Upper body strength

[FreshTart]

There is only one thing that I can't do anymore that I want to be able to again if lift my own body weight.

For example, I can't pull myself up on to a raised platform by using my arms and jumping up. And I struggle with male pushups (females I can pump off).

It's the only thing right now that distinguishes my strength from the guys at the site. (It's not a big deal to them as they're just shocked that someone my size is nearly as strong as the big guys and compareable to all the other guys....but it's a bloody big deal to me, dang competitive nature).

Any ideas/suggestions?

Oh, should probably tell you what exercise I do in a day. I work 4 days a week. I'd estimate that 7-9 hours of my day is manual labour, with the rest being driving around, walking, etc. A typical day has me in knee-high water walking 2-5 km, lifting/carrying/dragging/throwing 20-50lb bags in water or on land, shovelling, raking (in water and on land), and humping misc gear from one area to another. I've been doing this since Aug 10.

One would think I could lift an ox by now :brood:

[Starblossom]

well I don't do much strength training so I'm no expert, but as far as pushups go I can relate. I used to be so weak I couldn't do a single "male" push-up. After several months of working out, I was able to pump out 25 of them. I don't remember my exact schedule, but I do know that I spent the first month or so incorportating "female" pushups into my workout...maybe doing upper body strength exercises 2-3 times a week. After the first month, I started to do regular pushups, as many as I could do, even if it was only 1, working my way up slowly each day. Lots of baby steps!

But yeah, from the sounds of it, the exercise you do works out different parts of your arms than pushups, which actually involve mostly your chest muscles.

[FreshTart]

It feels like every muscle in my body is worked out at the end of each day :lol:

[LadyFaile]

grab a couple like-sized soupcans. one in each hand, arms straight down at your sides. keep them straight but don't lock your elbows, raise your hands out to the sides, hold for a couple seconds, lower. raise them straight out in front of you, hold, lower. at the highest your arms should be parallel to the ground.

do as many reps as you can til your arms feel like jello :p but you're not done yet.. raise your arms up above your head, palms out, with your soup cans. lower them at the elbow so your arms make a 90 degree angle, upper arms parallel to the ground, forearms straight up. hold for a couple seconds, raise, hold, lower, hold, raise, hold. don't lock elbows. keep going til you just can't anymore

soup cans don't sound real heavy but most people can't lift things over their heads very easily so after a few reps they feel pretty darn heavy

anyway do that stuff like every day and you'll build up some strength in your shoulders and upper arms in no time

if it makes you feel any better, i've never been able to support my own weight either. i could never do monkey bars as a kid, i'd take one hand off to grab the next bar and just fall :p

[FreshTart]

LF - I'm already picking up bags and throwing them chest to shoulders high in the air. I don't think a soup can will help :lol:

But I tried it anyways with a 1L bottle of pop. It took 6 min 14 sec before I got tired. Is that good/bad?

[Blue Plastic Straw]

If you want to be able to do male push ups and pull ups, do them. You've got good strength in your arms from all the lifting, you just need to build up your chest and probably shoulder muscles. Doing push ups is a good way to do that. They also work your back and your abs.

Doing that kind of physical work is going to build up the specific muscle groups required for the work, but those aren't necessarily the ones required to do a pull up or push up. Also tossing 50lb bags is great, but it's not the same as doing a pull down with or bench pressing ~130 lbs which is the equivilant of what you're wanting to do.

[FreshTart]

Thanks.

[Starblossom]

If you want to be able to do male push ups and pull ups, do them. You've got good strength in your arms from all the lifting, you just need to build up your chest and probably shoulder muscles. Doing push ups is a good way to do that. They also work your back and your abs.

Doing that kind of physical work is going to build up the specific muscle groups required for the work, but those aren't necessarily the ones required to do a pull up or push up. Also tossing 50lb bags is great, but it's not the same as doing a pull down with or bench pressing ~130 lbs which is the equivilant of what you're wanting to do.

That's what I was trying to say, but you said it much better :)

[AppleGirl]

It sounds like you're plenty in-shape, but to lift your own body weight and do "male" pushups you might need to do more than 50lbs. If you really want to strength training, maybe try machines or freeweights and gradually increase the weight (don't hurt yourself though!) You can always set pushup goals. Like measure how many you can do in 2 minutes, and do them everyday and try to build up.

