I recommend doing negatives (jumping up to the pullup bar off a box or something and lowering yourself down steadily) to rapidly improve your pullups. You can quickly get to being able to do one after never having been able to, or in your case, you should be able to get from 1 pull/chin up to 3-4 fairly quickly.

Good luck, and keep up the good work

I like that idea, I will try it. I did get up to 4 though, but I am not trying. :P I am doing the absolute minimum that I can handle. I don't break a sweat even, and my breathing is barely elevated. (part of goals, not to over do it)

Also, another rule I have, if it hurts, I stop. Period. So one day I did a few squats, my knee felt funny on one, a little pain on the next. I stopped. The next day it was fine and I did 20 squats again.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Regarding the pain, a few years ago I injured my lower back. Recently I haven’t really been paying much attention to it, and even just bending down to pick something up caused a little pain in my back and knees.

A month ago I went to a health spa and within a few days all my pain was gone. I wasn’t doing very strenuous excercises, but the important thing was I was doing something every day and using most of my muscles - it was basically aerobics designed for middle-age people.

My point is firstly that pain can be caused just because you aren’t using the muscles. Muscles get stiff if not used and that inturn can cause more problems (I believe most of my back injury was caused by tight hamstrings).

And secondly it’s often easy to fix, you don’t need to be deadlifting 300lbs and spending 3 hours in a gym, just some simple excercises you can do at home is enough. I wouldn’t even worry about how many you can do or whether your form is perfect (within reason), just using the muscles is the important part - especially for most of us who are at a desk for 9+ hours a day.

Thanks for the note, it's good to know it's not a fluke to have these methods work out.

It's almost comical how rarely I've heard the kind of advice for light exercise. It's almost always "you have to get your heart rate up to 120 bpm for 30 min or you are wasting your time!" bah. "you need to do 200 reps or you're wasting your time!" double bah.

I run a totally lame mile run a few times a week, and I like my exercising, I make it easy and mostly enjoyable, and it's turned my life around.

I agree with the sore muscle thing, I had my acheles tendon hurt really bad when running. So I had to stop for a month. But when I started to run again, it still hurt, I was worried.

Here's the really dumb part. My TV/movie based medical knowledge told me that I may have to work through some pain (ie, like in physical therapy) to get my ankle back to normal. It was healed, just not in shape, or some such dumb thing. And it worked! (yah for the movie about the hurt army soldier who had to get his legs working again! and the stubborn nurse that wouldn't let him quit!)

Remember in old british movies/tv they would go out on a "constitutional"? (I thought that was so uptight and funny when I was younger)

That is such a nice idea. I am tempted to try this. I am very bad at pull ups. Like you said I have done exactly zero pullups.

I completely understand, you should give it a shot. All I did was just try a couple times, I'd do like 1/5th of a pullup a couple times a day, and after awhile I could just do a little more, without any extra work. :P Hope it works out for you.

I put a pullup bar where I walk past consistently, so I don't have to go out of my way to make a try at it.

Back crunches are very much a real thing, and one of the core exercises in 5BX (https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rfburger/5bx-plan.pdf) Chart 2, Exercise 2

That's an awesome booklet, thank you, the cartoons are wacky fun. :) It looks like it's Exercise 3 though, the labels are on the bottom. What I was actually doing is Chart 3 Exercise 3, but they look similar.

Just be careful before doing these. "Please Note: Many exercise physiologists consider the sit-up in the higher levels to be capable of causing spinal injury, and therefore unsuitable for an unsupervised program. As always, please consult your physician before attempting any exercise program."

Source: https://untotheone.com/public/health/excercise-programs/

I pay pretty close attention now days, but your warning is a good reminder. I stopped doing situps a long time ago, and stick with crunches, as situps were just uncomfortable.

I think a general "pay attention to your body's warning signs" is a good common sense rule.

Similar anecdote; I'm middle aged and have become fairly sedentary over the past few years but life is busy & a little complex so not easy to get back to a gym or regular cycling.

