The Pull-Up

There are a handful of exercises that I do every day. The swing, the get-up, push-ups and pull-ups. Chief among them is the pull-up: the quintessential bodyweight exercise. The pull-up is  the great equalizer of upper-body strength. It utilizes the Latissimus Dorsi mainly, but they are assisted by the brachialis, brachioradialis, biceps brachii , teres major, posterior deltoid, infraspinatus, teres minor, rhomboids, levator scapulae, middle and lower trapezius and pectoralis muscles. And because you are hanging from the bar and gravity is a bitch, all these muscles have to be pulling their weight for your chin to crest metal. Tall, short, skinny or fat, pull-ups bedevil all men (and women) who do not train for them.

Form
When I talk about pull-ups, I am talking about military grade, United States Marine Corps, drill instructor approved, no-kipping, chin-over-the-bar, damn-frikkin' pull-ups. I prefer palms outboard, but the form is the same for palms inboard as well (chin-up). Palms out just means you use your big back muscles more and your little arm muscles less. A USMC pull-up starts with a dead hang (locked elbows). The Marine pulls his or her chin over the bar without lifting the legs or swinging his or her body to gain momentum ("kipping") then lowers him or herself to the dead hang position with elbows again locking out. That is one complete pull-up to the USMC and to Coach Stevo.

Some tips on form that I recommend are wrapping the thumb under the bar. This allows you to squeeze the bar and creates more tension in your core, which is actually very important to the power in this exercise. When going for a max set, it is also important to lower yourself as fast as possible. Well actually, it's not so much lowering as dropping like a dead fish. This violent drop will not only rest your pulling muscles, but also initiate the myostatic reflex which will cause those muscles to pull harder and faster for the next rep.

Training for Max Reps
The thing about pull-ups is, if you can do one, you have the strength to do 20. That is because doing 20 or more pull-ups is about training the muscular endurance, not their strength. And the key to doing a lot of pull-ups is doing a lot of pull-ups. A whole whole lot. As in, 100 per day. Complex, full body exercises like pull-ups, push-ups and swings can be done every day because there are so many muscles at play in the motion. Also, since this kind of "strength" is more about developing the central nervous system's effeciency in utilizing the existing fibers, you need to practice, practice, practice.  Here is what I recommend for someone who's singular goal is to do more pull-ups, like anyone wanting to be a Marine or officer of Marines.

Workout #1:

Do 1 pull-up.  Now do 10 push-ups.  Do 2 pull-ups.  10 push-ups.  Repeat this cycle with as little rest as possible until you are really struggling on the last pull-up.  I find this number to be between 7-10.  Now go back down the pyramid with 10 push-ups between sets. Your pull-up counts should look like this: 1-2-3…x…3-2-1 where x is the most pretty pull-ups you can muster.

Workout #2: 

Do at least 10 sets of 10 pull-ups spaced throughout the day.

Cycle through these workouts and make sure to take a day off every week (I take Sunday off) to ensure proper muscle repair. Also, take 48-72 hours off before attempting another max rep test. You want to make sure the muscles are 100% repaired and have all the necessary phasophogen and glycogen to go the distance on test day.

But Coach, I Can't Even Do One!
Usually the first thing I tell people who can't do one pull-up is to lose weight. Fat is the killer of pull-ups. But while you're doing that, start with negatives. These are basically the second half of a standard pull-up, the part where you lower yourself down. So get a box, put it under your pull-up bar, and jump up to the top of the pull-up position. Now lower yourself down as slowly as you possibly can. Repeat this until you are just dropping off the bar. Do this every other day until you can do a pull-up. Believe it or not, it won't take long! After you do one, just do as many as you can every time you walk past the bar and before long you'll be doing the workouts above.


Integrating Pull-Ups With Your Fitness Goals
If you don't want to do pull-ups every day, you should at least try to do them every time you do resistance training. And there are other ways to do pull-ups other than for max reps that will help you meet alternative fitness goals. If you are interested in developing bigger muscles, or stronger muscles in your back, then I suggest weighted pull-ups. Get a weight belt with a chain and hook a few pounds around your waist. If you want more explosive power, then I suggest Coach Stevo's patented "Stevo-plosion!" pull-up workout. This simple routine consists of pulling yourself over the bar in the most explosive way possible and changing your grip during your hang time. Repeat and cycle through all the possible grips you can before you run out of steam.

