CANTON, Massachusetts -- People tend to avoid things they are not good at due to the fear of failure. For one Marine, pull-ups were a challenge. Instead of avoiding the challenge, she worked hard to find a way to get better, and now she hopes to share her knowledge with other Marines.
Major Misty Posey’s goal was to do 20 pull-ups, the required number for male Marines to do in order to achieve a perfect score on the physical fitness test. Now that she has accomplished her goal, she wants to help others improve their pull-ups.
Posey experimented with different techniques and found out what worked best for her. She then compared her results to those of others and came up with a program that can help anyone willing to put in the effort.
“Whether you have never done a pull-up in your life, or you are just trying to get a higher maximum set, this program is designed to teach you how to train to do pull-ups,” said Posey.
Posey was recognized at the Reebok Honor Your Days event at the Reebok Headquarters in Canton, Mass., on April 28, 2016. The event was designed to bring together powerful women from around the world, to include Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, and Amelia Boone, Spartan Race world champion. The women attended a panel discussion and shared their various success stories, as well as the struggles and adversities they faced to get where they are today.
One of the major points discussed on the panel was that not everyone starts out being great at something. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to go above and beyond and to excel at what you do.
“I was not athletic at all before the Marine Corps,” said Posey.
Physical fitness was new to her and she strived to be the best. She said she still experiments with various types of physical training and tries to work out about five times a week.
“I have not met someone I could not teach to do a pull-up,” said Posey.
Last year, Posey worked with a female Marine using her program. The Marine went from doing zero pull-ups and hardly being able to pull half-way up, to now doing 18 pull-ups.
“I worked towards pull-ups for seven months and got nowhere,” said Colonel Robin Gallant, Assistant Chief of Staff, G8, II Marine Expeditionary Force. “It only took me a few weeks to get my first pull-up working with her (Posey).”
So what’s the secret? Posey’s program is not complex, it just requires dedication and commitment. She said the two main exercises she focuses on are partner-assisted pull-ups, and negative pull-ups. According to the 39-year-old Marine, doing these exercises three to five times a day, four to five times a week will get you the results you want.
“She knows how to coach,” said Gallant. “She watches you do pull-ups and analyzes your strengths and weaknesses. I think very highly of her and had she not helped me with my pull-ups, I would have gotten out of the Marine Corps.”
Posey said her biggest challenge now is getting the word out about this training program. She was able to ask the other women at Honor Your Days about their experiences and what they did to make their voices heard. She hopes to have her story heard and continue to help men and women across the Corps improve their pull-ups by training for them the correct way.
To check out Posey’s pull-up training program visit: http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Docs/PullupTrainingGuide.pdf
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