The Elevator Speech

Really funny conversation this weekend with a friend I have known for over a decade and it got me thinking. I have spent my adult life professionally in sales and learned early on the need to perfect your personal "elevator speech". The conversation my friend and I had (granted, after a few Holiday pops) reinforced this basic lesson, regardless of what you do in life.

It's been a while since we had coordinated getting the families together, so time was spent getting caught up. She told me about her sister-in-law who is now "into some kind of crazy work out thing, muscle head/garage gym stuff". That's about all my friend could convey, but of course this peeked my interest and opened the door for me to share a little about Steelfit and the exciting new bars and systems we have been working on. When I shared our vision of the pursuit of the perfect pull up, the glazed over eyes and complete confusion had me pouring another glass of Holiday Cheer!

I did mention that this was a really good friend right? "The perfect pull up" in her mind was a completely different pursuit that involves a bra and some magical illusion that this garment has the power to create. I quickly moved into "sales" mode and if well conceived should have been able to articulate in a couple of well honed sentences (in the time it takes for a short elevator ride) what Steelfit was all about. As it turned out, this wasn't so easy as I felt compelled to talk about CrossFit, high intensity work outs, why pull ups became such a passion for me, etc. Needless to say, she was more confused then when we started. "Why pull-ups? I don't get it", she said; I was speechless this night.

As we prepare for another year, this exchange caused me to reflect. Seeking clarity, setting goals and getting things in order each January seems to be on many people's list. Each of us is on a personal journey and being able to share it with others is often what makes it worthwhile.

The pull up is the king of back and upper body exercises. Legitimate pull up bars are not prevalent in many commercial gyms and are not as easy to find as you would think. Steelfit is all about creating really great bars and making them accessible to athletes of all skill levels.

This more concise explanation may have helped my cause with my friend. Despite our obsession with taking stairs at any chance provided, perfecting your personal "elevator speech" will serve you well personally and professionally as we aim to share our passions with others.

Steel For Strength

What is it about steel that makes it so strong? Is there a difference between steel and iron or are they one in the same? Are other metals just as strong or stronger? Is all steel created equally and how important is the fabrication process and/or the finish? Most importantly, does any of this really matter to us?

Encylopedia Britannica says that "iron is the most used and cheapest metal". However iron is soft by nature, very reactive and can corrode. Iron by itself is not effective as a metal, so clearly is not our answer for the rugged pull up bars we are seeking. While iron and steel are often used interchangeably, they are not one in the same; so much for "pumping iron". Steel is an iron alloy and iron alloys are mixtures of iron with other elements. In the case of most common steel, iron is mixed with carbon which gives it its strength and durability.

Many of the wall mount pull up bars you see for home gyms, doorway types and other commercially available models may be made of steel, but that does not make them all equal. You want to look out for those that use lighter weight tube versus steel pipe. I have seen some that are actually made of aluminum; ouch! Also, check out the fabrication. Are there a lot of bolts that hold the brackets, bars and other components together? Welded joints are ideal, limiting the number of parts that show up in a bag for you to assemble and increase strength, durability and overall quality.

The finish too is also something to consider. While the finish of the brackets tend to be purely aesthetic, the actual bar surface will definitely effect performance. For the work surface, we believe in raw blackened steel. Painted, textured surfaces or other finishes are all out there, but provide for unnatural conditions in our view. As far as the overall "look" of the unit, we opt for the authentic and rugged approach here too; raw blackened steel.

So, while steel is certainly the material of choice, there are several factors that really do matter when searching for the perfect bars. The functionality of the bars are key no doubt, but let's be honest, we want them to look cool too.

After all, this is a pull up bar, not a beauty contest. The slick, pretty bars out there have a place I suppose, we just haven't figured out where.

The Strength Grid at CrossFit Balance DC

This weekend was the grand opening of the new CrossFit Balance in DC and the crew there celebrated in style on Saturday with an open house which included competitive events, several demos and great fun. We had installed a Steelfit Strength Grid in this awesome new space and really enjoyed as the crowd took turns playing around on this massive new toy. The Strength Grid is a raised obstacle course built from W8 x 31 solid steel I- Beams and is suspended 10' in the air. Multiple hand grips, ladders, V- Bar attachments and other challenges are built into the Grid and the workout possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Check out the video below. Owner Mark Crick, along with Blair Morrison and Josh Courage had completed an AMRAP workout on Friday that included the Strength Grid and they tore it up; really nice work!!

Thanks to Balance owners for allowing Steelfit to be a part of this awesome new CrossFit affiliate. Congratulations guys!

Cheating or Just Honest Hard Work!

Wow, I was a bit surprised at the ongoing and spirited nature of the debate over kipping vs. regular pull ups. The crux of the conversation seems to be centered around which one is better than the other?

I had to think twice before electing to add my view on the topic. After all, there are serious critics and strong advocates who have taken sides one way or the other. Critics say kipping is cheating and still others advance that the stress placed on the muscles can have real negative side effects. I don't pretend to be a fitness expert, just an active participant. My views are a result of personal experience and after a little thought decided to jump right in anyway.