Even if your goal is fat-loss, pull-ups represent a very quick way to utilize all the pulling muscles of your back and arms and prevent tissue loss. You can do a quick push-pull workout in a caloric deficit and be almost guaranteed you haven't left any muscles in your torso out of the awesome.

Why You Should Run

My last article was a smashing success. Many people told me, "I'm never gonna run again!" The problem is that most of those people didn't run in the first place and now are doomed to a life of fatness if they can't get some cardio in. So I thought I'd write a follow up article to defend running. My best friend and my greatest enemy. 

Here is why you should run.

It's cardio

Yeah, it makes you hungry and messes up your joints. But it's cardio and your heart needs cardio if it's gonna pump through the donuts and get you to 85. 

It burns calories

Other things might burn more and make you less hungry, but if you can ride the wave of "FEED ME" without succumbing, running will still result in a caloric deficit. Plus, if it's the cardio that's most convenient, then it's likely the cardio you'll do. So quit your bitching and run.

It's cheap

If you aren't an idiot like me, you don't have buy 10 pairs of running shoes. You don't even have to buy one. Just put on the closest thing to running shoes you own and go for a jog. Once you start to put on the miles, dedicated shoes are a good idea, but they aren't a must have when you get started. That means that the price of admission to this sport is $0.

You can always do it

Sun or snow, night or day, you can always go for a run. Gyms close and you can talk yourself out of going because it's too far. But running takes place wherever you are. Even if you are on vacation, there will still be roads to run on. There are even cruise ships with outdoor tracks. Running is the only type of cardio that is completely free of excuses.

It makes you high

The runner's high exists. It is a release of endorphins that occurs when you maintain a high enough pace for long enough that your muscle glycogen starts to get depleted. You have to work hard to get it, but isn't that the point?

You can brag

If you run into other runners you can always ask, "what's your distance?" followed by "what's your PR?" If it's faster than yours, tell them, "Wow! That's so fast!" but if it isn't you can always be a dick and tell them yours. Races also give away a ton of free schwag with t-shirts being obligatory. Those t-shirts tell the world that you try harder than they do at something.

Subjective Competition

Running is the oldest sport in the world. It's the purest and most ancient way of pitting yourself against fellow competitors and there is no better way to get started on the path to fitness than competition. I lost 60 lbs because I wanted to go faster than other people. Sure there are better forms of cardio for fat loss, but very few sports are easier to join up and compete in. If you doubt me, sign up for a 5k and feel the thrill of passing someone for the first time.

Objective Competition

Even if you don't ever sign up for a race, you are always competing against yourself to go faster. You can't lie to yourself about how hard you tried or how well you could have done. You can't avoid that number. You always know if you succeeded or failed. The purity of the clock is just what some people need to not only change their body, but change their life. Running was the very first time I knew that I was being measured and could not talk my way from failure to success. And it was watching my 5k time drop from 30+ minutes to 17:52 that provided me with the yardstick of my life changes.

Because you love it

If you love running, stop worrying about it and freaking run. I had to adjust my priorities based on my injuries and the threats to my libido, but I found a way to run 25 miles a week. I am even getting faster. The point is, if you love something, just do it, jackass.

Why You Shouldn't Run

I'm a runner. I love it. The only exercise I love more than running is sex. I love the personal solitude and the struggle to beat the clock and the honesty of that objective achievement. For me, running is the purist measurement of my personal performance. But I really shouldn't run and you probably shouldn't either.

Running is terrible for your body.

Every serious runner has an injury. Probably right now. This is because running is ballistic and load bearing. The forces generated by running are many times greater than the force of gravity and repetitive stress is really the whole point. Knees tweak (runner knee), tendons slowly tear (achilles tendonosis), and muscles literally swell out of their fibrous capsules (shin splints). And if you continue to train hurt, you can actually break bones from the strain. I had to take 6 months off because I nearly ran both of my achilles tendons in half. Tim Noakes estimates that every healthy person has 15 years of running improvements in their bodies before the accumulated damage is permanent and you start to get worse no matter how well to you train.

It just doesn't burn that many calories.

