of my favorite habit-building tips to help facilitate this is to use the 2-day rule. I learned about this strategy from one of my favorite productivity YouTubers, Matt D’Avella. The basic idea with the 2-day rule is this: don’t allow yourself to take off more than one day in a row from the habit you’re building (in this case, exercise). If you work out on Wednesday, you can take Thursday off, but then you need to start back up again on Friday.

A sample workout calendar using the 2-day rule

This is one of the easiest ways to make exercise a habit. If you stick with the 2-day rule for a few weeks or months, exercise will start to come naturally to you. Once it becomes part of your routine, it almost takes more effort to not do it than to do it.

You can learn more about. the 2-day rule in Matt’s video here.

5. Consider Exercise Multitasking

If setting aside a long chunk of time just for exercising feels like a little too much of an ask, you can also try what I call exercise multitasking: when your exercise activity accomplishes more than just the goal of increased fitness.

What does this look like in practice? Some ideas include:

• Instead of driving to work/school, make your commute–something you already have to do–an opportunity for fitness. Bike, walk, scooter, or skateboard instead.

Skateboarding is my favorite alternative (and active) transportation method!

• Rather than having purely separate social time and exercise time, combine them. Sign up for a group fitness class or get a friend to go to the gym with you.
• Combine exercise and learning. Listen to an audiobook or podcast while doing your workout,
• If you work at an office that has conference calls or you have meetings on your schedule that can be completed audio-only, try a walking meeting, where you bring your phone and headphones with you and take your call while on a walk. This is an easy way to get 30-60 minutes of exercise in without adding any time to your normal schedule.

Fitting exercise in on a tight schedule can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. With some thoughtful strategizing, you can almost always make time for healthy habits.

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I want to hear what worked for you and what didn’t! If you found anything helpful–or even counterproductive–in these recommendations share your thoughts with me.

For more answers Frequently Asked Fitness Questions, see this collection.

How Do I Get My First Pull-Up? Easy Strategies For Strength Gain

Welcome to Frequently Asked Fitness Questions [FAFQ], a series where I answer common questions asked by women embarking on their fitness journeys!

This week: the dreaded pull-up. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably spent a lot of time frustrated that you just can’t seem to get this seemingly simple move. It looks so easy, right?

Well you’re not alone. I spent years grappling with this too, unsure of the best strategy to get from point A to point B. But guess what? With enough time, effort, and dedication, I got there––and you can too!

To save you some time and struggle in your journey, I’ve compiled a list of recommendations on things that worked well for me and things that didn’t (and you should probably stay away from).

Try These Strategies (Pick Your Favorite)

• Watch this excellent intro guide by Meg Squats, which gives some useful practical tips for progressing toward pull-ups.

• If you go to a gym and it has an assisted pull-up machine, try doing 3 sets of 6-8 pull-ups each time you’re there, and decrease the assistance by a little bit each week until you can lift your own weight. In my experience, if you do this for a couple of months, then try to do a normal pull-up, you’ll realize it’s suddenly way easier than the last time you tried!

• Hang a bar in a frequently used doorway of your house and set yourself a requirement that you have to do x amount of any pull-up related exercise (pick one from the video above) every time you pass under it. I typically did 30-second hangs or a set of 3 negative pull-ups, but this is totally up to your preference. (Note that this step is optional, but the more frequently you practice your moves––which is really easy when the bar is right there and not at a gym––the faster you’ll get there). You can find a helpful list of the best home pull-up bars here.

• If you’re feeling burned out with standard pull-up progression techniques,  one way to keep progressing is to do a fun fitness activity that is heavy on back and shoulder strength. This will help you build muscle without even realizing you’re doing it, and you might have a lot more fun than if you just hang on a pull-up bar! Some of my favorites in this area are rock climbing (particularly bouldering, as it focuses more on big strength moves than other forms of climbing) and martial arts (with kickboxing––not the cardio kind, but the real martial art) being my sport of choice here. If you do these for long enough, you’ll go try a pull-up again one day and realize it’s suddenly super easy! However, a word of warning for rock climbing: be very careful, as it is easy to injure yourself if you don’t use proper technique. Learn how to safely fall first, slowly work your way up in climb difficulty, and watch a few simple technique videos before getting too far into it. The YouTube channel Movement for Climbers is a great place to start!

Me at the bouldering gym, building some back muscles!

Don’t Do This

In addition to things you should be doing, you should be careful to avoid some behaviors, as they may hinder your progress:

• Don’t put your pull-up training at the end of every workout. You’ll be exhausted and feel defeated! Do it earlier rather than later so you have maximum strength (or as a separate activity with the bar in your house).
  