I've recently started doing step-ups when I first get up in the morning whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. I've a strong coffee table which is about 20"/50cm high and I do five steps leading with each leg, then switch legs and repeat until the kettle boils. I'm currently up to a total of about 50 step-ups and get my heart rate up to 145-155 region in that time. No sweat and no stiffness.

I'm not sure how much this is actually doing but having seen a few things on HIT recently it could well be a very good two minutes for my health. I've noticed a difference in how I can now spring up a couple of flights of stairs so something is changing for the better.

The most important for me is I can fit it in with zero 'cost' to my time and it's fairly easy to do every day.

Edited to add I also stand on one leg when cleaning my teeth. I've an electric toothbrush which 'pings' every 30 seconds so I swap legs each ping. Again it's zero time and may well be helping a little with balance and some of the core fitness.

That's a great idea, I may have to try that. I am already tired of the same exercises.

I did run into an issue though. Just like you, I'd exercise while my milk was heating up (quick coffee, switched to hot chocolate (organic, don't give me greif)) but when I cut back on that too, it affected the number of times I worked out. lol. :P

Any suggestions on how to get a routine in where there's not triggering event?

No direct suggestions, sorry. One thing though with the milk you need to think about and keep watching as you don't want it boiling over but with the kettle I can just leave it. I'm going to see if I can start doing things like full bodyweight squats or possibly press ups for zero time but not sure either would get my heart going like those steps do.

My stopping of the gym was due to the kids changing schools so my routing changed. Like with your cutting back one small change can have consequences you'd never consider.

You may want to try a short jog to fill in the missing work out. That is how I started. I determined to do just 10 minutes a day. I ran in my pajamas and crocs for the first few months, on a treadmill. My rule was never run faster than it hurts, and in the first 10 min run I probably did half a mile (lol, walking speed :P)

But running didn't help me with my neck and back or arms, so that's why I started with the upper body stuff, but I am noob with this. :P With the milk I microwave it, I have electric kettle for the tea though. Maybe I will have to make my self drink more tea to my exercise in?

Another note on the jogging thing, I run on the balls of my feet, to avoid knee/hip/spine issues associated with running. Though it's more strain on your calfs/ankles/tendons (soft tissues that repair easier than cartilage), and it's a little more exertion.

But my rule was I waste so many 10 min blocks of time in my life, I could do this.(10 min getting dressed, 10min in the shower, 10 min reading news, or eating breakfast, etc...) I was in physical pain all the time from years in a desk, I was desperate, that was my motivation. That was probably 3-4 years ago. This past winter it was too cold to run, so I tried the "actual" workout stuff.

What is a "press up for zero time" mean?

Running has never been my thing, just can't seem to get along with it.

> What is a "press up for zero time" mean?

By that I mean it doesn't take up any special time, like doing my step ups when the kettle is boiling. Even if that extends to 3-4 minutes that's still done in no time.

BTW I measured the table and it's actually 17"/43cm high which is coincidentally about as high as a natural step up would go.

This reminds me a lot of Scott Adam's theory about systems over goals. I've used this in various areas of my life and I'm happy with the results so far.

http://blog.dilbert.com/2013/11/18/goals-vs-systems/

That's brilliant, I got half way there on my own, but I think he's onto something. The only real super benefits I've gotten in my life were from permanent changes, not temporary achievements.

Conversely, I've often reached goals by accident from a permanent change (ie, system) but rarely have I reached permanent change by reaching a goal. (even when they are spectacular goals).

(got to go back and finish the article now... a note of trivia, I had an inlaw that worked in the same office as Scott, and thought the cartoons were funny. He worked for a phone company in California.)

Do reverse rows before trying pullups. Then pullups while supporting with one leg and so on... well there are many videos on youtube with great advice - search for "calisthenics".

Thanks, I will give that try. Can't believe I didn't even think about looking on youtube for advice, but I didn't even expect to make any progress, that was a surprise. :P