Strong For Summer 5 Day Workout Challenge [Workout #1]

Get excited you guys—because today is the official start of the Summer with the Strong for Summer 5 day Workout Challenge. Today is workout #1!

We’re going to be focusing on pull ups today, because pull ups are awesome and make you feel like a badass.

If you’ve never been able to do one before, don’t worry! We’ll look at a couple of modifications that you can do to start building up the strength to do pull ups in no time.

Watch today’s short video or read the instructions below to take part:

Today’s Exercise Focus: Pull Ups

Flex hangs

Use a bench, a chair, or get a boost up so that your chin is over the pull up bar, and then simply try and stay up. You’ll probably want to start out with your hands in an underhand (chin-up) grip, but work on switching to an overhand grip as well once you get comfortable enough.

While you’re up there, focus on pulling your shoulders down from your ears and squeezing your core and butt muscles. Try and build up to holding this position for at least 5-10 seconds before moving onto the next progression.

Jumping pull ups/negatives

Stand below a pull up bar that’s too high for you to reach, then simply jump up and pull your self up to the bar. If you’re using a doorway pull up bar this is a little trickier but still doable—you’ll just need to bend your knees at first in order to get the same benefits.

Lower yourself down slowly with control to help build up strength.

Full pull ups

Hang from a bar using either a chin up grip with your palms facing towards you (slightly easier) or a pull up grip with your palms facing away from you.

If you have previous shoulder issues, you’ll want to start with your elbows slightly bent, but otherwise begin in a dead hang. Pull your shoulders back and down, squeeze everything tight and pull yourself up to the bar. Try and lower down with control rather than flopping down since that can end up hurting your shoulders as well.

Do whatever version you can do during the workout today, just remember to push hard and don’t give up!

Today’s Workout

For today’s workout, you’ll need to find a pull up bar you can use, whether it’s a simple doorway one, one at your gym or one at an outdoor fitness park.

Set an interval timer to 18 rounds of 10 and 30 second intervals. You’ll be resting on the :10 ones and going through the following exercises on the :30 ones:

1. Squat jumps
2. Pull ups
3. Jump lunges
4. Mountain climbers
5. Tuck jumps
6. Knee raises

Work as hard as you can!

And don’t forget to take a photo or video of yourself during or after today’s workout and tag #summerstrong on Twitter or Instagram for a chance to win some really cool #noexcuses wristbands and enter in the get strong for Summer workout challenge raffle.

Make sure to subscribe to the 12 Minute Athlete YouTube channel to get all the videos for the challenge.

Summer strong!

Did you do today’s #summerstrong workout? Tweet It!