What's the difference between a Gravitron and an assisted pull up machine?
They look the same to me. So, when I started I had the machine at 120 pounds. That meant that my guns were lifting 45 pounds of me and the machine the other 120. I'm now at 80, so I'm lifting 85 pounds of me (for one rep) and the machine takes care of the rest.
The only kind of assisted pullup machines that I've ever seen work the way Archy described. It's the only machine in the gym where the more weight you have on the machine, the easier it is. The machine will reduce the body weight that you have to pull up by whatever number of pounds you put the pin in.
If you weigh 200 pounds and put it on 120 pounds of assistance, you're pulling up 80 pounds. If you weigh 200 pounds and put it on 50, you're pulling up 150 pounds. if you weigh 200 pounds and put it on 160, you're pulling up 40 pounds. Your body weight minus pounds of assistance = what you're actually pulling up.
Progress means using a lower number of pounds of assistance from the machine because you're pulling up more of your own weight. The key to doing an unassisted pullup is to use less and less assistance until you're down to 40, 30, and 20 pounds on the machine. By the time I could do a set of 10 at 40# of assistance, I could do one unassisted. It's certainly possible that SusanB could do a few with 35# of assistance at her weight so I think the Tomato's and Susan's pullup machines work the same way.
Does this make sense or are there other kinds of pullup machines out there?
That's the only kind I've ever seen, too. Lots of different brand names, but they all work the same way.
Cardio done, food packed. I did legs lite yesterday, but my legs don't seem to think it was light!
Shoulders today at the gym, then I'm going to add a second, less intense cardio session tonight on the treadmill while I watch the (recorded) Tour de France ascent of Alp d'Huez. If those guys can cycle uphill for 30 miles, I can jog for 3 miles!
I am actually looking at the percentage of body weight that I am currently pulling - because the machine has a chart right in front of me when I am on it, so I study it everytime I am on it to entertain myself.
I started on it when I weighed approx 200 lbs and I was putting 140 on (actually that's what the trainer that showed me how to use put there). Then I decreased to 130, and recently to 120. I now weigh 180 and I think as per the chart, I am lifting 33% of my body weight with this weight/setup. When I go to 110, I would be lifting 39% of my body weight.
Mel, enjoy the Tour de France. I am sure the cyclists going uphill will get you through your 3 miles in no time! (Should we call it an "assisted jog" ? LOL)
Edited to add:
Sorry Meg, I somehow overlooked the last paragraph of your post. I get it now, it would make sense if Susan did only 1 rep. Like I said, I am now putting 120 lbs on it and I am doing 10 dips, 10 "military" pull ups, 10 dips and then 10 "wide" pull-ups. That's all I can handle right now. Btw, the difference in the pull-ups is where I place my hands on the handles - that's why there are three kinds, military, wide and I don't recall the last one.
I just looked at the clock - gotta quickly get my behind off the chair, make a salad and run to work. Later, alligators!
Height: tall enough to know what's on top of your refrigerator
Hey groovy cats -
Mel, the best cardio workout in the world (to me) is to put some boogie music on and shake your groove thing! It's a lot of fun, super cheap, and yeah, really good cardio!
Just ask Napoleon Dynamite!
Tomato - words cannot express how jealous I am that your gym has a Gravitron. I am far from 1nderland and my gym only has an assisted pullup machine. I can eke out TWO with the maximum weight assist. I think it's 144 pounds. Still, I'm six feet tall, and even when I hit goal (175) it is going to be really difficult for me to do an unassisted pullup. All you gals who think it would be great to be tall - it's harder to do certain exercises..... but the Gravitron really helps a great deal. My gym in California had one, and I have missed it ever since I moved to Colorado. Now I am going to have nightmares about high school gym class and the dreaded flexed arm hang.
Lydia, you crack me up. 95 pound BP, eh? Hmm. I'm the only woman I've ever seen use the BP at my gym, and I am up to 65lbs with no spotter, 3 sets of 12. I don't know how much I can do with fewer reps and a spotter. I'll have to find a gym buddy who isn't scared to lift.
It's been a crazy week, and the heat makes cardio really, really uninspired and difficult to do. Still, somehow it gets done. Dedication, inspiration, willpower......
Hope you all have a great Wednesday! It's leg day for me - my favorite!
Tomato - words cannot express how jealous I am that your gym has a Gravitron.
I hear ya - I love that darn thing! You know, a while ago, I saw one advertised on Craig's list, somebody was selling it (used) for $950 (that's price in Canadian moola). Seriously, if I had where to put it, I would have scrounged up the money for it somewhere. But it's too tall to be located in my basement and it would be a bit too weird to have a Gravitron in the living room. I just had to tell myself to forget it.
