Lat pulldowns

[callador]

Heh, this thread really got out there. It's too bad it got riddled with personal attacks from both sides, since I think there is knowledge to be gained out of this.

First off, there is no 100% perfect method of lifting. Some people think that the best way to get a bench press up is just hitting the competition bench press every week and slowly gain via periodization or linear progression. Others like the conjugate method, using other exercises to help increase the competition press. The truth is that both work, and we really shouldn't say that one is better than the other. If this guy says DB presses increased his regular bench, I believe it. If he alternated more stuff in it might have gone better too (he said that). If it works for him, keep on doing it! If he likes Lat Pulldowns and Leg curls (I do too), and it helps him keep his squat/bench going up, then keep doing that too.

I too just kind of got back into the iron game. I originally did regular periodization and pretty vanilla lifting. It worked. Now that I joined a PL club, the guys do more of a conjugate method, similar to westside, but a little different. I am adapting to their ways so I can train with them. Who am I to argue with them. The owner is 50 years old and can squat about 1000lbs!!! They compete IPA, so of course they use gear. But his method goes RAW a lot, since he believes it is important to do both. Just the other day he did a 700 Raw squat easy. Again, who am I to argue. Part of getting strong is being around other strong people and being a part of the iron game. This is especially true for geared lifting, since they give you lots of tricks to help learn the gear.

I guess I'm rambling a little now, but I think Cheeze puts out some good points as well as some of the other guys. He's in his 40's so give him a little respect too! I just hit 32, but I wouldn't want some 18 year old kid mouthing off. This is the most respectable forum on sherdog, lets keep it that way!

 

[CrazyNutz]

Maybe 1 out of 20 people I see use the lat pull down correctly.

1. tons of people using their hips/backs to do the work for them.
2. I see some basically doing half of a bicep curl on the machine. Their elbows stay in almost the same position throughout the whole motion.
3. Then all the yahoos doing behind the neck, and dont have the shoulder flexibility to do so, and do 1/2 ROM.

 

[BaliShagSmoke]

So I can just stack a ton or so on the lat pulldown and, as long as my legs are secure, I should be able to pull the weight down?

When you put it like that it doesn't sound too good does it? However, I do not understand your analogy at all.

I will give you an analogy. Take a tow truck that is on pure ice. It has no traction at all. I could probably grab it's tow hook and keep it from moving forward from a stop as long as I am on a good non-skid surface. Now take away the ice and add friction from the road (the braces over your legs) and 20 strong men could not stop that truck (probably).

Let's say it's a 10,000 pound truck on a 30 degree incline. Therefore, we have to apply 5,000 pounds of horizontal force in order to prevent it from moving down the incline. In the ice example, the friction from the non-skid surface is supplying the difference from your body weight and any pulling force you can generate.

Now what is so special about the ice? It isn't making the force from the truck's weight any less. In fact, I picture you sliding down the incline with the truck as you grab it by the tow hook.

Yeah it doesn't work like that. If it did, then if I had a chain attached to the rafters in my basement, secured myself to the ground and pulled on the chain, I'd be able to rip down my rafters as if it were only my bodyweight I was pulling.

Well no shit sherlock. If you can only generate enough force from your lats and other pulling muscles equal to get your ~200 lbs over a pull-up bar, there is no way that force would be enough to rip your first floor off the foundation and down into your basement.

EDIT: I re-read my OP and see that I implied an infinite amount of force can come from a pin or brace. Not where I was going with that, and I will have to look some things up before I try to re-articulate what I meant.

 

[VoodooPlata]

Where are the engineers and others with backgrounds in physics?

I have always been convinced that pull-ups are superior to pull-downs because you cannot lift more than your body weight on pull-downs.

If the weight stack is heavier than your body weight, no matter how much force you apply, the stack won't move; YOU WILL MOVE UP. You end up doing a pull-up/cable climb up the cable. Hence these machines have braces to put over your legs. These fix you in place and provide the difference in force needed between the weight stack's weight and your body weight. The net effect is that you only lift weight equal to your body weight.

