Vitali Klitschko turns 50; does 50 pull ups

Some guys who critize vitali here are plain and simple stupid. 50 fu... pull ups, are you serious!!! I want to see some of you doing 10...
That's a ****ing specimen, he weights 240 and is 50 years old. He is in tremendous shape

 

No reason to believe he is still on any juice, although he could be.
But juicing can make permanent changes in your physical capacity-I wrote before there can actually be multiple nucleii recruited for muscle cells recruited.

But it is misleading when folks say that is so impressive for his age.
Arguably I say so because I am in my 50's, lol! But really I am a stickler for accuracy.
It is even more impressive at 50, but when you say this the implication-even if sometimes unintentional-is it is not impressive at some or any ages.

More impressive still is doing this at around 6'7" 240 lbs!
And he could have done some more.
Guys try this-do these "easy" kipper pull-ups, just make sure that like Vitali your chin is pointed at least barely above the bar on each repetition. And you always go down to a fully hanging, arms straight position. Without any pauses.

Then tell us how strong you think you are compared to the average man-those who try it are gonna likely self-select for being somewhat stronger than average, sometimes way stronger.

Then list your weight. If you are nowhere near 240 lbs., even if you can somehow do 50 kipper pull ups correcty with some to spare like Vitali, you are not close to his absolute pulling strength.
Especially if you are only say around 2/3-3/4 of his weight.

Now you will see the kind of really impressive pulling (& I am sure general) strength Vitali has.

I never have been a special fan of his, but I am just trying to be fair, accurate, & give credit where it is due.

 

Great post man!

The one quibbe I have is that for pulling excercises, having (especially disproportionately) long arms is an advantage-the opposite of the case with pushing motions.

Yeah it may be harder than adding weight with lifting when you get heavier.
I do not know why-but when I weighed up to 180 lbs. dressed I could do up to 18 chin ups.
Allowing a swing at the end, pauses when I liked (cannot pause long because your grip will weaken).
But even though I increased absolute strength significantly, I only marginally improved my reps per body weight.
11 with a little over 240 dressed-& these numbers woul be a couple less if it was PULL ups-because the forearm fails first.

Many folks think they can do more than they can, often more or less twice the reality-because of cheating. Especially not going ALL the way down & chin over the bar.
Deep dips are much easier.

 

curious as to how tall you are?
i'm 6'4", 53 years old, and i'm always between 90-95 kg.
i'm very physically active, i'm just lean muscle, and my nutrition is excellent.
i was always around 95kg, but since starting yoga just over a year ago i'm usually closer to 90kg (but age might have something to do with that).

 

I'm 188cm, and i also have quite long arms, which makes it harder in pretty much every exercise, cause you do more motion, compare to someone with short arms.
I graduated sport school with profile football at first, and then moved to Martial Arts(Shotokan Karate was my first, and then to a various other). Then i started with Fitness training, and for a while i was training let's say it idiotically, following regular bodybuilding program with typical exercise.
For me(my body) is extremely easy to gain weight. By saying weight, i don't mean clean muscle mass. You always going to retain water and fat by bulking, esp. if you are doing it clean(without roids). With roids is a complete different game.
Anyway with time i absolutely understand that training regularly just for muscle/body to look good, does absolutely nothing(it's actually hurt) for martial arts and fighting in general.
And currently i'm just using weight 1 day per week with pretty much bench, shoulder press, squads and deadlift. Other days i'm doing bodyweight exercise like push ups, pull ups, dips, crunches and so on. Also some explosive exercise, as well as punching with weight/resistance band.
Before when i was training typically BBs split i though that this is the way to keep my muscle i couldn't have been wrong.
I don't have problem to lose/gain weight with my current program, even tho i just use absolutely basic weight lifting 1 day per week.
Entaowed, in Pull ups exactly, having long arms, will mean you will have more motion to do, which is harder. Short hands in generally in BBs is better. Less "thing" to fill up, shorter range of motion, which logically is going to be easier for you.
Short frame with short body parts is just easier to fill.
BTW when i was the strongest, and was doing some really heavy deadlift, there was a guy i used to running with, and he did not train weight lifting ever, and the guy was like 68-70kg., and he still was able to pull more pull ups than me.
I know a lot of people that are in that weight 65-70 pull ups, and have chicken arms, and can do quite a lot of pull ups.

 

What a ****n beast, strong as ****. But i wonder how many he can do if he does them slow and strict.

 

The good old long arm excuse ay? I bet there are nba players with longer arms than you who would out chin you twice on a sunday

 

Depends from workload you had done 1-2-3 days before and workload you had already in this day.
Because Vitali was KBer and boxer I don't believe that he does only pull ups.

It is different thing for example do pull ups after long sessions with heavy bag, weight lifting, daily fitness progamm etc.
Not alone if you do long time fast shadowbox, after this________ for example.

yeah.

It depends, they does have complex S/C & fitness programmes & daily routine training etc like things.
If basketball player had almost 0 workload 1-2 days before and in this day, he might do more pull ups than if he was on daily basis training.

 

I accidentally buried this in a reply-know how when you respond within a quote?
I had written...

I will correct myself-while longer arms can build up more momentum on a lift say in Olympic lifting, yes all other things being equal, arms that are long, especially in proportion to your body, are a lifting disadvantage.
The exception is the deadlift, where you have less far to pull/have to ben down less, so it is an advantage.

All the more impressive that Vitali could do 50 kipper pulls ups, seemingly with some to spare, at likely at least near 240 lbs.

You do not need to add that he is 50 years old.
It will be pretty rare to find anyone his size who can match that.
You find someone 1/2-2/3 his weight who can do 50, or even 70, it is less impressive as an indicator of absolute strength.
Let alone that dude will likely have much shorter limbs.

 

I think he could stand a very good chance against anyone in the division, even at 50 years old


That’s a rare athlete, right there

he looks just as ripped as he ever was, and looks to have more upper body development; looks thicker through the chest

beast of a man

 

LOL. He’s the Marciano/Graciano type of fighter

 

To be fair, having longer levers is a disadvantage in any pulling exercise as you move through a greater arc of motion to go from the same point A to point B. This requires more workload which means more strength and ultimately endurance required per rep than someone with shorter arms.

Both Klitchkos' are probably in the top 1% percentile for athletic ability for men of their size. It doesn't overly surprise me that Vitali is still a beast at 50.

To quote Freddy Roach.

“At one point, they ran 12 800-meter [roughly a half mile] sprints, each under 3 minutes, with a minute rest between each one,” Roach said. “I timed every one and every one was under 3 minutes. I never saw a heavyweight do anything even close to that. They work their asses off. To be able to do that, two 250-pound guys – whew."

 

Excuse, use your brain for simple logic you dummy.
Longer arm mean more motion, which obviously it's going to be harder. How hard is it to get it.
And your example is childish.
Most NBA players would most probably s**** on me on pretty much everything physical. They are pro, i'm not. The difference between a Pro athlete and a guy who is just training for his own good is huge. But i guess it's too much to ask to use your brain .....

 

It's a sad testament to the conditioning of many top 20 HWs that a 50-year-old former champion with no skin in the game is in better shape than them.