This morning, I got up when my alarm clock went off at my new usual time, which Uncle Jake calls “zero-dark-thirty.” Of course, Uncle Jake wasn’t in the room. He was already out somewhere doing some kind of exercise. I’ve begun to think that maybe Uncle Jake doesn’t sleep at all. I never see him go to bed at night; I never see him get up in the morning. His bed is always made. So I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t in the room. But what happened next did surprise me.
“Get up!” Uncle Jake shouted as he burst into the room.
“I am up!” I told him.
“Come on, then! I got you a present.”
“A present?” I already knew not to expect anything normal. In fact, I pretty much expected something painful.
“Yeah … a little something for you. Come on!”
I put on my shorts, shirt, and running shoes, and followed Uncle Jake downstairs.
“It’s in the garage…,” said Uncle Jake as we headed out the door and through the backyard toward the garage. I wondered what in the world he could have in there. A new bike maybe? A go-kart? No, I knew this would be something more, should I say, “practical.”
He opened the door to the garage and I walked in. I looked around. Nothing.
“What?” I asked him.
“What?” he replied.
“What is it?” I asked, still not seeing anything new in the garage.
“Look up,” said Uncle Jake with a big smile on his face.
Slowly, I began to look up, with no idea what to expect. Then I saw it, staring back at me. A pull-up bar.
“What do you think?” Uncle Jake asked me.
It was a crazy-looking—and kind of scary—thick metal bar bolted onto two heavy-duty pieces of wood.
“I made it last night, while you were sleeping.”
I guess I should have been happy. Or thankful. But I was SCARED and NERVOUS and EMBARRASSED because I already knew that I couldn’t do a single pull-up! And now here I was with Uncle Jake about to see exactly how weak I really was!!
As I stood there thinking all these horrible thoughts, Uncle Jake jumped up and did twenty-five pull-ups—like it was nothing. “This is a good bar,” he told me. “Give it a try. Here.” He had built a little box for me to step on so I could reach the pull-up bar. He pushed the box under the bar and said, “Step on up, and let’s see what you’ve got.”
It seemed like a YEAR PASSED as I stepped up onto the box and slowly reached toward the pull-up bar. I grabbed ahold of it. It was much thicker than the pull-up bar at school, which made it even harder to hold on to. And then, just like the last day of school, I pulled as hard as I could … but nothing happened. I tried again and even grunted a little to try to prove to Uncle Jake that I was really trying. But the grunting didn’t do much. Uncle Jake stood there and watched. After a few more seconds, I lost my grip and slipped off the bar.
“Sorry, Uncle Jake,” I told him, embarrassed at my strength—or should I say COMPLETE LACK OF STRENGTH.
“Don’t be sorry,” he replied. “Sorry won’t get you stronger. Now here is what we are going to do.…” He took another box he had made, which was taller than the first one, and put it under the bar. “Step up on this box, grab the bar, and then jump up until your chin is over the bar. Then I want you to hold yourself up there as long as you can, and when you can’t hold it any longer, come down as slowly as you possibly can.”
I followed his instructions. I grabbed the bar, jumped up, and got my chin over the bar. I held myself up for a few seconds, and then, when I couldn’t stay up any longer, I came down as slowly as I could.
As soon as I got to the bottom and my feet touched the box, Uncle Jake sounded off, “Now do it again!” I did. The next time, my muscles were already tired, so I couldn’t hold myself up as long, and I came down faster. “Again!” Uncle Jake yelled again. I did it again. And again. And again. Finally, when I could barely get myself up over the bar and basically dropped right down again, Uncle Jake said, “Okay. Now take a break. When I joined the Navy, I could barely do seven pull-ups. But the Navy gave me a program, and I stuck with it—I still do it today. Now I can do about fifty of them pretty easily. You wanna know how you get good at doing pull-ups?”
“How?”
“By doing pull-ups! And by the time the summer is over, you will be doing at least ten pull-ups. Ten pull-ups, in a row, by the time you go back to school. How do you think that sounds?”
I was thrilled. I was going to be able to do ten pull-ups! I wouldn’t be the laughingstock of gym class anymore! “I think that sounds AWESOME!” I told him.
“Well, remember, those pull-ups aren’t going to happen by themselves. You are going to have to earn them, with hard work and dedication—understand?”
“I understand.” And I did understand—this was going to be hard work—but it was going to be worth it.
“All right, next set!” Uncle Jake barked. I stepped back up on the box, grabbed the pull-up bar, jumped up, and started all over again, on my path to ten straight pull-ups.