Quest for the One Arm/Hand Chin-up

I got this one from the beastskills site and they’re called Frenchies.

Take two handed grip – go up to top of chin up – hold five seconds

Go all the way down – go up to 90 degrees – hold five seconds

Go all the way down – go up to 135 degrees – hold five seconds – go down – repeat

Those were tough and good for you.

I also tried some handstand pushups with my feet touching the wall for support. Did four of them. I imagine they are tougher without wall support.

I found this website on the one arm chinup/pullup, http://www.beastskills.com/OneArmPull.htm, which gives some great training tips. The interview with Jack Arnow was very fascinating. I decided to try to judge my progress with some weighted two handed chins. I strapped on 75 lbs to a dip belt and did one with a little struggle. So I strapped on 110 lbs and made my way up to the chinup bar. I would hate to fall or slip with 110 extra pounds strapped around my midsection/hanging between my legs. It just doesn’t seem like the odds are in my favor with that much weight hanging on me.

Despite the risks, I gave it a shot and lowered down. With my initial pull, I quickly realized that we were dealing with a lot of weight. And I mean a lot of weight. So I pulled like my life depended on it and got one with 110 lbs strapped on. So 60 more pounds and I might be really close. I need to find another way to add weight because hanging it from a dip belt isn’t safe and comprimises your lower back. Anyhow, it gave me a good impression of what kind of pull will be needed to do a one hander later.

Well I did something that I’ve never done before after a Pump and Run, I went running 2 days later. The training continues for next year. I’m going to make it a year round effort this time.

In one hand chinup training, I’m feeling a lot stronger in the right arm but the left arm feels like it is falling behind. I may up my training on this to a couple times a week.

Lord’s gym in Cincinnati is sponsoring a pump and run race for the first weekend in May.

I created my own links to these results as runohio.com’s web site is not great for easily finding past race results.
2007 Arnold Pump and Run results

2006 Arnold Pump and Run results

2005 Arnold Pump and Run results

2004 Arnold Pump and Run results

2003 Arnold Pump and Run results

2002 Arnold Pump and Run results

And here’s the 2007 registration form

And blogs from other Pump and runners -
Pump and run blog
www.efalken.com/arnold06.htm

How to train for a pump and run

Here are a few training thoughts for those looking to try a pump and run. There will be another one in Cincinnati, Ohio during the first weekend in May. So you could try a pump and run before the Arnold Pump and Run next year. The first thing you should consider is your body weight, and you should do so several months in advance of the event. Determine your body fat percentage and from there make a decision on what should be your event weight. For every five pounds that you determine to lose, give yourself a month to do so. The more unnecessary body weight you carry, the slower your run time and the less reps you will do.

I’ve always tried to get in running shape beginning 3-4 months before the event. Ideally, I need to continue running year round which will help me get to the body weight I desire. Do 2-3 5k races in the months leading up to the event and perhaps even a longer race. This experience will be vital on race day.

I’ll write more later on benchpress training as I have already written some below. Later this week, I’m going to try 170 (10 lbs. less than I did at the event) to see how many more reps I can get with the lower weight. I think that will be very telling on the body weight reduction and how beneficial it may be.

Well another year, another Arnold Pump and Run is in the books. I convinced my buddy and cross country teammate at the University of Michigan to come down and participate this year. Scott is a hard core marathoner who will be competing at the Boston marathon this spring. He’s placed in the top 15 in the Detroit marathon. Despite the Arnold Pump and Run’s short distance (at least for him), 5k, he decided it would be a nice shot at avenging a few lucky wins that I had against him in our college days.

The Arnold Pump and Run consists of (for men our age) benchpressing your body weight as many times as you can (a limit of 30 reps max) followed by a 5k race. For each time you benchpress your weight, you subtract 30 seconds off your subsequent 5k time. Maybe they are still tinkering with the rules but they changed things up from what I remember. You weigh in and they assign you to a weight class. Each weight class is at 5 pound increments. This year they assign you to the nearest 5 pound increment. So if you are 167.4, they round you down to 165. In the past, they would round you up to the next highest 5 pound increment. So if you were 167.4, you would go up to 170. It would’ve been nice if I had been aware of this beforehand. Suffice it to say that if you ever compete in one, it causes a bit of obsession with your weight.

With that said, on to the action. After much consternation about our respective weight and attempts to modify our weight, I weighed in at 179.4 (180 weight class) and Scott weighed in, if memory serves, around 147 (145 class). After the weigh-in, we took part in some well deserved nourishment while waiting in line for the bench press.

