Marine Corps Major Misty Posey knows you can do a pull-up. No matter who you are. Standing at an unassuming 4’10”, the powerhouse pull-up trainer is on a mission to nix the double standards in the Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test. Currently, all Marines taking the test must run 3 miles, complete as many crunches as possible in 2 minutes, and depending on whether they’re male or female, either achieve a number of pull-ups or hang from a bar for a set amount of time.
Men are required to complete as many pull-ups as possible before dropping off the bar in a undesignated amount of time. Women must complete a timed flexed-arm hang instead.
Posey doesn’t agree with this difference. For more than 20 years, she’s taught women the proper way to do pull-ups with the philosophy that anyone can be taught to get their chin over the bar. She operates a pull-up clinic at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. “I put a lot of detail into [my] program because I knew women and men would blame our gender if we failed,” she told VICE.
Posey discredits the idea that women lack the upper-body strength for combat roles. “It does not take months and months and months to learn a pull-up. It does not take a year or two to learn a pull-up. It’s nonsense. I haven’t met someone yet that I haven’t been able to train to do a pull-up,” Posey said in the Marine Corps video below.
Read the full story at VICE.
