Exercise of the month 
Imagine those who are unable to embark on multiple adventures of their lives due to fragile body parts, weak core muscles, frail shoulders, or feeble lungs.
You don’t want to be amongst those groups of people. You need to strengthen your pulmonary and cardiovascular systems so you can keep up with the demands of the adventure and stay on top of your energy levels to accomplish the rare feats of completing an adventure to the fullest!
Pull ups not only help build your cardio endurance and stamina. It also helps you to maintain flexibility, strengthen the top half of the body including shoulders and arm muscles which come in very handy while following difficult trails during an adventure with sacks and backpacks.
You can start doing Pull Ups for easy to moderately difficult to highly difficult adventures. Pull Ups are particularly helpful to build strength in the upper half of the body. Although Pull Ups are challenging, they can improve markers of health and the best part is that you require minimal equipment - just a bar fixed to the wall, to perform Pull Ups.
Apart from these, Pull Ups work against gravity and keep you in shape and control your weight, keeping you healthy. Thereby, it regulates your blood pressure, and cardiovascular strength, improving your stamina. However, Pull Ups are most important for alpinists and other adventure enthusiasts who execute high altitude expeditions with the weight on their backs.
Overall, pullups strengthen fingers, forearms, biceps, triceps, shoulders, back and the core muscles.
Pull Ups target the following muscles of the back -
- Latissimus Dorsi - It is the largest upper back muscle that runs from the mid-back to the shoulder blade and under the armpits.
- Trapezius - It is located from your neck out to both shoulders.
- Thoracic Erector Spinae - A set of three muscles that run along the thoracic spine.
If you are starting off on pullups, here is a typical schedule for ramping up.
It's important to first try and accomplish one complete pullup.
Once you can do one pull-up, start out by doing 12 sets of 1 pull-up with a 45-second break between sets. Do this at least twice a week. Then try to do 2 pull-ups at a time and once you can do that, follow this routine.
Week 1: 6 sets of 2 reps. 45-second break in between sets. Twice a week.
Week 2: 5 sets of 3 reps. Twice a week.
Week 3: 4 Sets of 4 reps. Twice a week.
Week 4: 3 Sets of 6 reps. Twice a week. If you’re able to do more, go ahead. Like I said, by this time I was able to increase my reps to 10.
When you get to the point that you’re able to do more than 12, it’s time to start adding weight to your pull-up routine, like the bad ass guy in the picture at the top.
Outdoor gyms or any place with a solid weightbearing horizontal bar is the best place to start pull-ups. You can also install a pull-up bar in your house, it hardly requires any space.
Have we pumped enough zeal and motivation into you to find your next adventure? Then quit thinking. Start exercising, pack your gear, and make the ultimate move - Cross the Line!
Till then, we will compile another curated assortment of the ideal stuff needed for you to collect critical information for your next outdoor adventure.