Compared to other non-ballistic activities like swimming or biking, even walking, the amount of calories burned is even or slightly less. Rowing burns 50% more calories per hour and will not destroy you.

It makes you hungry.

The ballistic damage to your muscles combined with the acute glycogen depletion creates an instantaneous feeling of hunger that is higher than other non-ballistic forms of cardio.

Running is terrible for fat loss.

Because it makes you hungry and it doesn't burn that many calories comparatively, running is not a great way to lose weight. In fact, if you want to actually go faster, you end up having to eat a lot of carbohydrates to restock your glycogen levels before you run again the next day. Most relatively healthy people who decide to run a marathon to get healthier actually find they gain weight during training.

It is actually expensive.

I have 10 pairs of running shoes. Asics Gel-DS Trainers for pavement, Salomon Speedcross 2s for trails, La Sportiva Fireblades for hybrid trail running, Adidas Adizeros for races over 10k, Nike Lunarracers for races 10k and under, Nike Bowerman Victory track spikes, 3 pairs of Nike Zoom+ Hayward 3 Prefontaines that I bought on eBay because they stopped making them, and a pair of very expensive Kahrus that destroyed my shins before I relegated them to the back of my closet. I have 2 camelbacks (one for pavement, one for trails), an emergency kit for trail running, 6 or so special water bottles and water bottle belts, 5 pair of Nike running shorts, a pair of split leg racing shorts, 5 Nike compression shirts, a racing singlet, 3 pair of cushioned socks, 5 pair of drimax socks that are left and right footed, 3 tubes of bodyglide, zensha compression sleeves, 2 "the sticks," a foam roller, Endurox R4 Recovery Powder, Nuun electrolyte tablets, boxes of GU glucose gels, and a $400 Garmin GPS enabled watch that ranks with my most prized possessions. Do I need all of this to run? No. I just need it all to run fast.

You're never going to win a race.

There's always someone faster than you. I am in the 99th percentile for running performance which means there are 65 million people faster than me.

It will fuck up your brain.

After you run a marathon, you will be in a deep depression for at least a month. The depletion of neurochemicals is the traumatic equivalent of getting struck by lightning. It is also addictive for these same reasons.

Everyone and their grandmother has run a marathon.

No one cares that you did unless you qualified for Boston.

It will destroy your sex drive.

Running destroys muscle which causes a release of cortisol (the body's stress hormone) and other chemicals to remove the torn tissue by converting protein to carbohydrates. Cortisol also messes with your body's ability to receive testosterone which is the chemical that makes you horny. So the more you run, the less muscle mass you have and the less you want to have sex. This is the main reason my wife will not let me run more than 25 miles a week or run any race longer than 10k.

    The point of this article is not to scare you off running, just to educate you and help you prioritize your fitness goals. I run because I love it. If you hate running and don't have to, why do it? Find another form of cardio that you do enjoy and do that. That way you won't be in my way at the next 10k.

The Swing

I could write an entire book on the swing. There are very few movements as simple as the swing that have so many benefits accessible to so many people so quickly into learning it. Even better than the push up and the pull up (which I love), I can't think of anything that comes close to the total body benefit of the swing. I mean, a straight press (planche to handstand) will kick your ass, but there are only a handful of elite gymnasts that can pull it off. Anyone can swing a bell. It looks like this.

The key to the hard-style swing, and the thing that makes it so special, is that it is ballistic. You are throwing that bell as hard as you can with your hips then stopping the arch with your back and core. If you are doing it right, the weight doesn't even matter. The video above is of an RKC swinging a 60kg kettlebell. I didn't even know they made them that big. But he will get exhausted just as fast swinging an 8kg bell if he is doing it as hard as he can. That is because no matter what the weight, with every swing you are going balls out.

When you swing hard-style, the swing shows no mercy. When I started this whole kettlebell thing, I considered myself a conditioned athlete. I can run a 5k in 17:52 and a mile in under 5:15. But the swing taxes a completely different fuel system. The body stores energy as creatine triphosphate in the muscles so that when the ATP on hand is used up in 2-8 seconds, the muscles can still pump while they begin to break down muscle glycogen, then the glycogen in the bloodstream. This phasphogen system is rarely taxed unless you do a lot of combat sports like wrestling because most of the conditioning work that people do are less intense and do not need ATP faster than muscle glycolysis can provide it. But when you are forced to go as hard as you can and as fast as you can, the body relies on the phasphogen system to keep moving. Or in this case, swinging the bell.