Is this correct?

I'm doing a masters in engineering physics - just letting everyone know that i'm not just thinking out loud.

Say you weigh 100 kgs and sit down on a pulldown machine. You load the cable with 110 kgs of weight.

You now need to pull with 110 * 9.81 = 1079.1 N to just barely move the weight. But the maximum amount you can pull before lifting yourself is 100 * 9.81 = 981 N. You are missing 98.1 N of force, which is not being directed to the weights. You need more force.

When you apply leg bracers to secure yourself to the seat, the following happens:
You pull with 981 N - this lifts your ass off the seat. Now from this point on, however much force you apply to the bar, the leg brace will apply this exact same amount of force to push you back down into the seat (until something breaks). So now you have the possibility to use the required 1079.1 N of force required, because the leg brace holds you down.

It is your lats doing the work, and not the brace. It might also help to think of it in this way:

If i weigh 100 and want to lat pull 110, i could put on a weight belt with 10 kgs and thus not lift off of the seat - his should be very easy to understand.
The leg brace is like a weight belt that weighs however much i am missing to move the weight instead of myself. This is simplified of course - there are other factors but none that we need for our understanding of the lat pulls with leg braces.

If that was too technical to follow i can try to explain it in some other way.

 

[kicker]

Don't bother dude. Deadlifting is better. It's more manish.

 

[cXs808]

Very nice. Like I said, I could get up off the couch right now, 41 years old, weigh in at 181 and post 1010. I've been training for four months. My goal is 1275 for May of 2011, and I'll get it. So tone it down, tiger.

I never understood personal attacks on this board. I'm 155 and I can definitely post a 1000lb total on any given day but I sure as hell don't know as much as other people here, you don't see me going around attacking people who are weaker than me as if I'm superior.

 

[cheez whiz]

I never understood personal attacks on this board. I'm 155 and I can definitely post a 1000lb total on any given day but I sure as hell don't know as much as other people here, you don't see me going around attacking people who are weaker than me as if I'm superior.

Actually if you read the thread it was the mod that brought it up - asking how long I'd lifted and what my totals were. Also, I see you felt the need to indicate that you're light and strong.

When someone weighs in on a discussion like this, it does matter whether they know what they're talking about or not. People that are just parroting stuff they've heard, without having gone and put lifting principles to use to find out what actually works and doesn't, are just part of the problem.

As far as I'm concerned, I made the point I wanted to make, and I am fine dropping the subject and moving on. I just want people to be more empirical when evaluating exercises and exercise equipment.

 

[SherTiger1]

My all-time BW pull-up PR was 25 full-ROM reps (at a lower body-weight though). Right now I should be able to do around 15 good reps and I guess I should be able to hit 18+ if I just focused on them for a week or two (I haven't trained them for a while).

Problem is there is very little lower-trap involvement in those reps (there is almost zero scapular retraction) and most of the pulling power comes from my lats. If I focus on pullups with proper scapular retraction and I stop the set once I can't get that (although I can still pull myself up easily), then I can do half the number of reps or less. I recently started doing wide-grip lat pulldowns with lighter weights for high reps in order to focus on proper scapular retraction in the horizontal plane.

My friend walked it the gym the other day and saw me in the lat-pulldown machine. She was all like "you're using bodybuilding machines now?!".

On a side note, and moving away from the arguments...

Miaou, how do you normally do them (ie on regular basis, not when testing your max reps)? If you take someone who could do 10 reps without conscious retraction, or 5 reps when concentrating on retraction, would the 5 be better to do on a regular basis? Presuming goals were getting generally stronger, some hypertrophy, along with general joint/shoulder health

 

[graedy]

Actually if you read the thread it was the mod that brought it up - asking how long I'd lifted and what my totals were. Also, I see you felt the need to indicate that you're light and strong.

