Pointless?

I’ve always had ultimate respect for people who can crank out one-armed pull-ups. Two finger one-armers?!?! Wow! And despite never actually being on a route where I felt that was a pre-requisite for success I always wanted to achieve that kind of raw strength. But I always had 2, yes 2, excuses! Number 1 – I was heavy… right then well if I continue to acknowledge that as an excuse for not being able to do one-armers then I may as well just give up now – surely I could just as easily hide behind that reason for not succeeding on any route! Number 2 – I am lanky… Haa! Well the engineer in me makes a convincing argument revolving around the law of the lever (did you like that? Revolving around! Haa!) – point of application of the force times by the magnitude of the force etc, etc… Well stuff that too! I’m admitting now that both my excuses are shite! I just don’t have that power…yet! Why? Because I have never trained for it before. Will it be of much use to me if I can do it? I can’t see how that amount of power could fail to improve my climbing and the psychological barrier it would smash would be immense aswell! Anyway – I’m going for it. And I’m bringing with me all my tools I’ve picked up from sports science and engineering. I’ve recently read a simple and genius way of measuring progress and it’s given me the carrot I needed for the end of this long stick. A weighing scales. Stand on one. Under your fingerboard. Note your weight. Pull as hard as you can on one arm and look at where the scales rests. Repeat with other arm. Well I did this and given a starting reading of 80kg – I pulled and the scales showed just 10kg both arms! So I’m 10kg off doing a one-armer – BUT I can lift 70kgs with one arm already! So I either get lighter or stronger or both and I’ll have it! Instant Psyche! Anyone got any experience or tips to go along with this?

Note: I wrote this post about 2 weeks ago but never had time to Blog it – and as it happens I got emailed a short vid of a friend cranking out a 2 finger one-armer off his fingerboard between writing this and now – impressive, yes! Co-incidence, I think not! :o)