When I started my self-defense class (it was hard-core grappling, so it was more intense than most self-defense classes), I could only do 5 proper guy pushups. In 10 classes, I worked up to doing 45 pushups, which I once thought would be impossible for me.

If regular gym workouts bore you, you can try doing other exercises. I hate working out at the gym, but I really love rockclimbing and aerial arts. I started learning, and I can actually climb ropes now and do pullups...so making your exercises fun really works!

On a sidenote, I don't think women really mind if you can't lift your own body weight or do pushups....my bf isn't a beefcake, and I like it that way hehe

[FreshTart]

Thanks for all the ideas. As I'm exhausted when I get home from work, I'll have to wait until I'm done to try these.

[FreshTart]

On a sidenote, I don't think women really mind if you can't lift your own body weight or do pushups....my bf isn't a beefcake, and I like it that way hehe

I don't care about the women. I'm trying to do the stuff the men can. It makes things easier and I don't need to be helped into the boat, etc.

[LadyFaile]

i should have specified i meant large soupcans lol
anyway what i mentioned would help with shoulders a lot.
what you do at work is different it's not constant reps, you toss a bag do something toss a bag do something right, you need the consistency of actual weightlifting to have any real effect

course you could just go to the gym and do the same excercises on the machines but soup is cheaper :lol:

[FreshTart]

what you do at work is different it's not constant reps, you toss a bag do something toss a bag do something right, you need the consistency of actual weightlifting to have any real effect


Today, I tossed bags (just that task) for 3 hours straight.

[FreshTart]

course you could just go to the gym and do the same excercises on the machines but soup is cheaper :lol:

:lol:

Like I said, not until I am done this project. There is no way I can go to a gym after working 12 hours of manual labour.

[LadyFaile]

i hear ya. myself, for a while between gym visits i was lifting shampoo bottles in the shower :o those economy-sized bottles of pert plus are pretty hefty

anywho as i mentioned, people are generally not used to lifting things over their heads or straight out, usually when we lift/carry things we hold them close to our bodies, that's why it doesn't take a whole lot of poundage for shoulder strengthening until you get to a point of bodybuilding or whatever. but yeah i'm hoping to get back to the gym next week, bf's last race is this weekend i think and soon it'll be too cold for him to go out just for fun much so hopefully our winter routine will settle in soon.

i don't like working out alone so i don't go if he doesn't go, and biking keeps him busy and in shape, he really only joined the gym to stay in shape through the offseason. but now i have a reason to look forward to winter, i can get into shape myself. my tummy's not lookin so great lol

funny thing about lifting heavy stuff at work, my job's not real physically demanding compared to yours but myself and another girl are always joking that we seem to always end up being the ones carrying heavy boxes around, moving racks and shelving etc, and we're the 2 smallest gals on staff. heh. i even had to help someone carry a foosball table out of the store, when he looked at me and said "grab and end" i laughed. then realized he wasn't kidding.

bleh :(

[zoebird]

this is actually an access issue, not a strength issue. you haven't connected to the necessary muscle groups--and curls and the like won't do it for you.

to pull yourself up on a platform, you need to access different muscles. the motion of that sort of push up is actually not in the arms, but rather in the shoulders, back, and belly.

I experimented with this sort of lifting coming out of the pool earlier this week, to get a feel of what you were trying to communicate. in the first case, i was in the shallow end--which is about 3.5 feet deep, so the water comes up to above my navel, almost to my chest. For this one, i could push off the floor, giving a hop. i then draw my hips higher than my shoulders as i press the arms straight--and all of that is in the shoulders, back, and belly (and i mean shoulders such as the trapezius, not the deltoids). I then brought my knees into my chest and set my feet between my hands.

It was, of course, tougher in the deep end where i could not touch the floor and push off. But, the motion was basicly the same.

I recommend crow pose for accessing this sort of strength.

1. begin by bending your knees and resting your elbows on your thighs just above your knees--so you're in a sort of half forward bend.

2. look at the floor and contemplate how close you are to it. :)

3. pretend that you're holding a ball between your hands, and then slide your elbows down your shins until your knee is in your arm pit or as close to that as possible.

4. come up onto the balls of your feet, lifting your heels as high as possible.

5. press your hands into the floor, slightly wider than shoulder distance apart, keeping your knees on your arms.

