Why women can't do pull-ups

Follow us on Twitter: @y7lifestyle

Read the latest Y7 Lifestyle health blogs

I love when science proves that I'm not a wimp. In a study performed by the University of Dayton, out of 17 women who specifically trained for three months to complete a single pull-up, only four succeeded. "We honestly thought we could get everyone to do one," Paul Vanderburgh, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Dayton, tells the New York Times.

In what sounds like a rather gruelling regime, the women, all average weight and university-aged, pumped iron on an incline three days a week to gain muscle mass, and also did aerobic exercise to slim down. After 90 days, they were leaner and stronger: the average participant lowered her body fat by two per cent and increased her upper body strength by 36 per cent. Still, when it came time to do the dreaded pull-up, most of the women failed.

Related: Why women need protein

Vanderburgh explains that women not only develop less muscle than men (whose body composition is fuelled by testosterone), the proportion of women's limbs makes performing a chin-up tough. "We're a combination of levers; that's how we move…" he explains, "I look at a volleyball player and wouldn't expect her to be able to do a pull-up, but I know she's fit."

The US Marines don't require female recruits to do chin-ups, but the Presidential Fitness Test says that teenage girls should be able to execute one pull-up to score within the 50th percentile, and two for girls under 14. While I'm awe of super women who can crank out a few pull ups, for the rest of us, maybe it's time to lower the bar.

Trainer and Y7 Lifestyle blogger Libby Babet from Bondi BUF shares her two minute wonder woman workout: