As regular viewers of Arrow know, one of Oliver’s favorite ways to exercise is using the salmon ladder, an activity that Felicity has grown fond of watching. While this intense workout may seem like too much for your average couch potato, now Stephen Amell has released a simple tutorial on how to do these hyped-up pull-ups. Warning: there’s a steep learning curve.
Post by Stephen Amell.
In this Facebook video posted on Friday, Amell teaches his friend Ankur and all the Arrow fans out there the basic steps of doing this exercise while rocking his flashback Oliver look. He prefaces the lesson by saying he’s going to to show everyone “how easy it is and how it can be fun.” Explaining that the concept is to do a basic chin-up, but before lifting yourself up, you swing your body forward. When you bring your body back up during the motion, you then move the bar up to the next rung, experiencing a “brief moment of weightlessness.” Simple, right?
Well, as expected for someone trying it for the first time, Ankur’s attempt didn’t go well. While he was able to pull himself up, he could barely move the bar upwards. Don’t worry, Ankur. It’s a challenging exercise for almost everyone. Doing the salmon ladder requires a precise combination of strength and timing. You may be able to do the pull-up, but without that degree of control, you can’t move upward. Either Amell’s definition of “easy and fun” is clearly different from everyone else’s, or this is just another example of him trolling everyone. If you want to be as good at this as Amell is, you’d better hit the gym and get your pull-up numbers up.
Of course, if you happen to be blessed with super-speed, then no salmon ladder lessons or gym trips are required. You’ll probably get the hang of it pretty quickly if Barry Allen’s workout from “The Brave and the Bold” is any indication.
You can catch Arrow when the CW's drama returns from hiatus on January 21, 2015.
