Dufisthenics

On Saturday I got my 10 mile run in.  Overall I felt pretty good covering double digit mileage for the first time in months although later in the day Sunday my right knee started feeling stiff and achy after a day of shuffling around the property doing chores.

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On Sunday afternoon I got around to installing two sets of hooks that I bought out of the shelving aisle at the local Home Depot onto my pull up station.  Last week I came up with the idea of doing the modification as a way to add resistance band pulling work to my routine.   This was clearly inspired by the Niroc Belt that you see out there in the bar community.

Once I mounted the hooks on the wooden supports, all that was left to do was attach one of my resistance bands to both sides to test it out.  The layout of the 4 hooks allows a huge variety of ways to vary the resistance you get depending on how you connect it.

To do resistance pull ups all you do is lift the band on the back of your neck and start pulling.  It felt very effective in the small amount of testing I did.

Of course I shot a video outlining the process which you can see below.

This mod can be used to do more than just add resistance to pulling movements.  If you stepped on it you could use it as extra support and lift doing pull ups or muscle ups.  It could be used as an assist on levers and a guide to keep leg swing at a minimum when doing pull ups and muscle ups.  It could even be used as a spotter for hand balancing or planche work if you strung one of the stiffer resistance bands across the hooks.

I’m looking forward to giving my addition a thorough test.

There is one thing that has been slowing down that testing and any body weight work right now, joint pain.  When I did my couple test reps yesterday afternoon my shoulders, elbows and forearms all hurt to varying degrees.

I don’t recall any specific moment that kicked off the latest round of pain but I am pretty sure planche lean holds, back lever practice and hand stands all had a part to play in it.