When someone weighs in on a discussion like this, it does matter whether they know what they're talking about or not. People that are just parroting stuff they've heard, without having gone and put lifting principles to use to find out what actually works and doesn't, are just part of the problem.

As far as I'm concerned, I made the point I wanted to make, and I am fine dropping the subject and moving on. I just want people to be more empirical when evaluating exercises and exercise equipment.

Good point and a amjor problem I see on this forum.
Everyone can read and quote Ripptoe or whoever. I don't need a forum for this.
In my opinion we need much more discussion about personal experiences or expierences with trainees.

For example I am a big "believer in Pullups". One of the most underrated lift there is. And rarely you see someone perform a proper Pullup.
But I just recentlly put my younger brother, whom I guide through his training for over 3 years, from pullups to pulldowns.
The simple reason: HE finally stopped growing taller a couple of months ago and now started to put on msucle like crazy. Thus he gained quite some bodyweight. That fast that he wasn'T able to keep his realtive strength levels.
And as he always had a hard time with pullups his form now started to suck (no scalpulae retraction, not pulling through the elbows and back, way too much anterior delt invovlement)'and he wasn't able tor reach the target number of reps at all.
This lead to a suboptimal stimulus on the rhomboids and lower traps and thus his shoulders started to "roll forward" aka his posture got bad.
Some weeks of latpulldowns focusing on proper muscle activation in the back -> better results than I would have expected. His shoulder problems disappeared and his posture improved tremendously.
Could I have also put him on band supported Pullups and have the same or even better results? Maybe. But I wanted all his focus to be on proper muscle activation and nothing else and band supported Pullups would have just been too "fancy" for him.
Longterm I plan to build in pullups in his routine again. Now that he has learned the proper motor patterns of a vertical pulling motion all he needs is some more strength (and stop gaining weight :icon_chee).

So, long story short: Being a parrot doesn't help. And what works is good.

 

[Standard]

Actually if you read the thread it was the mod that brought it up - asking how long I'd lifted and what my totals were. Also, I see you felt the need to indicate that you're light and strong.

Actually if you read the thread Enright asked what your training background was to find out about your training history.

Yep. One that happens to be stronger than you in several lifts. Suck it.

This is you being a dipshit, which is what cXs808 was pointing out

 

[rckvl]

Good point and a amjor problem I see on this forum.
Everyone can read and quote Ripptoe or whoever. I don't need a forum for this.
In my opinion we need much more discussion about personal experiences or expierences with trainees.

For example I am a big "believer in Pullups". One of the most underrated lift there is. And rarely you see someone perform a proper Pullup.
But I just recentlly put my younger brother, whom I guide through his training for over 3 years, from pullups to pulldowns.
The simple reason: HE finally stopped growing taller a couple of months ago and now started to put on msucle like crazy. Thus he gained quite some bodyweight. That fast that he wasn'T able to keep his realtive strength levels.
And as he always had a hard time with pullups his form now started to suck (no scalpulae retraction, not pulling through the elbows and back, way too much anterior delt invovlement)'and he wasn't able tor reach the target number of reps at all.
This lead to a suboptimal stimulus on the rhomboids and lower traps and thus his shoulders started to "roll forward" aka his posture got bad.
Some weeks of latpulldowns focusing on proper muscle activation in the back -> better results than I would have expected. His shoulder problems disappeared and his posture improved tremendously.
Could I have also put him on band supported Pullups and have the same or even better results? Maybe. But I wanted all his focus to be on proper muscle activation and nothing else and band supported Pullups would have just been too "fancy" for him.
Longterm I plan to build in pullups in his routine again. Now that he has learned the proper motor patterns of a vertical pulling motion all he needs is some more strength (and stop gaining weight :icon_chee).

So, long story short: Being a parrot doesn't help. And what works is good.