The kettlebell swing is a form of pure exhaustion that hits you all over. Since you are using every major muscle group to both throw and stop the bell, and you are taxing that underutilized fuel system, the swing will bring any athlete to his or her knees. But these benefits are completely accessible to anyone with the mobility to swing. That is because as hard as it can be, the swing is also very finely throttled. If you get tired, you just swing a little less hard. It's not cheating if you can't actually swing any harder. It's just good strategy. The point is, there is no more simple, easily learned motion that people can benefit more from. And that's why it is one of the few exercises I do every day.

Hard-Style Kettlebells and Benefits for Female Sexual Response

    To better understand why hard-style kettlebells are so great for women, a little anatomy is in order. And let's get right to what matters -- The clitoris. Most people, women included, think that the clitoris is the little eraser-head sized nub of flesh atop the vulva. The "man in the rowboat." But in reality, that little nub isn't your whole clitoris. It's not even the tip of the iceberg. It's the snowflake on the tip of the iceberg. Technically that little nub that you're acquainted with is the "clitoral glans." The glans contains more nerve endings than any other structure in the human body (over 8,000), male or female, but the vast majority of the clitoris resides below the vulva, deep in the vagina and pelvic floor.

    The clitoris branches off into two clitoral crura (also called "legs") which are made of a spongy material called corpora caverosum. This material traps blood during arousal and function as erectile tissue for the clitoris, exposing the glans above the clitoral hood. Just below the labia minora are the "vestibular bulbs" which trap blood during arousal to expand and expose the vulva. The enlargement of the crura and vestibular bulbs place more of the nerve endings of the clitoris into the path of stimulation, which in turn traps more blood in the erectile tissue. This blood is saturated with androgens, opiods, and other hormones which are now coursing throughout the bloodstream creating hypersensitivity and other secondary sexual responses. As arousal continues, muscles and ligaments in the vagina begin to contract. The glans retracts under the hood (but is still erect and engorged with blood) and the muscles of the pelvic floor begin to contract. At some point the threshold of stimulation is crossed and the muscles of the vagina, anus, uterus and pelvic floor begin cycling between full tension and relaxation at a sequence of 8-13 Hz. The hormone saturated blood trapped in the corpora caverosum and vestibular bulbs is released and orgasm is achieved as this cocktail of hormones hits the brain.

    And what does a cannonball with a handle on it do to effect this epic series of biological events? The answer lies in the pelvic floor muscles (PFM). These muscles (the levator ani and the coccygeus) anchor the clitoris and provide it's structure. They are also the strongest muscles involved in orgasmic contraction. All the blood flow and resulting hormone circulation is provided by arteries and capillaries surrounded by these muscles. Many women might be familiar with the pubococcygeus muscle or "PC" muscle. This is part of the levator ani group and is the primary muscle effected by Kegel exercises, which will be discussed in later paragraphs.

    The strength and consistency of female orgasm has been linked to the proper functioning of these important muscles. Traumatic events such as child birth, episiotomies and some hysterectomies can damage these muscles which can negatively impact women's ability to consistently reach orgasm. Without the structure to deliver well regulated blood flow into the crura and to provide cyclic contraction at the onset of orgasm, many women will have trouble climaxing, no matter how much direct stimulation occurs on the clitoral glans. So one would surmise that strengthening these muscles and increasing their ability to function properly would result in a positive change in sexual response. Enter the Kettlebell.

    Hard-Style kettlebell exercise is primarily concerned with ballistic power delivery. This means cycling between states of maximum muscular tension and complete muscle relaxation in short time cycles. In short, the ability to develop maximum power in the shortest possible distance. This is how lifters lift, sprinters sprint, and boxers box. Kettlebell exercises provide a safe, quickly learned, and highly effective way for anyone with the requisite mobility to learn this type of tension-relaxation cycle. It also provides a way for people of all backgrounds to learn how to direct movement from their hips, which is how athletes move to deliver maximal speed and power. To better understand how these movements contribute to the strength of the PFM, let's look at the fundamental Hard-Style exercise -- the swing.

