Why Your Pulling Strength Disappears First — and How to Get It Back

Think about climbing a tree as a kid. That's pulling, the sixth movement on my list of 7, and it's built on a combination of upper-body muscles working together to bring your body toward something fixed. It's also the pattern I see people lose fastest as they get older, to the point that some struggle to stand up out of a chair without using their arms to haul themselves up.

Without deliberate pulling work, you quietly lose access to a lot of life. My own regular activities — water skiing, rock climbing, hauling a stand-up paddleboard up and down with a pulley system, tug-of-war, pulling hose, rearranging the garage, wrestling furniture around, even roughhousing with the dogs — all lean on pulling strength I wouldn't have if I'd let it slide.

Pull-ups are the single best thing I did to build this back up, and I mean that literally — when I started, I could barely manage 1.5 reps, and I was embarrassed I couldn't lift my own bodyweight. I kept at them almost daily and worked toward 5 sets of 5, resting 45 to 60 seconds between sets. If pull-ups are too far off right now, a resistance band row from a door or handrail builds the same pattern: start with arms extended, pull your shoulder blades together first, then bring the handles toward your armpits using your back, not your arms. Ten reps to start, working toward 20 to 25 for endurance.

However embarrassing your starting point is, it doesn't matter — mine was 1.5 reps and I still got there. Read more on the Pull page, and give it the same daily consistency you'd give anything else worth keeping.