The one with the Cheerios, grip strength, and the woman who flew.

I have a lady who has been coming to my classes for just over a year.

Like a lot of ladies I meet, she is scared of a lot of things. Flynn — one of my spaniels, the one who lives in his own magical world and is largely unbothered by everything except cuddles — terrifies her. Hanging from a bar terrifies her. Getting something wrong terrifies her. Spaniels aside, fifteen years ago, I was her.

Every session, without fail, she checks in with me about every movement. Not because she isn't capable. Because somewhere along the way she learned that getting things wrong had consequences, and she is still, very carefully, unlearning that.

I don't mind the checking in. In fact I like it. She cares about moving well and that matters. I make a point of recognising when people are doing well — I can't really help it, when I see something done well the words come out before I have time to stop them. This is a flaw in the plan when we are doing handstands because sometimes my excitement needs reigning in so concentration can be maintained. I digress.

Last week I programmed scap pulls.

For the uninitiated: a scapular pull is a dead hang from a bar where you depress and retract your shoulder blades without bending your elbows. It looks subtle. It is not. I love them with my whole heart. My ladies have other feelings.

My lovely lady told me she couldn't hang. Never had been able to. Could she do something else instead.

I don't do that. We do what we programme. I am not inflexible, I am not trying to get anyone to do something they are incapable of. There are just ways to prove you can.

So I set up a resistance band on the J hooks, let her step onto it so she could feel it take most of her weight. An emotional support band, if you will.

She gripped the bar. She hung.

For the first time in her life, she hung from a bar.

I told her how proud I was. But I didn't need to say it. I could see it in the way she left the room — head up, shoulders back, the slight scurry she usually has completely gone.

She walked out differently than she walked in.

That's the thing about grip strength that nobody puts in the brochure.

But let me tell you why I actually care about this.

As you know by now, I love a book. I had been reading Peter Attia's book Outlive. In it he describes a person in their sixties falling and breaking a hip. The break leading to bed rest. The bed rest leading to muscle loss. And then the thing nobody mentions — the loss of trust in your own body. The cotton wool. The second guessing of every descent from a pavement. The internal Rocky montage when the step lands cleanly and the crowd goes wild in your own head. And it's just crossing the road.

And my mind, without permission, cast my sister in the role.

My sister. The woman who can make me laugh until diet coke involuntarily shoots from my nose, compose myself, and immediately fall apart again the moment she looks at me. She is a human tickle wand. She is the most beautiful woman. She is the mother of two boys, the wife of a wonderful man and she is the only person on the planet who can undo me completely with a single look.

The thought of her lying on a kitchen floor, having slipped on a stream of recklessly discarded Cheerios, unable to pull herself back up on the worktop.

I could not finish the thought.

I don't want anyone to feel helpless. Ever. That is why I built Mission Pull Up.

Here is the science truth about grip strength that I think is interesting, but I am a geek. Then I'll tell you a genuinely interesting one.

The correlation between grip strength and longevity has been proven in study after study. It is one of the single best predictors of cardiovascular health, cognitive function, and how well you are ageing. Better than almost any other single measure.

The reason goes deeper than simply being able to rescue yourself if you fall.

Grip strength is proof.

Not of how strong your hands are. Of how strong you are in life.

Good grip strength is evidence. It proves you lifted things. Heavy things. Or you hung from a bar, rings, a pole, a hoop — your choice of flying fun. It proves you used your muscles, tested them, trusted them, let them fail, rinsed and repeated. That builds a resilient body. The kind that slips on a Cheerio, finds its way back to standing, and carries on to find the dustpan, with enough leftover energy to shout at the kids for the tenth time about cleaning up after themselves. Not the kind that lands and waits for rescue to then spend months in rehab.

That is the boring truth. It wasn't boring was it???!!

Here is the interesting one.

Early one morning one of the loveliest, kindest women I know was leaving the gym in floods of tears, being consoled by two friends as I arrived.

I won't share her story. It isn't mine to tell. What I will tell you is that when I asked how she was doing she said:

"I'm angry."

And a beat later:

"What I really want to do is go upside down on the rings."

The amount of times she has circled the sun isn't the point. The feeling that she wanted to, even though she 'shouldn't' want to be a kid again, just for a minute, does.

I took her back inside. I heard the protests from her very well meaning friends — "oooh, should you be doing that, oooh mind your arms, oooh don't let go" — and I ignored them with the quiet confidence of someone who has not failed this yet (and I coach someone who is 78 and still does rope climbs with the general abandon of a 21 year old) and fully intends to keep that record.

I set a box up. We started with easy movements. Nothing challenging, just enough to get her to trust the instinct to hold on in a weird position, the one that every adult has to relearn because somewhere between childhood and now we decided that turning the world upside down was dangerous.

Then it was time to jump.

Just a small jump. A backward roll on the rings.

First jump. Not quite.
Second jump. Nearly.
Third jump. I spotted her over.

She was elated.

Not because of grip strength. Not because of longevity data. Not because of anything Peter Attia has ever written (although I highly recommend his book).

Because for ten seconds she flew.

And the anger she had walked in with — the thing she had been carrying all morning, maybe longer — had somewhere to go that wasn't her body, her jaw, her shoulders, her sleepless three am.

It went into the rings. Into the momentum. Into the letting go. It went into being allowed to feel like she was five years old again.

This is why I want every woman to have a pull up.

Not for the pull up.

For the moment she realises her body is capable of something she had decided it wasn't.

For the Rocky montage — but the right kind. Not the one where she's scared at the kerb. The one where she's on the rings at…nope, I'm still not telling you…with tears drying on her face and her feet over her head.

For the grip that catches her when life asks her to let go of something.

For the Cheerios.

My sister will never slip on a Cheerio and stay down. Not on my watch.

Neither will you.

One Thing For You — The Hang

Find something to hang from today.

A bar if you have one. A doorframe pull up bar. The monkey bars in the park on your next dog walk. Anything that will hold your weight safely.

Hang for as long as you feel comfortable. Note how long.

That's your baseline. That's where you are right now.

Come back next week and hang again. And the week after.

You don't need a programme yet. You don't need a plan. You just need to hang, and notice what happens over time.

If hanging feels completely impossible right now — that's okay. That's exactly what the emotional support band on the J hooks is for. Reply to this email and we'll work it out together.

From the Trail

This week I have been busy baking for a Henstands Party I held on Sunday. I haven't baked properly for years — I fell out of love with it when I left corporate life and had nowhere to take my creations. Getting back into the kitchen this week felt like finding something I hadn't realised I'd lost.

The menu, since you didn't ask: Twix brownies. Apple and blackberry flapjacks with a lemon cheesecake icing.

Yes. They were exactly as good as they sound.

Recipes coming to the blog soon — watch this space.

Until next time, keep walking the trail.

Becky x

P.S. Harley and Flynn would like it to be known that they have excellent grip strength. Specifically when it comes to gripping the sofa they are absolutely not allowed on. The evidence suggests otherwise.

P.P.S. Mission Pull Up is here. Twelve weeks. Zero to your first pull up attempt. A self-contained mini app with nervous system tools built in — because you cannot bully yourself into a pull up and I have the evidence. Founding price of £97 until 30th September, £127 after that.

P.P.P.S. If a handstand is more your thing — or your secret doorway-watching dream — Highway to Handstand is also nearly ready for you. Six or Twelve week options. Same methodology. Same nervous system tools. Same result: you, upside down, wondering why you waited so long.