Well while were in the subject of pull ups here- i have always wanted to do a pullup unassissted. I have a pull up bar in the doorway of my room so i can practice when i am away from the gym. I have to say 6 months ago i could crank a single pullup- now i can do about 3 in a row.
I have never looked into the pullup machine in the gym- i have seen it but never really made the effort to go and try it. I prefer to do unassisted pullups anyways, they make me feel stronger.
Well i have 2 w/o and 2 special w/o left of NRL4W in stage 1. However i am encountering a major problem. When i go to deadlift or even do stepups or lunges with db- i deadlift with a barbell, im finding my grip give way.
I do wear gloves but my grip is still not that strong and i am getting blisters just above where the fingers on the gloves ends (in the middle of my finger). Therefore i have to put down the weights and i cannot get my heartrate up to the desired level. I can do more lunges at 60 punds but my hands wont hold up for the time i need to do those lunges.
Anyways my eating is on track at 1800, 2000 (non w/o and w/o days) My weight is steady maybe slightly increasing- thats what i want to happen, need to gain some muscle b4 i can banish some fat. All in all i am just trying to change my body composition not lose weght- if anything gain a few pounds.
Location: Lyin' in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Posts: 2,296
S/C/G: 235/201/175
Height: 5'7"
Sportsfreak, you should try the assisted pull up machine. It's great that you can do some unassisted, but with the machine, you could crank out a few sets, and it's better than pulldowns...at least, it feels like more of a workout to me. Might improve your unassisted ones, too..?
I am encountering the same problem with grip for LB exercises using DBs...need more weight, but can't grip anything bigger than a pair of 40 pounders without my hands crippling up on me.
I tested out some lifting straps at the sporting goods store. Seems like they would help, but the strap was really abrasive on my already sore hands, so I didn't buy any. I also wanted to ask here first, to see if lifting straps are "okay", if just used as needed..? (opinions? recommendations?)
The lifting gloves I tried were all padded and made gripping harder for me. I'm thinking of looking at some of those Mechanix brand gloves, which I think have good grip, but no padding in the palm, but I'll have to look at them again to see if my memory is correct. For now, I'm just putting athletic tape across the part of my hand that tends to get pinched and/or develop blisters. It seems to help. I might switch to a BB if it turns out the lifting straps are a bad idea.
Wow, I'm getting behind in the conversation here! I'm not even going to try and catch up on all of it, but know I'm reading all the posts, at least!
Susan, congrats on the new munchkin in the family...what a beauty!
Mel, I'm liking the rower, but that won't help you at home. What about Crossfit workouts? I occasionally do those at home for a change of pace, and any of the timed workouts seem like "cardio" (from ****) to me. I do the CF warm-up, too, which makes for a good workout when combined with the WOD. Other than that, skating, of course, cycling, and sometimes I combine SS cardio like jogging (I'm lazy, so just jog through the house and back) with step-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, etc...just like you'd do intervals, but instead of running fast, you do push-ups, BW squats, or whatever floats your boat, ten times each or for a certain amount of time, then back to jogging or elliptical for 2 minutes. It passes the time, it's a little different, gets my heart rate up. HTH!
Cheryl, I used to use lifting straps, mostly for back exercises. I don't used dumbbells generally for lower body, but if I did, I'd sure use straps I know I've used the same words before, but my grip is functionally strong enough- I can open a peanut butter jar (pick your poison) just fine, thank you! Holding a 60 pounds dumbbell for single arm rows is a different story. My back is strong enough, but my grip would give out. I don't care if my grip doesn't get stronger- I can already pin those grip-o-meter thingies that they use in physiotherapy to assess grip strength.
But- and this will only apply to people who have been lifting a long time or are old as the hills- I no longer want to progress in the amount of weight that I use in most exercises, particularly my back. I'm short, and my back is plenty wide.
The straps work really well, though. I do still use them for heavy deadlifts.
What's my update? Hmmm...same old, same old. My weekends ruin my weeks' efforts, at least as far as food goes. Maybe I should just try to maintain for now, with all the summer bbq's, camping etc. Or maybe I should just maintain forever and give up on the last few pounds. These are just ramblings really but every once in a while I have to decide to just maintain for piece of mind. I got down to 127-128 for a few weeks but now it's 130-131. Only a couple of pounds, yes, but I was so much happier down there. I know it's my fault. I know it's the foods that I eat on the weekends.
I need to be (and mostly am) happy with the weight I am. I workout and I feel pretty good most of the time. I just still put a lot of emphasis on the scale so it's hard.
