It was a random Tuesday in November 2016, and my good friend and fellow fitness pro, Neghar Fonooni and I were headed down to Venice Beach to catch the sunset.

Neg parked the car and I grabbed the leashes of all three of our combined dogs and headed to the meter to pay for the parking. I came back to the car, and Neghar was still in the process of getting out of the driver’s side, literally 5 minutes later.

Ugh. I hated what my friend—a mom, businesswoman and fellow intense, life-long exerciser—was going through.

See, Neghar had just been diagnosed with 2 bulging discs after tweaking her back months prior. The injury symptoms ebbed and flowed, but for several months last winter, Neg was severely incapacitated physically.

Which, for anyone, is life-altering. And for someone who does fitness for a living, it was of course horrifying. I have no idea how I’d feel if I couldn’t use exercise as an outlet. I can tell you I wouldn’t have fared even close to how well Neghar did.

She wasn’t yet sold on the idea of surgery, and though it took her hours in the morning to loosen up, half-laying on a homemade “fort” on the floor to do her work because she couldn’t sit, and many, many mental pep talks, Neghar still showed up at the gym and tried to figure out the very few things she still could do. Things that didn’t cause pain but still challenged her.

One of the few exercises she could do was pull-ups.

And so that’s what Neg did. She did pull-ups every single workout, sprinkling them in with pushups, air squats and sled pulls.

That was it. For two months.

Well, let’s just say that after not only months of healing things herself and finally being able to add in more exercises, Neghar had a back to match all the strict pull-ups she was practicing!

Muscles on muscles on muscles. Lean, strong, wide and enviable.

Months later, I caught Neg in a racerback and was like, uh, wtf? She started laughing and said, “Dude, that’s what happens when you do pull-ups every day for months!”

She was strong, but also aesthetic af. Wow.

But during that tough time, that's when the idea for Pull-up Queen was born. And today, Neghar has finally released the program into the world, and I am honored to be able to share it with you, here.

This program addresses one of the most (in my opinion) surprising, yet refreshing fitness goals that I hear time and time again from women: my #1 fitness goal is to be able to do a bodyweight pull-up.

Up until about 2 years ago, the only time I’d been able to get a pull-up myself was when I’d lost 20 lbs for a competition! Ha! And only a single rep!

Because as pull-ups are a bodyweight exercise, there are only 2 ways to improve:

And for me, at 160 lbs, pull-ups are not the easiest.

I can do about 6 or 7 strict pull-ups in a row now, which is a lot more than years ago. I am a lot stronger, way more so then when I was competing at 140 lbs, and now, that strength and power, and yes, even my weight, it’s something I pride myself on.

And because I’m done trying to lose a bunch of weight constantly, for me, it’s about both getting stronger and also mastering my technique.

I believe that yes, anyone can do a pull-up, even if you are not rail thin or light.

But you need the strategy.

If your goal is to get your first pull-up or to progress the number of reps you’re able to do, at $27, this is literally a no-brainer.

Neg always does an incredible job. I trust her knowledge, her years of experience and most importantly, her integrity to put out a top-notch product.

So, you want pull-ups or nah?😉

Let me know if you have any questions!

Xo,

Jill