Except the recruitment pattern for lat pull downs and pull ups are different. So I would be willing to bet he will still suck at pull ups when he goes back to them and will have to work the progression that was avoided the first time around.

 

[miaou]

On a side note, and moving away from the arguments...

Miaou, how do you normally do them (ie on regular basis, not when testing your max reps)? If you take someone who could do 10 reps without conscious retraction, or 5 reps when concentrating on retraction, would the 5 be better to do on a regular basis? Presuming goals were getting generally stronger, some hypertrophy, along with general joint/shoulder health…

Also when you do them with retraction, do you keep them retracted during the entire set? Or do you start free hanging, pull yourself up a couple of inches using retraction (plus some possible lat contraction??), then pull yourself up as normal, lower and repeat?

When I read your question I was like "oh boy, here we go again!", because my answer might instigate another cycle of arguments. Then I read graedy's post and his opinion pretty much coincides with mine.

Since you specified "getting generally stronger / general joint/shoulder health" then my answer is this: if you can do 10 reps with full ROM but improper scapular retraction, but you can do 5 reps with full ROM and proper scapular retraction, then I would consider 5 reps to be my max and work off of that. If on the other hand those 5 reps are with semi-proper scapular retraction then I would work on assited pullups and/or lat pulldowns instead.

Regarding your question about hypertrophy: scapular retraction or not would result in which muscles are targeted (and to what degree), what overall volume (number of reps) you can work them with etc. So 10 reps without proper retraction you would obviously have better results in terms of lat hypertrophy.

Since I'm writing another post, I will voice my agreement with graedy's point about proper posture. I believe working on exercises in a way that will result in/reinforce proper posture and help avoid muscular imbalances will eventually provide a better "mechanical foundation" for overall better performance and definitely (and demonstrably) reduced injury risks.

Let me note that overall better function, performance and health doesn't necessarily translate to better performance in one particular lift. Better performance and more favorable mechanics for one particular motor pattern doesn't necessarily mean ideal mechanics for general performance and health.


ST, the way I do pullups is maintain a neutral scapular position (not completely retracted, nor completely protracted) when I am in the bottom, then get into full retraction during the first half of the ascent and maintain it during the second half. I haven't read that somewhere, but it feels natural and I feel I get a good activation on the proper muscles with that. One more thing you can try is, once you finish a pullup set, do a few reps of scapular retractions (aka hanging shrugs) before letting go of the bar, focusing on full scapular ROM.

 

[cheez whiz]

Actually if you read the thread Enright asked what your training background was to find out about your training history.

Hey thanks for weighing in Standard, but how about not straight-up lying? Here's Enright:

Cheez what is your competitive history?

How much do you bench, squat and deadlift, and at what body-weight.

Once the "how much do you lift" question has been broached as a way of finding out why I'm stating a certain opinion, is it really cool to run me down for making a point about it?

Also, read the thread and see the kind of personal attacks I was responding to - funny that you don't think me being called a fucking idiot is below the level of acceptable discourse here.

 

[Sakmongkol]

Good point and a amjor problem I see on this forum.
Everyone can read and quote Ripptoe or whoever. I don't need a forum for this.
In my opinion we need much more discussion about personal experiences or expierences with trainees.

For example I am a big "believer in Pullups". One of the most underrated lift there is. And rarely you see someone perform a proper Pullup.
But I just recentlly put my younger brother, whom I guide through his training for over 3 years, from pullups to pulldowns.
The simple reason: HE finally stopped growing taller a couple of months ago and now started to put on msucle like crazy. Thus he gained quite some bodyweight. That fast that he wasn'T able to keep his realtive strength levels.
And as he always had a hard time with pullups his form now started to suck (no scalpulae retraction, not pulling through the elbows and back, way too much anterior delt invovlement)'and he wasn't able tor reach the target number of reps at all.
This lead to a suboptimal stimulus on the rhomboids and lower traps and thus his shoulders started to "roll forward" aka his posture got bad.
Some weeks of latpulldowns focusing on proper muscle activation in the back -> better results than I would have expected. His shoulder problems disappeared and his posture improved tremendously.
Could I have also put him on band supported Pullups and have the same or even better results? Maybe. But I wanted all his focus to be on proper muscle activation and nothing else and band supported Pullups would have just been too "fancy" for him.
Longterm I plan to build in pullups in his routine again. Now that he has learned the proper motor patterns of a vertical pulling motion all he needs is some more strength (and stop gaining weight :icon_chee).

