It is not Shohei Ohtani (although I am always excited to see him playing baseball) but Shohei Ohno who is a legendary Judo athlete, and I think he is a beast. He is a 2 times Olympic gold medalist and well known as pound for pound (as a fan of MMA, talking about pound for pound is so exciting).
Isometric Hold Pullup
He does this with judo-gi but I don’t have one. So I tried it with a towel. I think the concept is the same as doing this exercise with gi.
Pulling up first, bringing your legs up and holding the position. It works for your lat, biceps, ab muscles and absolutely your grip strength. I found the grip strength is the hardest part and Ohno’s main purpose of doing so for judo-match.
He holds this position for 60 seconds and more and I tried it but barely held for 30 seconds.
The second set
I took a break for 3 minutes like the same as for any strength training, and I attempted the second set. It is funny I held it for 10 seconds and couldn’t do it for longer. It is so hard lol.
I also tried just regular pullup with the towel and such a great training for grip strength compared to using a straight bar.
I posted it on my Instagram here
In-home training for regular back exercise here