Okay, enough about my stream of consciousness/ramblings.
All this talk about the Gravitron makes me think I need to get back to it. I haven't used it in a while and I do quite like it!
Here's a question for all you BP's out there - I feel safer doing them on the Smith Machine. I've heard not great things about the machine for squats but how is it for the BP? And am I really BPing the weight that I think I am or is it less in actual numbers. I know I could answer my own question by just switching back to the regular bench but I'm curious on your thoughts?
If I feel safer on the Smith machine, is there any reason not to use it for BP?
Mel, what you need is a 6-year old telling you that you don't look a day over [your age + 1]. I've got one you can borrow.
Elisa: smith machines constrain the movement of the bar to a single plane. For most people, a natural bench press movement isn't on a single plane, it's more of a concave (or is it convex? I suppose it depends on whether you're looking from the head or tail, right or left!). Because of this, Smith machines can be hard on your shoulder joints. There's a reason bodybuilders and powerlifters avoid them ...
If it's an issue of worrying about the bar crushing your windpipe, try benching with a spotter (even if it's just gym staff) or using a power cage with adjustable safety bars. There's usually one setting that allows you a full range of motion, but still will keep the bar from crushing your neck if you need to bail. Or, use dumbells, which you can always just drop on the floor in an emergency.
News from my neck of the woods... a NEW PR on sumo deads. 225. (The guy on the platform next to mine said, "wow, that must be twice body weight." I responded that if it were twice my body weight, I'd be dead.)
Kaw - congrats on the PR - that always feels so great!!!
Cheryl - for the grip when I really start getting up their on the weight (primarily on my DL) I use chalk. I helps with the pinching & the tearing on your calluses. I also make a point of sliding my fingers around the bar as I'm grabbing so that the palm of my hand is "flat" on the bar - it seems to help with pinching (sorry if that makes no sense).
I wouldn't use the smith machine myself for bench. I feel it limits my movement in an unnatural way. It is one exercise that when I'm pushing a higher weight I really make sure to ask for a spotter.
As kaw said, the actual movement on a bench press isn't going to be straight up and down, so it would be better to go with free weights.
Also, the Smith machine takes stabilization out.
Why do you feel the Smith machine is safer? The opposite is actually true. You can set the pins in a power rack just as easily as you can set the safety stops on a Smith machine. Set the pins at a height that won't interfere with full range of motion and you are set up with your back properly arched but when you lose your arch will allow the bar to rest on the pins. And for those who do not properly set stops/pins, you still have to be able to raise the bar to the next set point to rerack the bar on the smith machine just as you would need to raise the bar high enough to rerack on bench or power rack. The thing is that if, for some reason, you cannot rerack the bar and it comes down on you, on a bench you can at least try to tip it off to the side to take most or all of the weight off you, whereas the Smith machine, it is going to pin you. It is also much easier for someone coming to your aid to help you. They have two options depending on the load, they can tip the bar off one end and be raising a fraction of the loaded weight, or they can get behind you and deadlift the weight off you. With the smith machine, their is only one weight. I have seen many more people get in these situations on the "safer" smith machine than on a bench or power rack.
As far as if you are lifting the amount you think you are, it depends on whether you know if your smith has a counterbalance (almost all do) and how much that counterbalance is (they vary).
At the risk of being repetitive, I'd avoid the smith machine for BP's for all the same reasons, including elbow issues. On the other hand, most people who do a lot of heavy bench pressing sooner or later end up with shoulder or elbow problems no matter how good their form. Why not use dumbbells? (as you may have noticed, I'm a huge fan of dumbbells!)
KAW- congratulations! I love sumo dl's.
I'm still sore from Monday's chest and back workout, but that is what is on tap for today. I think I may make it primarily a stability workout and use much lighter weights in really awkward positions on wobbly surfaces Another day of being the entertainment at the gym!
LG- How are you doing? I forgot to "notice " you countdown siggie. How long?
Ellisa- Maintaining is great. If you can peel a few pounds off in the fall, work on maintaining through all the summer distractions, then go for it. I'm having the same problem.
It's the only machine in the gym where the more weight you have on the machine, the easier it is. The machine will reduce the body weight that you have to pull up by whatever number of pounds you put the pin in. 
I know I've used the same words before, but my grip is functionally strong enough- I can open a peanut butter jar (pick your poison) just fine, thank you! Holding a 60 pounds dumbbell for single arm rows is a different story. My back is strong enough, but my grip would give out. I don't care if my grip doesn't get stronger- I can already pin those grip-o-meter thingies that they use in physiotherapy to assess grip strength.
Another day of being the entertainment at the gym! 