Success Story:
Below in her own words, Rachel Okun (a member of RR since June 2023) shares what it took and how she achieved a major milestone, achieving her first pullup.
Intro:
Looking back, I somehow had nothing to do with my upper body for the first 28 years of my life.
Maybe that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I had definitely given up on the monkey bars by 4th grade, and the things that went on to matter most to me really asked nothing much of my arms. I rode horses, where the emphasis was on having soft arms and a light touch on the reins. I sang and danced in musicals.
And I was a serious scholar, where all my arms had to do was rest and let me type.
Railroad
So when I got to Railroad in June 2023 and set my sights on my first strict pull-up, I knew I was attempting something very unprecedented for me. There was nothing like it in the history of my body.
Shawn asked what kept me going for the 18 months it took to get my first pull-up.
Beyond just Physical:
The main thing I learned was that asking for a body-level change required change at three other levels too. At this point, the four key advisors in my life — my human heart, my body, my inner spirit, and my mind — all have parity with one another.
They’re all equally real and alive to me. And so any transformation that seems to involve one – like asking my body for a pull-up – automatically involves them all.
This meant that I was always working toward my pull-up in some way.
When I wasn’t “seeing progress” per se on the physical level, I could turn to the other three and ask:
Okay, at what level am I REALLY being asked to change, in order to move forward on the path to the pull-up? This current snag, does it have to do with my heart? My inner spirit? Or my mind?
My Difference Makers/Contributors:
The true, unabridged story of what this all amounted to is a story for another day. But for now, I can definitely share some of the things that made a difference:
- I invested in programming from Coach Erin. She understands all that goes into a single pull-up and gave me a set of 57 workouts that kept me rotating among everything that would eventually need to come together (grip strength, back strength, core strength, bicep strength etc)
- I regarded my goal as a pact I was making with Self. I had total freedom to back out of my commitment at any time and give up on the goal of the pull-up. But I would have to formally do that and mark the occasion. And then if I ever wanted to re-open that goal, I would have to set aside time and mark that too. I had to be really clear that I was either on the path to the pull-up and everything was part of the journey; or I was not.
- I set my 2x per week pull-up practice as an appointment and kept it. When I was working at Hawthorne Valley, I would go to the playground after taking the horses out to pasture and tie a lasso around the pull-up bar as a makeshift band. And then when I moved off the farm, I relocated my practice time to Planet Fitness. The goal kept traveling with me.
- I attended group class, and that was always a deposit.
- I learned about my latissimus dorsi muscle (the lats) on my own: Looking at anatomy charts. Tracing the full length with my hands for the first time in my life. Learning how to massage them and relax them completely. Asking nothing of them at first, just gently bringing them back to life.
- I wrote a timeline of my body, to help me maintain major, major compassion about what I was trying to do and how new it was for me.
- I stayed on the lookout for every piece of the future win. Even when I didn’t have my pull-up yet, I knew it was on the way based on the changes in my skiing output, my rowing output, and being able to do ring holds when I couldn’t before.
- I picked out my victory song and imagined what my victory party would feel like, that moment after I got my first pull-up. Over the last year and half, I’ve had so many one-song dance parties in my car and in my room. It was important for me to stay in relationship with the future in which this had already been accomplished.
Shawn asked me:
“Looking back, how important and valuable was hiring Coach Erin to help assist with the remote programming? How did it aid you?“
I was beyond impressed by what Coach Erin made. This may not be the case for everyone, but for me, a lot of brand new skills had to come together for this, and her workouts made me feel like I was in a big chess game: one workout moved grip capacity down the board a bit, then another moved lat strength. On and on, nudging one piece here and another piece there. (You’re the best, Erin. Thank you again.)
What does achieving this milestone, with all the commitment behind it, represent to you?
The pull-up was part of a broader 18-month teaching that showed me: There’s truly nothing I cannot have or experience, so long as I’m willing to be changed on the way towards it.
This was a permanent reframe. When I started, “I’ve never done that before” meant: I have no reason to think I can, therefore I shouldn’t.
And now, “I’ve never done that before” means: There is a lot of ground to cover, therefore I am guaranteed to be different by the end of it. I have chosen a path of transformation, so everything between now and when the goal is achieved must be something I need.
What’s next?
I’d love to bring a working set of pull-ups to my first Murph this spring! And now I want to devote a lot of practice time to cleans. I’m excited to know everything there is to know about my own clean, both power and squat. And then ultimately get to cleaning my own body weight.