6. take your gaze forward, lift your hips as high as you can (keeping your knees on your arms), and then mvoe the weight forwrd in your hands.

7. take one foot off the floor, drawing the heel toward your hip. Put is down, and then switch sides.

8. finally, try to take both feet off the floor.

You may bruise your tricep the first few times you do this, but you want to access those muscles in your belly and back that make this pose possible. So, keep your gaze focused, listen to your breath, and you'll fly right up.

[FreshTart]

I'll keep that in mind for when I'm no longer working this job.

[zoebird]

what do you mean?

this one posture, which takes two minutes and little to no arm strength will help you with this job. thta was the point, wasn't it?

[FreshTart]

I was hoping that some of these suggestions I can do while at work, but I can't, so I will have to wait.

All these suggestions are great for later and ones I will happily do when this is over. They seem very helpful. But for the meantime, 2 minutes of exercise when I get home is too much frankly. I don't think you understand how truely exhausting it is to do my job every day.

[remilard]

I was hoping that some of these suggestions I can do while at work, but I can't, so I will have to wait.

All these suggestions are great for later and ones I will happily do when this is over. They seem very helpful. But for the meantime, 2 minutes of exercise when I get home is too much frankly. I don't think you understand how truely exhausting it is to do my job every day.

Things you can do at work...

When you need to get on the platform push up with your legs hard and down with your arms hard and just get as high as you can, do that four more times, now go get up on the platform using what ever alternate method you choose. One day you will get up there on one of your five attempts.

Whenever you find yourself sitting on the ground or on your knees do as many male pushups as you can before you get up. Can't do one yet? Keep your stomach tight and just push against the ground from ten seconds. One day you will do one, then two the next day etc.

[FreshTart]

Things you can do at work...

When you need to get on the platform push up with your legs hard and down with your arms hard and just get as high as you can, do that four more times, now go get up on the platform using what ever alternate method you choose. One day you will get up there on one of your five attempts.


Perhaps I am not pushing up enough with my legs. When you write it out like that, it seems that I am trying more with my arms then using my legs.

*makes a note. Thanks :)

[zoebird]

FT:

no, i understand how exhausting. that's why i recommended crow pose. Do it before work. it'll access your belly over time, and in a few days, you'll be able to pull up entirely.

and it's not an exhausting posture either. it's fun, actually.

[rainbowmoon]

One thing that I learned from working at a gym is that in order to do a certain exercise the best thing to do is do that motion. So, if you can lift in a motion that mimicks a pull-up, then you will engage and connect those muscles. I have never been able to do pull ups, either, because I am a bowl of jello and cannot lift my jello machine of a body. :lol: I don't know, this is just something that weight lifters told me- if you want to do something, you have to do it.
At gyms there are assisted pull up machines. You set the machine to "counter" your body weight, and then as you get stronger, you set the machine to counter less and less of your body weight. While you are lifting 50 lb. bags, your body weighs more than 50 lbs. If I were you, I would train after this job, and I bet you will only take a few months to be able to do it. Its not something many women can do.
Just a thought, or two. :)

[Verdant]

You have to do the exercises you hate. I HATED pullups. Back in the day, I could manage 2, maybe three if I hopped on the first. The prospect of doing 5 sets of 5 repetitions of my own bodyweight was unfathomable. But I made an effort to really tackle them, using the pulldown machines which mimic the movement. I'm proud to say I can now do 5 sets of 5 reps with 170 pounds, 15 pounds more than I weigh :).

[FreshTart]

One thing that I learned from working at a gym is that in order to do a certain exercise the best thing to do is do that motion. So, if you can lift in a motion that mimicks a pull-up, then you will engage and connect those muscles. I have never been able to do pull ups, either, because I am a bowl of jello and cannot lift my jello machine of a body. :lol: I don't know, this is just something that weight lifters told me- if you want to do something, you have to do it.
At gyms there are assisted pull up machines. You set the machine to "counter" your body weight, and then as you get stronger, you set the machine to counter less and less of your body weight. While you are lifting 50 lb. bags, your body weighs more than 50 lbs. If I were you, I would train after this job, and I bet you will only take a few months to be able to do it. Its not something many women can do.
Just a thought, or two. :)

Thanks.

I agree that I may just wait until after this job. I'm basically sore all the time now and anymore exercise may just put me over the edge.