Dufisthenics

My 45th birthday rolled around Sunday.  Of course I had to “celebrate” by undertaking not one but two physical challenges.

First up was the tractor pull death crawl.  Some of you might recall I did a “regular” 500 foot death crawl several months back.  I then tried to do the same thing towing my 400 pound yard tractor but discovered that without a driver, the tractor had a mind of it’s own and was impossible to control.

Since that time I developed a left wrist problem that prevented me from trying the attempt again with a driver.  Well my wrist recently started getting better so I figured my birthday was the perfect time to give it another shot.

I recruited Alison to be my driver for the attempt.  Adding her to the equation meant I would be pulling in excess of 500 pounds to the fence line and back.

The pull/crawl was pretty grueling and did not go off as smoothly as I hoped.  As I approached the fence the tractor all of a sudden became very difficult to move.  It turned out the transmission had popped out of neutral, so I had to briefly get up and put it back in.

The second half of the pull my hip flexors were burning, I had to pause (staying on all fours) several times to quickly take a few breaths.  When I finally drug the tractor back across the imaginary finish line at the pull up bar I collapsed to my knees.  Once I unhooked and stood up my gassed hips caused me to stumble around like I just downed a few BLP’s.

Although not as technically clean as I would have liked to the attempt to be because of the transmission issue, I still pulled the damn thing all the way out and back.

I utilized the two camera system for this attempt which provides an interesting perspective.  I may use it some other videos in the future.  Here is the end result.

Later in the day I got the idea in my head that I wanted to try to do a 100 pull up attempt where the object is to get 100 reps in as little time as possible.  I had done a videoed attempt a couple years ago where it took me around 19:37 to get it done.  Watching the old video back revealed that my form back then was much sloppier than it is today.

My right hand still had some tender spots from the ripped open blisters the week prior so I slapped on my Under Armour wide receiver gloves for the sets to protect my hands.  (it worked)

Overall I was happy with my time and form, netting the 100th rep in roughly 14:14, over 5 minutes faster than my old mark.  It was a good way to begin my 45th year on the Earth.