There are a lot of milestones that I’m shooting for. One in particular is the one-arm pullup. This is not where one arm pulls on the wrist while the other arm pulls up. This is a real one-arm-only pullup where the other arm is not contributing at all. I ran into a rock climbing friend of mine who said that only 1 in 100,000 people can do this feat. I figure that makes it a good goal to strive for!
When you’re doing strength training, you want to be able to do comparisons so you can measure your improvement, and also see how far you have still to go. One great way to do this is by comparing reps to maximum total strength or power. Here’s the breakdown:
# of reps % 1 rep max
1 100
2 95
3 93
4 90
5 87
6 85
7 83
8 80
9 77
10 75
11 70
12 67
15 65
Ok, now how do we put this to work on the one-arm pullup? Here’s what I did.
Throw a rope over the bar and attach weight to it. The non-working arm pulls on the rope, and the other arm pulls on the bar. Keep adding more weight, until you can do your one-arm pullup. I weigh 150 pounds, and can do the pullup with 10 pounds attached to the rope, so my 1 rep max for one arm is 140 pounds. For working this skill, let’s put 15 pounds on the rope. Calculating that out, you’ll find that 135 pounds is 90% of 150 pounds. Looking up in our table above that means that with the 15 pound weight, I want to be able to do FOUR REPS.
This type of comparison of reps to total power can be used all the time in your strength training. If you know the total 1 rep max that is your goal, you can design reps at smaller weights to get there over time.
This technique provides you with another tool to apply during your training, allowing you to breakdown your goal into manageable and measurable steps.