• Don’t sag and just let yourself droop from the bar! Pull-ups are all about tension, and one of the reasons you’re struggling might be because you haven’t mastered this yet. While you’re doing your pull-up training, regularly review videos about proper form to make sure you’re following it.
  
• Don’t give up! You may end up getting stuck at a “plateau”, where you feel like no matter how hard you try, you’re not getting anywhere! This happens to everyone and you’re not alone. You can get through it and make progress again, but you can’t give up in the process. If you feel like you’ve gotten stuck and aren’t progressing anymore, the best thing I can recommend is to try a different technique from what you’ve been doing. If you’ve been doing assisted pull-ups, on a machine, switch to an active sport like rock climbing for a little bit. If you like the standard pull-up progressions but are slowing down, try to jump to the next step up. Your body sometimes needs a jumpstart of something new to be able to get you over the hump!

Have you or your friends tried any of these tips? What worked best for you? Share your thoughts in the comments so we can help everyone get their first pull-up!

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For more answers to common fitness questions, see the FAFQ page.

[FAFQ] How Do I Get My First Pull-Up? Easy Strategies for Strength Gain

Welcome to Frequently Asked Fitness Questions [FAFQ], a series where I answer common questions asked by women embarking on their fitness journeys!

This week: the dreaded pull-up. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably spent a lot of time frustrated that you just can’t seem to get this seemingly simple move. It looks so easy, right?

Well you’re not alone. I spent years grappling with this too, unsure of the best strategy to get from point A to point B. But guess what? With enough time, effort, and dedication, I got there––and you can too!

To save you some time and struggle in your journey, I’ve compiled a list of recommendations on things that worked well for me and things that didn’t (and you should probably stay away from).

Try These Strategies (Pick Your Favorite)

• Watch this excellent intro guide by Meg Squats, which gives some useful practical tips for progressing toward pull-ups.

• If you go to a gym and it has an assisted pull-up machine, try doing 3 sets of 6-8 pull-ups each time you’re there, and decrease the assistance by a little bit each week until you can lift your own weight. In my experience, if you do this for a couple of months, then try to do a normal pull-up, you’ll realize it’s suddenly way easier than the last time you tried!

• Hang a bar in a frequently used doorway of your house and set yourself a requirement that you have to do x amount of any pull-up related exercise (pick one from the video above) every time you pass under it. I typically did 30-second hangs or a set of 3 negative pull-ups, but this is totally up to your preference. (Note that this step is optional, but the more frequently you practice your moves––which is really easy when the bar is right there and not at a gym––the faster you’ll get there). You can find a helpful list of the best home pull-up bars here.

• If you’re feeling burned out with standard pull-up progression techniques,  one way to keep progressing is to do a fun fitness activity that is heavy on back and shoulder strength. This will help you build muscle without even realizing you’re doing it, and you might have a lot more fun than if you just hang on a pull-up bar! Some of my favorites in this area are rock climbing (particularly bouldering, as it focuses more on big strength moves than other forms of climbing) and martial arts (with kickboxing––not the cardio kind, but the real martial art) being my sport of choice here. If you do these for long enough, you’ll go try a pull-up again one day and realize it’s suddenly super easy! However, a word of warning for rock climbing: be very careful, as it is easy to injure yourself if you don’t use proper technique. Learn how to safely fall first, slowly work your way up in climb difficulty, and watch a few simple technique videos before getting too far into it. The YouTube channel Movement for Climbers is a great place to start!

Me at the bouldering gym, building some back muscles!

Don’t Do This

In addition to things you should be doing, you should be careful to avoid some behaviors, as they may hinder your progress:

• Don’t put your pull-up training at the end of every workout. You’ll be exhausted and feel defeated! Do it earlier rather than later so you have maximum strength (or as a separate activity with the bar in your house).
  
• Don’t sag and just let yourself droop from the bar! Pull-ups are all about tension, and one of the reasons you’re struggling might be because you haven’t mastered this yet. While you’re doing your pull-up training, regularly review videos about proper form to make sure you’re following it.
  
• Don’t give up! You may end up getting stuck at a “plateau”, where you feel like no matter how hard you try, you’re not getting anywhere! This happens to everyone and you’re not alone. You can get through it and make progress again, but you can’t give up in the process. If you feel like you’ve gotten stuck and aren’t progressing anymore, the best thing I can recommend is to try a different technique from what you’ve been doing. If you’ve been doing assisted pull-ups, on a machine, switch to an active sport like rock climbing for a little bit. If you like the standard pull-up progressions but are slowing down, try to jump to the next step up. Your body sometimes needs a jumpstart of something new to be able to get you over the hump!

Have you or your friends tried any of these tips? What worked best for you? Share your thoughts in the comments so we can help everyone get their first pull-up!