Here, we are post bench press and feeling strong.

Despite his rookie status, Scott entered the fray first in the benchpress arena. Clearly invigorated by the most excellent news of qualifying for the 145 weight class, he proceeded to destroy previous personal records and press his weight 16 times, resulting in an 8 minute subtraction.

For those of you new to this event, there is a bit of a psychological challenge to benchpressing a relatively heavy weight for several reps, and I am amazed by those able to do so for 25-30 reps. I entered the benchpress arena hoping to get at least more than last year and maybe 20-21 reps. I’m happy to report that I finished with 2 more reps than last year, finishing with 18 of 180.

Here’s Scott on the bench press. We didn’t get all of his reps on video but he did do 16.

Scott on the bench

Andy on the bench. I kind of regret not trying at least one more even though it doesn’t look like I would have gotten it.

From there we had a little over an hour to the start of the 5k race. Here’s a shot of us waiting to start the race.

Below that is a shot of Arnold, himself, getting ready to start the 5k race. He is the one with the cane and the white shoes. You may have to look closely to see him. I’ll try to enhance the picture later.

Scott went out to the front and never looked back, finished 2nd in the 5k race with a time of just under 17 minutes. I held my 6:15 per mile pace for two miles and then struggled home to finish well over 20 minutes.

Overall, because of the frigid cold weather, I think that times for everyone were relatively slow. From what I could tell, someone mentioned that I was around 77th place in the run portion. They will post final results soon and I will update when they do.

We headed over for a well-earned hearty meal at Cup O Joe which happened to be serving an excellent breakfast buffet spread. Scott’s running/lifting prowess may only be overshadowed by his deft skill with the fork and knife. What did J.R.R. Tolkien say – The greatest feats at the dinner table are often accomplished by those of small stature (or something like that). Scott did not make a liar out of the man, and I think if he would have known earlier about the breakfast buffet, he may have cut another minute or so off of his 5k time just to get there sooner.

Two hours later, we pulled ourselves out of our seats and headed over to the Arnold fitness expo which was jam packed. I had accidentally neglected to tell Scott that our fitness test was not quite over. The U.S. Marines always have a booth at the fitness expo with my favorite torture device, the chin-up bar. What better way to celebrate our complete lack of energy and utter exhaustion with some chinups. Again, age before beauty prevailed and Scott went first (we also have video of the benchpress but the camera is not cooperating yet – I’ll get it online soon). Here’s Scott wrestling with the chin up bar and probably wishing he had stopped at 7 trips to the buffet table (just kidding, Scott!) By the way, these chinups were much harder than they appear because the entire chinup apparatus was unstable. You couldn’t just drop down because the bar and supports would be wobbling which caused your body to move with it. So you had to go down slow to keep the thing from feeling like it was going to fall over.

Here is a link to the Scott chin up video – http://www.onehandchinup.com/scottchin.mov

Scott proves his manliness and refuses to let the bar get the best of him. Be all that you can be (oops, wrong service branch). Here’s yours truly taking the same challenge. One more and I could have hit 20, not bad after a hard day’s work. I lost my grip on 19 and couldn’t recover. Alas!

http://www.onehandchinup.com/andychin.mov

Next year we will see you again Mr. Scharzenegger.

Well, this is the last week of training before the Arnold Pump and Run that is part of the Arnold Fitness Expo 2007. I’ve been running everyday this week especially since hearing that my buddy is coming down from Michigan to participate in it as well. I had a nice final workout on the bench -

175 – 10 reps – 60 second rest
175 – 10 reps – 60 seconds rest
175 – 8 reps – 60 seconds rest
175 – 4 reps

I never realized how fast a minute could go by until doing workouts like these.

The 175 bodyweight is going to be tough to make before Sunday. I can’t afford to be over 180 so I’ve been replacing dinner with a slimfast (If you are over the 5 pound increment they bump you up to the next weight class which means you have to bench press more). I’m not really that hungry at night anyway. If I cut out 4 dinners maybe I can assure being under 180 on race day. Who knows – maybe I will hit 175. 5 pounds doesn’t seem like much until you have to do as many reps of your bodyweight as you can. It may mean the difference between 1-2 reps more or less.

The Marines always sponsor a two handed chinup contest so I’ll give that a try afterwards.

On the one hand chinup training, I did the one handed come downs again and noticed a bit more control from week 1 to week 2. This will be a long term process.