Get our Fountain of Youth back

Content here at Pierini Fitness – all original and written by its chief executive blogger also named Pierini Fitness – generally follows the genre of “middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully-aging and trying my best to live a good and honest life.” 

Those of you who have read Pierini Fitness over its 10 years in existence, know there’s also good middle-aged man diet, fitness and health stuff here too.  Occasionally, I share a snapshot from my training journals and that’s what I’m doing today.

Today I’m sharing part of my Saturday workout from a couple days ago. It was a workout of alternating pull-ups and chin-ups done with a “greasing the groove” cadence.

What’s greasing the groove?  It’s an approach to doing an exercise frequently where every set is performed without going to muscular fatigue.  Do a Google search and read up on it if you’re unfamiliar with this training method.

About a dozen years ago when I was closer to being in my prime, I was a pull-up “beast” and regularly completed some amazing high-volume workouts.  I also did heavy weighted single pull-ups and chin-ups.  I recall doing a pull-up with 88 lbs. strapped around my waist, and a chin-up with 100-lbs. added.  I built a killer back from doing this “simple” exercise.

Pierini Fitness circa 2007 at about age 52

Here’s the detail from my Saturday workout:

# of rounds and reps	Reps done	Start new round every
10 rounds of 3 reps	30	60 seconds
10 rounds of 2 reps	20	30 seconds
20 rounds of 2 reps	40	Flexible based on feel
3-2-2-2-1	10	Finish as quickly as possible
Total reps completed	100

My plan was also to perform this workout as a superset with bar dips, but I only did bar dips for the first 10 rounds as my right tricep muscle had a funny feel to it and I didn’t want to injure it.  I was able to complete 35 bar dips in these 10 rounds.  Pull-ups and bar dips make a nice couple for a superset workout, so I’ll try again soon. 

If you want to restore some lost pull-up performance like me, let’s do a once-a-week volume workout of pull-ups and chin-ups greasing the groove style.  While it won’t be our primary purpose, who knows, we may get our Fountain of Youth back.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum