How many times did you pull yourself up off the ground today?
It might sound like a funny question, but unless you have a monster truck, ride a horse, or are a professional rock climber, you probably don’t do very many pulling movements each day.
Compare this with how many times you use your “pushing” muscles each day. It’s a fairly common daily movement.
Consider how many “pushing” movements you’ve done today:
- Pushed yourself up out of a chair
- Pushed “something,” i.e. shopping carts, strollers, lawnmowers, etc.
- While sitting on the ground, supported yourself with your arms on the ground or leaning on your elbows
If that rings true, you’re like most people who just don’t do a lot of pulling motions throughout the day. What happens is the “pushing” muscles get overworked, while the “pulling” muscles are underworked.
No worries. The 3 video tutorials (ed - next 3 posts) will help you balance that out with some good ol’ fashioned tuggin‘.
Why You Should Stop Neglecting Your Precious Pulling Muscles
I haven’t read any statistics on this, but it’s a safe bet that the average 30-year-old in America today can’t do a single pull-up.
That may be a sad (and scary!) thought, but our modern-day lifestyle just doesn’t require many pulling movements. It goes the same way with exercising (with the exception of the people that like to hop on the rowing machine) – pushing-dominant activities abound. There’s usually a dozen bench presses for every pull-up bar at your local gym.
We no longer have to worry too much about pulling ourselves up into a tree for safety (and escaping attacks from wild animals). But this outright neglect of some of the largest muscles in our body is likely a reason for many physical problems people are experiencing today.
Poor posture, nagging shoulder pain, aching backs… a lot of these can be traced to strength imbalances between our pushing and pulling muscles.
Your body can handle only so much before unbalanced forces start to break down vulnerable areas.
Maybe we SHOULD have a hungry bear chase us around every once in awhile, if that’ll get us thinking about the importance of a strong back!
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