Public Chin Up Bar Update

Back in February I wrote a blog post about floods destroying the local pull up bars.  These were the only public chin up bars in the region.  I now have an update, so thought I would share.

The old broken fitness equipment has since been removed, leaving behind a sunken square with weeds and holes.  This made me think that the local council was not going to replace the broken fitness equipment.  

The local chin up bars have been removed

This is what was left of the chin up bars after the floods

Then I remembered council also had to replace the broken playground that was destroyed by the floods, and I vaguely remember someone saying something about them putting in new 'fitness equipment' there.  So I went to have a look at the new playground.

The new playground looks good.  Sadly, the new fitness equipment does not.  

Nothing there is overly useful, and there were no chin up bars.  Such a wasted opportunity.

The new fitness equipment

The new equipment, from the other direction

What a sad state our country is in when there are no longer any public chin up bars in the region.  

Earlier this year I did an exercise challenge where I completed 100+ pull ups per day for ten consecutive days.  I also did a pull up challenge over the month of May.  My son and I then did another challenge that we called 'the big hour' where we each completed over 100 strict pull ups in one hour.  Very few people in this country have ever achieved these things.  

There is no way people can train to be able to do these exercises unless they already own monkey bars or something similar.  This is not really possible for renters.  I am very lucky as I have monkey bars at home, and use them for many strength exercises, but there are a few things I would like to do that cannot be done using my monkey bars.  

I live in a country where over 2 out of every 3 people is overweight or obese.  Most of the 'fit' and 'strong' people that I see lack functional strength and just rely on their bulk.  Most have very low strength to weight ratio.  Many have low muscle tone.  If they had some way to train I can only imagine what they would be able to achieve.

Our councils dedicate money to improving health, but the money is all directed to the wrong areas.  Put in some chin up bars, allow people to train strength using body weight.  

Kettlebell Get Up

I have been doing the kettlebell get up for some time now and thought I should write a blog post on it.

This exercise is often called a 'Turkish Get Up' or a 'Kettlebell Get Up' or much less frequently a "Russian Get Up".  It is great for whole body strengthening and conditioning.  My understanding is that even though it uses a Russian girya, it was Turkish wrestlers who originally developed this exercise.

I have a few old injuries that are causing increasing issues as I age.  I take prescription medication each day, as well as that I am allowed to take over the counter pain killers such as paracetamol when needed.  

My body started to degrade, so I decided to get stronger by doing body weight exercises.  This really helped, and for some time I was in far less pain and was more able to do everyday things.  Then inevitably, my body got older, and it started to degrade again.  I was in more and more pain, I was back to having days where my migraine would not ease off, and I was less able to do day-to-day things.  

I take my prescription as directed, and I often needed to take paracetamol once or twice during the day.  As time went on I was taking more and more paracetamol until it reached the point where I was taking the maximum safe dosage every day.  This reached a point where, often an hour or two before I could take my next dose, I was counting down the minutes and wishing time would hurry.  

This was a dreadful way to live, so I decided to try and change it.  I started doing kettlebell get ups.  They helped a lot.

I still do some body weight exercises each day, and some stretches, as well as doing GetUps.  I started doing one each side (two in total) with a very light weight.  I worked my way up to doing three each side (six in total) with a light weight.  Then I progressed to doing five per side (ten in total).  This only takes me five to ten minutes, and does not have to be completed in one go.  From here I have kept the number the same, and am gradually increasing the weight.  

Since doing Get Ups I no longer have many entire days of migraines.  I am in far less pain.  Most days I only take my prescription and don't need anything else.  That is a massive improvement to my quality of life.  

With a get-up, you move through a hip hinge, a knee-dominant move, and transforming a horizontal press into an isometric vertical press.  As the movement is unilateral, you are actively resisting rotation the whole time.  It’s rare that you get to practice so many cornerstone movements in a single rep of an exercise.  

Some benefits of doing Get Ups include:

• Time under tension is significant when compared to other exercises
• Involves many movements in one exercise
• It targets many muscle groups in unison
• Improves mobility and enhances the ability to do everyday tasks
• Promotes cross lateralization (eg getting right brain to work with left side)
• Promotes upper body stability
• Promotes lower body stability
• Enhances core strength and stability
• Ties the right arm to the left leg, and left arm to the right leg (similar to martial arts)
• Helps build balance
• Promotes spatial awareness
• Develops a front/back weight shift
• Develops upper body strength, trunk strength, and hip strength
• Retains and develops the ability of getting up from the floor (which is important as we age) 
• Improves shoulder stability through different planes of motion and positions
• Improves coordination
• Helps to even out any movement asymmetries you might have
• Has carryover into other sports like martial arts

I considered writing instructions on how to do a Get Up.  Pavel Tsatsouline provides excellent demonstration and instructions here (starting from about 15:04) and you are best going there and watching/rewatching this rather than me trying to paraphrase Pavel.  

With the GetUp there are some safety tips in there to take heed of.  They are all mentioned in Pavel's video.  I will stress that you must never do more than five consecutive reps per side, and never train to failure.  It is not hard to learn this as long as you start lighter than you think.  Many people start learning this skill with no weight, or using something super light such as a shoe.  Build up weight slowly, and all will be well.  

Once you have a kettlebell, you don't spend any more money to be able to do this.  Kettlebells are built tough, they should last a lifetime, so no need to buy replacements.  There are no gym fees, no membership fees, and no personal trainers.  It only takes 5 to 10 minutes spread through the day to do these, no travel time, no wasted time wasted getting into and out of gym clothes.  

To quote Pavel Tsatsouline: "the kettlebell is an ancient Russian weapon against weakness".  Be strong - byt' sil'nym (быть сильным).