The kipping pull up involves a hip snap generating momentum that moves up the spine and into the arms. This lets you lift your body over the bar with less direct pulling. The result is a lot more pull ups. The strict pull up by comparison requires that the body stays rigid and only the joints needed to perform the movement come into play. Dead hang pull ups isolate muscles in the back and and arms while kipping pull ups are a full body exercise. While easier on the direct pulling muscles, they are much harder on the grip and are inarguably more cardiovascular.

Ok, so why the debate over which one is better? I don't recall any rules posted on the gym wall that says I must do a pull up one way or the other. The idea that doing one variety instead of the other is cheating simply makes no sense to me. Intention and desired benefit seems to be the only appropriate qualifiers here. During my regular work outs, there are days when I'll do weighted heavy pull ups and others where L- pull ups create the challenge for the day. If I kip while performing these exercises, I suppose I would be cheating myself of the intended advantages. Conversely, if the WOD calls for high volume kipping pull ups and I choose to perform the regular variety instead, I will miss out on the full benefit of the total body, high intensity workout that was programmed.

I have been working out with a new partner now for a couple of months. Because we are evenly matched in so many ways, our workouts tend to be intense and a little competitive; a perfect situation. He trusts me to program our workouts and I feel bad about selecting a WOD that has high volume pull up work since he doesn't have a consistent kip yet. As I write these comments, the soreness in my lats and shoulders from doing the "Murph" on Friday can't be denied. I of course, tackled the 100 pull up reps by kipping. My friend completed the work with regular pull up attempts, slowly shifting more toward kipping as the set progressed since maintaining strict form becomes really hard. Did either one of us cheat?

We both worked really hard....... Obviously, I was able to finish the pull ups quicker, but he made up all of the time on the squats. He has a definite edge on me when it comes to lower body strength and he pushed himself that much harder to ensure we were both heading out the door for the last mile run together.

In my view, pull ups are king, no matter what version you practice. The desired benefits vary and doing just one variety exclusively is the only real "cheating" that should enter this conversation. As for honest hard work; you bet.... my friend made this point for me perfectly clear on Friday!

The link below (1 of 4 in a series of demos) from CrossFit really helped when I was learning to kip; check it out.

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_KippingPullupStep1.mov

Comfort or Challenge.............

On the topic of pull up bar thickness, it’s been fun searching other blogs and chat boards to “hear” what others have said, especially for those who have attempted to build their own. That trip to the hardware store, “hook up” with a local steel shop or conversation with a neighborhood plumber always seems to result in some confusion…before finding success ultimately.

First of all, like all industries I suppose, steel guys have their own language; standard pipe vs. mechanical pipe, hot rolled rounds vs. piping, tubes, flats, channels, etc. If you want to put your hands around a 1 ¼” bar, it’s a 1 inch pipe, 1” inch around your hands is a 3/4” pipe; go figure. Sizes vary depending on the actual material and the weight and thickness of the actual metal all varies too. Luckily, that’s why there are steel guys out there to worry this stuff so we don’t have to.

Putting all that aside, it would appear that there is general agreement that the thickness of choice for a standard pull up bar is just about 1 ¼” thick when measuring the outside diameter. This provides for a comfortable grip for the majority of athletes and satisfies the training needs of most in common situations. A trainer friend of mine jumped up on a new bar system just after we installed them and she said “ah, these are perfect”……….a reference to comfort I suppose.

For additional challenge however, one might opt for thicker bars. There is no question that thick bar pull up work will do wonders for your grip and forearm strength. Even thicker bars yet, may not be practical for everyday work outs, but they too have their place and strength benefits.

Take a look at the Thick bars (image included here) we recently installed at Balance Gym Thomas Circle in Washington. These bars are 2 ½” in diameter and are incorporated into a 20’ system that has both primary and secondary work areas. For the primary work area, the bar diameter is 1 ¼” but for the secondary work areas (monkey bars/pull up bars), they alternate between standard and the 2 ½” thick bar variety. Providing even more challenge in a completely different way is the super thick 4” pipe that we also installed at Balance. Designed as one component in a really cool raised obstacle course to swing across, a bar in the air is a bar in the air after all, and jumping up and attempting a pull up is fair game….this is NOT an easy pull up!

Often, we simply adapt to what we have available to us. Or, if you are like me, you find yourself pulling yourself up on just about anything that you come across that looks like it will hold. I had to contain myself this weekend heading downtown on the E train in NYC holding on to the overhead grab bars; they were just about 1 ¼” in diameter in my estimation, they were definitely comfortable….and clipping along at 50+ miles an hour on a crowded subway train would have been quite the challenge.

Comfort AND Challenge in this case!

The Perfect Pull Up

"In Pursuit of the Perfect Pull Up" is the stated mission of Steelfit. With that said, I got to thinking and determined it would only be fair if I defined the ground rules for the search. Would it ultimately lead to a pull up demonstrated with absolute perfect form? Would it lead us to the perfect pull up bar upon which to perform the exercise? If I asked for a definition from ten different people, would I get a consistent answer?

