Urban Playground Workouts

You've probably seen videos on the internet of insanely muscular people working out on the playground. Their pull-up bar and monkey bar work is quite impressive; throwing in creative ways to use and transition on the bars. Most of their routines are exhibiting awesome upper body work. Here's a fun inspirational video of some kids working out and playing capoeira.

This is from the YouGottaCThis YouTube channel. Looks like the park that they're at is in Brooklyn, NY. These videos really demonstrate creativity and passion for fitness!.

1 Up on the Pull-Up

The pull-up is one of the quintessential exercises that you should have in your workout regimen. In other words, just do it!

I think the pull-up is one of the best single upper body exercises that you can do. Why? Because you're working out a variety of muscle groups at the same time. We're talking fingers, hand, wrists, forearms, biceps, triceps, shoulders, delts, lats, chest, etc. If you're not doing these as part of your regular exercise sets, throw them in!

So what can you do to try to increase your pull-up count? I always seem to talk about the idea that if you add 1 pull-up a week to your set, you'll be doing 52 reps in a year. Ha! Easier said than done. I've actually tried this and got up to about 17. Then the winter holidays hit and pow, you're trying to recover for the next month to get back to that level. Reality is that exercises that are performed with increasing repetition goals will be subject to the plateau effect. That is, it will take longer and longer to increase additional reps.

The idea is pretty motivating though, so if you've done something similar, do share your experiences! The concept is that slow and steady progression will allow your body to adapt. It makes sense and applies to most workouts. In order for it to work, you'll also need to steadily progress the rest of your lifestyle to accompany your progress. The more you work out, the more recovery time you'll need, the more calories you might need to intake, etc.

So go at it! Get up there on that pull-up bar and see how far you can go! Good luck!

Welcome to 1 Up Fitness!

Get ready to 1 Up!

1 Up Fitness was created to share with you essential fitness concepts, innovative workout regimens, and specific exercise and skill how-to's in a way that will help you level up on your fitness goals.

We will cover topics that encompass everything fitness and present them to you in an easy to follow and easy to read format; giving you more time to get out there and start working out!

We're here to inspire and enlighten you to "improve yourself". That will be our motto because we don't want to do do things because a trainer tells you to or because you paid for a membership and feel obligated to go. We want you to learn, practice, and work out to better all aspects of your life.

Stay tuned!