    The swing is a movement that utilizes the inertia of the kettlebell to train the tension-relaxation cycle. The girevik (slang for kettlebell practitioner) propels the bell forward with the sudden forward movement of the hips which is generated by the contraction of the quadriceps and gluteal muscles. As the bell goes forward, it begins an arc because of the connection (but not flexion) of the arms. In this arc, the girevik quickly engages the latissimi dorsi, posterior deltoids, and rectus abdominus to create tension against the momentum of the moving bell and stop it's flight. At the top of the swing the girevik forcefully releases the breath held by the diaphragm, relaxes the abdominal, gluteal and quadricep muscles, and maximally engages the lats and hamstring muscles to propel the kettlebell back down it's arc towards the pelvis. And similar to hiking a football, the hips move back, the knees bend, and the interior spindles of the gluteals and quadriceps stretch, actuating the Stretch Shortening Cycle. At the bottom of the arc the now "loaded" gluteals and quadriceps fire, the hamstrings relax, and the girevik repeats the swing. This cycle takes about 1.5 seconds. That's 1.5 seconds between maximum tension and complete relaxation of all the major muscle groups in the legs, hips, and trunk. The swing is a powerful ballistic movement that places the body in a unique training state for most-non athletes. This training state is key to strengthening the PFM.

    As the girevik trains with Hard-Style kettlebell exercises consistently with progressive overload, all the neuromuscular benefits common to resistance training occur. New neuromuscular junctions are generated and the firing sequence of muscle the muscle fibers becomes more efficient in the first few weeks, with hypertrophy in the weeks following that. The taxation of the cardiovascular system and phasphogen fuel system results in higher stroke volume and later onset of lactic threshold. The girevik becomes stronger and better conditioned. But because these motions, like the swing, are practicing total body tension and relaxation, the muscles recruited into the movement are located throughout the entire body. The girevik's somatic nervous system will recruit the requisite large muscle groups, but the autonomic nervous system nervous system with begin to recruit other, smaller muscles as their tension results in more efficient movement. Generating this type of power from the hips and constantly stabilizing the core places the muscles of the pelvic floor in sympathetic recruitment as this much total body force requires stabilization throughout the body against the sudden changes in velocity. The PFM constantly cycle between tension and relaxation throughout the workout and undergo the same consistent training and progressive overload as the major muscle groups recruited to generate the movement and share the same growth in motor units, recruitment efficiency, and hypertrophy. In short, the PFM get stronger.

    The result is that in 8-12 weeks, female gireviks report many sexual benefits from Hard-Style training. Resistance training usually results in higher androgen production, so libido is increased in those cases. Stronger core muscles and more flexibility can lead to more athletic sex and better cardiovascular conditioning means sex is less tiring and can last longer. But more curiously, female gireviks report higher levels of sexual arousal, much stronger and more easily attained orgasm, even multiple orgasms for some women whom had not previously experienced them. This may have to do with stronger PFM contractions and better blood flow through the PFM and into and out of the clitoral erectile tissue before and after orgasm, respectfully. Slower flow out of the corpora caverosum and vestibular bulbs has been theorized to contribute to a less sudden refractory period in female sexual response, and stronger PFM could contribute to better control of this release of blood, keeping androgens and other sex hormones in the clitoris longer and allowing for further stimulation and continued orgasm.

    Kettlebells are not a panacea and there are other exercises that can strengthen the PFM. Most famous are the Kegel exercises. Kegels train women (and men) to contract the pubococcygeus muscle for intervals of a few seconds in order to strengthen it. But Kegels have been shown to be difficult to train because women cannot see the muscle contract, as they would in a bicep curl. Because of this, a lot of women end up contracting the anal sphincter which, while providing some benefit to the levator ani, is not very effective. Kegels also have proven troublesome as a PFM strengthener because of the unusual nature of the exercise and women's inability to maintain a routine necessary for consistent training. Because they are not done "at the gym" many women simply forget to do them. Kettlebells represent an easily taught exercise with all the traditional benefits of resistance and cardiovascular training that fits into the usual way people "work out." The unique draw of kettlebells is that they provide a secondary benefit to the female sexual response on top of these traditional primary physical goals. In fact, gireviks need not even concentrate on these secondary benefits to achieve them. Many report them occurring "as if by magic." All they needed to do was swing the bell.