Yes Day !
Is it too late to wish you a happy new year? I hope not. The first couple of weeks of January got off to a stressful start with the school holidays merging seamlessly into school strikes. Now that I am somewhat back on track I wanted to share my 2023 movement goals. This may be a risk to publicly state them, but here we go.
I used to create New Year's resolutions which had failed by January 7th, as they were either so vague as to be useless- ‘eat better’ - or too awful to sustain -’‘give up coffee’. So I am being more strategic this year; rather than vague resolutions or taking on something too big, I thought about my movement goal and more importantly, I have come up with a strategy to actually achieve it.
Goal: To improve my upper body strength and mobility
Strategy: A pull-up family challenge
For 2023 I am focussing on a single move: the pull-up. I have chosen this because it is such an efficient move: the hanging-from-a-bar phase and the pull-up itself work and load so many parts of the body at once. Regular hanging from a bar and pull-ups can improve:
Shoulder range of motion
Hand and arm strength
Core strength
Spinal bone loading, thereby maintaining bone density
Thoracic spine mobility
Breathing mechanics
Pelvic stability- your pelvis is connected to your shoulder by the latissimus dorsi muscles-major players in the pull-up and stabilisers of the pelvis.
Pressure issues in the core and pelvic floor (tension in the upper body directly contributes to high pressure in the abdomen and pelvic cavities)
Hanging and pull-ups are also potentially fun and progress is measurable which can be very motivating. But don’t panic - even if you never get to do a pull-up or hang fully unsupported from a bar, the very act of working towards a pull-up will benefit all of the above.
The second component to my strategy is motivation. I have turned this into a family challenge with a prize worth competing for:
First person to do five pull ups in a row, each one from a straight-arm hang, gets a YES day.
Similar to the movie ‘Yes Day’ the rest of the family have to do whatever the winner suggests for 24 hrs. Yep, it’s as risky as it sounds but I have set some boundaries of a) legality b) affordability and c) my definition of safety. Kid#2 is vexed that a trip to space is off the cards.
As it stood at the start it was anyone's prize for the taking as we all have strengths and weaknesses: my husband was the closest to the goal but suffers from being too tall for my pull-up bar and not being very motivated. I am the most dedicated and am experienced at putting together a progressive exercise programme, but I have a long-standing arm and torso injury that I have to work gently with. The teenager is putting muscle (and bone) on by the day which is both a hindrance (extra mass) but a potential strength as his muscle tissues are the most responsive to adaptation and development of strength. Kid #2 is most motivated by a ‘Yes Day’, but most of the time is thinking about other things, like rockets or planning world domination.
Two weeks in, if I was a betting person, I would put money on me. Kid #2 went gung-ho and strained his arms trying to do the challenge on day 2 (don’t do that). Kid #1 has spent plenty of time with google and he now knows which muscles he has to train to do a pull-up but has hardly used said muscles (don’t do that either). I have not heard anything about my husband's progress. There is a slight possibility that he could be secretly training while I am asleep, but as I know him pretty well, I doubt it.
I will be posting some of the work I am doing on instagram and facebook if you are interested in following along with some of it. It will be progressive and much of it will be accessible for all, with plenty of options with both feet on the ground. I will also be offering ideas for alternatives to pull-up bars if you don’t happen to have one fixed into your ceiling