The purpose of this project is to find if the weighted pull up can be a good predictor of an athlete's front lever ability
https://youtu.be/GQej5-LCkEc -> The main video made by FrinksMovement, a calisthenics Youtuber. The analysis was finished after collecting more data.
Since many people may be unfamiliar with the exercises(and strength training and bodyweight exercises), I will try to be as simple as possible. Honestly, I don't feel qualified to write very in depth, hyper accurate, technical explanations of exercises science related topics because I'm just strength training for fun but I'll try my best.
A gif in this case would be worth more than a thousand words so here are two links:
- A pull up: https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/LatissimusDorsi/BWPullup
- A weighted pull up: https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/LatissimusDorsi/WtPullup (the man in the gif has a dumbbell between his calves)
A pull up and its variants is a exercise that targets and strengthens the back muscles. The difficulty would scale with bodyweight and adding weight to yourself would make the pull up more diffiult.
A picture is worth a thousands words as well for the front lever:
- https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e_YwP0O34zM/maxresdefault.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_lever (if you want an explanation)
The front lever, like the pull up, is a back exercise. It is a static exercise like a plank and it can be scaled in difficulty(difficulty scaling explained more below). Also, your height and weight impact the difficulty of the front lever.
Differences:
- When you do a pull up your body is perpendicular(90 degrees) with the ground as you perform the movement but when you do a front lever your body is parallel to the ground. (So a pull up is a vertical pulling exercise and a front lever is a horizontal pulling exercise. The direction of the pulling is different.)
- A pull up moves your body through space(up and down) while when you do a front lever you do not move. (A pull up is dynamic while the front lever is static.)
- A pull up is a bent arm exercise as in you need to bend your arm to perform it. A front lever is a straight arm exercise as in your arms need to be perfectly straight to perform the exercise correctly.
Similarities:
- Both are back exercises
- Both can be scaled in difficulty
I and many others want to find out if being strong at weighted pull ups will allow you to do a full front lever (or an easier variation of it). Due to different direction of the pulling motion and different pulling technique, there may not be a direct transfer from vertical dynamic pulling to static horizontal pulling.
The survey was initially created and distributed by FrinksMovement. It had issues with data validation due to people inputting values for their heigh and weight inconsistently. This made data cleaning slightly more difficult and I did talk to him about this and made changes to the survey to continue collecting data more effectively after the analysis was done and advised him on how to make new surveys in the future.
TLDR: Shows a weak-ish relationship between weighted pull ups and front lever. Need to figure out how to put images in a Readme
TLDR: Not conclusive enough. Lacking in data points and potentially more useful features. Need to figure out how to put images in a Readme
Data that could be useful
- % of bodyweight in legs/lowerbody
- length of arms/legs
- muscle attachments
- bodyfat %
- grip strength
- training history