It did not take long to realize that the answer would differ each time I asked the question and to whom I was speaking. It was also clear that this was not going to be as easy as I first thought.

For me, five years ago, the perfect pull up was giving up the machine assisted variety and getting my chin over the bar on my own for the first time. For a competitive athlete like my friend Blair Morrison, the perfect pull up might be achieving success in a high volume workout of chest to bar pull ups on a thick bar. For others, its learning to do kipping pull ups and turning out 30 repetitions as fast as lightening with no rest. Still for others, it might be something altogether different. Clearly, my answer today would differ from 5 years ago and so likely would your response.

The Exercise Itself: Often overlooked for its awesome ability to build back, upper body and core strength, the pull up is really key for anyone serious about building strength. It's as pure as you can get and all you need is a bar, your body and the will.

As simple as they may seem, pull ups can be very intimidating for someone who doesn't have one yet though; it wasn't too long ago that I was right there. I recall when I was struggling to get 1 strict dead hang pull up and could only imagine the day when I could blast out 10 or more. What I learned quickly however, was the absolute best way to do more pull ups was to do more pull ups. Like anything you want bad enough (and particularly for me), practice, practice, practice and eventually it clicks.

To learn and improve, I personally included pull up attempts into my workouts regularly with the aim at building strength and improving performance. There is a ton of material out there about how to train for pull up performance and in addition to just doing more pull ups, there were several other things I practiced to eventually get better:

Developing the Pull Up:

1) Do more pull ups - repetitions improve performance

2) Doing negatives - starting at the "up" position, slowly lower yourself down

2) Assisted pull ups on a machine - resistance settings vary

3) Assisted pull ups with bands - attach bands to a bar and place feet or knees in bands and pull

4) Jumping pull ups

5) Lat pull downs - Machine exercise that closely resembles the pull up motion

Advanced Pull up Performance:

1) Do more pull ups - practice, practice and practice some more

2) Add weight; use a weighted vest or hang plates from a weight belt with a chain or hold dumbbells between your feet or thighs

3) Rope Climbs - a variety of rope climb variations all support upper body and back strength

4) Thick Bar Pull Ups - incredible for forearm and grip strength

5) Kipping - allows for increased "work" and achieving high repetitions

6) Vary hand grips for additional challenge

So the case can be made that the pull up is an awesome exercise and clearly there are things you can do when you are building the skill initially and even more you can practice to improve advanced performance.

So what exactly IS the perfect pull up?

Well, the answer is a personal one for all of us to consider and starts back at our first pull up attempted and continues with each new milestone achieved. It's for this reason that the journey searching for perfection will be so much fun to chronicle.

It's also for this reason that I have concluded that there are no ground rules in this pursuit!!

Why Steelfit?

There was a time when I thought that a good day in the gym meant working my way through a circuit of weight training equipment, doing 5 miles on a treadmill and dropping in some occasional free weights for affect.  Most of the workouts were either pulled out of magazines or were a series of other simple isolated muscle group exercises I patched together.

It was about three years ago that I was introduced to Crossfit  by friend and trainer Blair Morrison. Blair is a world class athlete and avid crossfit practioner.  Check out his blog at www.crossfitmobile.blogspot.com. Needless to say, after my inaugural "Filthy Fifty", I was hooked and wouldn't look at exercising the same way again.

While Crossfit and fitness overall has become  a passion and an integral part of my life, the ingenuity and creativity demonstrated by Blair and others like him is what inspired me to start Steelfit.  There were more than one occasion when we would be working out in the early morning in Washington DC and I would be introduced to  a new toy just acquired or proudly made by hand the day prior after a trip to the Home Depot; a giant slosh pipe, beer kegs for pressing/cleaning or a pair of parallettes made of PVC pipe.  This always got us talking about the endless possibilities for using all sorts of things for the purpose of adding interest and challenge to a work out.

It wasn't long before I was ready to test my own sense of inventiveness.  When the topic of conversation became the "lame" wall mounted pull up bar in our gym (too close to the wall to kip) or the only other options that were incorporated into a rack system, the mission seemed obvious.  With a brother in the steel fabrication business (and the ability to build just about anything I could dream up), Steelfit was born along with a 12 foot, multiple station, varying grip, group pull up bar.  The combination of my passion for fitness and my partners expertise in steel started us down a path that resulted in the formation of Steelfit Strength Systems LLC.

As I travel, I try to check out boxes whenever I can and am always impressed with the ingenuity and creativity demonstrated in putting them together. While there are plenty of standard products out there, I love checking out the "bars" to see what the local guys have built.

The purpose of this blog is to share ideas as a live "laboratory"  or focus group of sorts.  I will post images  of new designs we have created and show previews of some of the custom pull up bar systems and other gym build outs we are working on.  If you have seen something cool or have been thinking about a way to improve a current piece of equipment, share it. 

The only limit we have is our imagination !!!