So, you guise are exercise guise, right? I've a question, if nobody minds.
So I want to enter a pilots' academy here in the Glorious, and for that, in addition to good test scores on math and physics, I have to do an exam of sorts on P.E.
For the best score, I need to run a kilometer in 3 min 14 sec, a hundred meters in something like 12,5 sec, and do an indefinite, but preferably higher than fifteen, number of pull-ups.
What would be the best way to prepare, in your opinion? I already have the kilometer thing down pat (well, almost), but the 100-meter run is giving me trouble, and due to limited living space, I have nowhere to install a bar to do pull-ups on.
It really depends on what sort of pull-up you do, there's easily three types that I can think of and they all work different muscle groups. If you're talking about the standard pull up (palms facing towards you, using biceps to lift), you use your shoulders more than you think you would. You'll use almost all of your arm muscle, and surprisingly (depending on your technique), you'll actually end up using most of your abdominal muscles. So for training to do pull-ups, I'd mainly say back and shoulders, tri and biceps, and make sure your stomach is somewhat toned beforehand. Pushups are a good practice, along with resistance bands if you have any of those (the P90x actually tells you to use resistance bands if you can't install a bar anywhere).
Pull-ups are a really weird exercise, took me forever to get used to doing three at a time. If you could find a gym or somewhere that actually has a pull-up bar, it'd be waaaay better than doing any other exercise to prepare for it. Even finding a school playground and using the monkey bars would be good.