{"id":7975,"date":"2018-10-25T20:11:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T20:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=7975"},"modified":"2018-10-30T17:02:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T17:02:04","slug":"7-pullup-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/fall-2018\/7-pullup-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"7-Pullup Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ellen Kahan <\/p><\/p>\n

T<\/span>he 20-something coach of the boys\u2019 crew team smiled up at me as I was hanging 8 feet off the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sure wish my boys could see you!\u201d she said. Me too, I thought. I\u2019d just finished a set of pullups that would possibly change their minds, as it had mine, about what a 69-year-old woman could do.<\/p>\n

My pullups started with a silly bet that my creative son-in-law made with his nieces and nephews. For those who completed a predetermined number of pullups based on age and gender, he would pay them $1,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust how many pullups would your mother-in-law have to do to win a $1,000 I\u2019d asked. After some deliberation, he set the number at seven. And in a moment of determination, I accepted the challenge and opened the door to an amazing experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ellen working with Steve, her trainer, to accomplish her goal of 7<\/p><\/div>\n

Although I\u2019d never done a pullup, I\u2019m athletic and active, despite growing up pre-Title IX. (Basketball on the strictly limited half-court didn\u2019t create athletic excellence). Over the years, I\u2019d dabbled in sports, ridden a bike, backpacked, and joined the dance aerobics craze of the \u201980s. But nothing had ever pushed me to excel. So, it wasn\u2019t clear to me why I was immediately so \u201call in\u201d to meet this challenge.<\/p>\n

To enhance my regular exercise routine, I\u2019d started working with a personal trainer, named Steve. My goals were to improve my exercise form, avoid injuries, maintain flexibility and balance, and oh yes, possibly get stronger.<\/p>\n

Initially, I set goals for an aging woman. But a few weeks later, I was on to something completely new! I told Steve about the bet: do seven pullups with perfect form from a dead hang with no body swing to help me reach the bar. I had faith that Steve and I could reach my goal when he hadn\u2019t even cracked a smile at my new aspiration.<\/p>\n

At the start, I could hang from a bar for maybe a minute. From that inauspicious beginning, Steve and I launched a full-on attack. He navigated the route, and I faithfully did as I was told. I crawled on toes and fingertips. I lifted and pushed weights and sandbags. I squatted, jumped, and lunged. It was more than just being strong. It was also about being efficient and coordinated. Engage your shoulders. Tighten your core. Squeeze your butt and grip that bar like you\u2019ll break it in half. My mind had to be in the game, too.<\/p>\n

When I was finally able to pull myself up to an L-shaped bent-elbow position, I got stuck\u2014physically and mentally. I\u2019d thought I\u2019d never get that first pullup. And even with this milestone, I\u2019d had no idea that each additional pullup would be just as challenging. Getting the sixth was harder than the first. And after 15 months of hard work and relentless practice, I still couldn\u2019t get from six pullups to seven.<\/p>\n

Aware of my mental block, Steve told me to practice pullups with an elastic support band, instead of hanging freely, and to complete three sets of 10 pullups every day. I\u2019d been insulted and felt I was going backward. But of course, he\u2019d known what he was doing. Knowing that I was fixating on the number seven, he made me pass by number seven over and over again. This bolstered my confidence and blocked the whiny message in my head that kept saying I couldn\u2019t do seven. It was brilliant. I let the seven obsession go.<\/p>\n

Our training sessions went on as usual with the focus on every part of the pullup but often with no real pullups required. I began to relax a little and feel more confident. Then one day, midway through a workout, Steve sent me to the pullup bar with no instruction on how many pullups to do. But I didn\u2019t just do seven. I instead pulled my way straight past that former foe and did eight. Victory!<\/p>\n

The joy of mastering those pullups was one gift of the journey. But it was deeply enriched by my friendship with Steve and our teamwork. When we hugged before starting a training session, when we high-fived over a special achievement, when he laughed at my swearing in frustration, we were fully teammates. Even though there\u2019s a 30-year age difference, Steve never failed to expect anything but my best. He wasn\u2019t influenced by age but instead by what we\u2019d promised we would accomplish together.<\/p>\n

What may have been the greatest gift of the seven-pullup challenge was to see others expand their narrow thinking about age. Every week in the gym, younger women, who\u2019d known about my goal, observed me. There started to be whoops of encouragement and \u201cyou go girl\u201d comments while I practiced. Some would seek advice about learning to do pullups and what to do first. I heard myself described as a badass or an inspiration. Being a badass at almost 70? That\u2019s a seriously wonderful compliment.<\/p>\n

Over the last several years, I have felt myself becoming increasingly invisible to younger generations. That\u2019s a common experience for aging men and women. But when I\u2019m in the gym\u2014lifting weights, training on the beach dragging a piece of driftwood through the sand, or hanging from a pullup bar at my rowing club\u2014I\u2019m suddenly very visible. I become an \u201cinspiration\u201d to others and I set an example.<\/p>\n

For me, retirement isn\u2019t a time to avoid new challenges. Even as we age, we\u2019re meant to explore and move, just as children do. Overcoming obstacles fires up our spirit and reminds us that we\u2019re still full of potential. Fight the \u201ceasy living\u201d temptation. Be a badass. Be a joyful badass and master your own version of the seven-pullup challenge. There\u2019s one waiting for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One woman’s story of a life-changing challenge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2018","category-fall-2018-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7975"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8179,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions\/8179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}