So, long story short: Being a parrot doesn't help. And what works is good.

Great post.

 

[elevate]

Anyone involved in this discussion - feel free to weigh in with your abilities in the movements. It does make sense for someone to be fairly strong (physically) in order to have a fairly strong opinion about a physical movement.

yeah that's not what I asked. Are you a big squatter? Please answer that in addition to answering the previous question.

Hey thanks for weighing in Standard, but how about not straight-up lying? Here's Enright:

Once the "how much do you lift" question has been broached as a way of finding out why I'm stating a certain opinion, is it really cool to run me down for making a point about it?

Um. Isn't that what you were doing earlier in the thread?

 

[Standard]

Hey thanks for weighing in Standard, but how about not straight-up lying? Here's Enright:

Pull the stick out of your ass, cupcake.

I said

Actually if you read the thread Enright asked what your training background was to find out about your training history.

Enright's full quote was

Cheez what is your competitive history?

How much do you bench, squat and deadlift, and at what body-weight.

I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just interested with how much time you have under the bar.

Notice how the reason wasn't to say how much stronger he was then you or how your point was invalid? but just to learn how much time you had in the gym as there are more than enough people who read an issue of Muscle and Fiction and think that translates to years of experience in the gym

 

[lakergirl52]

I started doing lat pull downs simply because it was part of the exercise routine I started to follow until I got thru all of SS. I'm new to strength training but am familiar with a lot of the topics, debates and terms because I am in school to become an athletic trainer. I also am going to be starting BJJ in August after a 6 month layoff because of a PCL sprain. I know that I "should" be using free weights, but the machine doesn't have a fixed path, like a smith or leg extension machine does. Right *now* I am using 60 lbs for my reps, but am still working on finding the weight. I've only been at this for about a week. I am going to still be doing weights when I start BJJ.
Pull Ups-Haven't tried. In the boondocks right now so don't have access to a gym Guess is thought I could probably do one, maybe two.

 

[graedy]

Except the recruitment pattern for lat pull downs and pull ups are different. So I would be willing to bet he will still suck at pull ups when he goes back to them and will have to work the progression that was avoided the first time around.

The reason for switching from pullups to pulldowns wasn't becasue I wanted to improve his pullups but because I wanted to improve his posture and shoulder health. If there is a lift I know a thing or two about how to improve it is pullups. So I have quite some tricks up my sleeve to bring a persons numbers up.
Although my brother managed to improve the number of times he could pull his body from a deadhang to chin over bar he never really got the idea of scalpular retraction and arching during the pullup nor was he really strong enough in the rhomboids and lower traps to perform this nor did he have the muscle control to actively involve the proper muscles into the vertical pulling movement. Having him sit on the Pulldown machine and me touching the lacking muscle groups with my finger tips finally made it click for him. Doing high volume pulldowns with a focus on squeezing those muscle groups done for a couple of weeks tremendously improved his posture and shoulder health. Something I wasn't able to accomplish with all the tricks I tried with pullups.
MAybe you could have reached the goal by having him do "proper progression" on the pullups in a shorter timeframe.
Anway. For me it was: Goal set - goal reached.


Ask me again about his pullup numbers in a year.

 

[rckvl]

The reason for switching from pullups to pulldowns wasn't becasue I wanted to improve his pullups but because I wanted to improve his posture and shoulder health. If there is a lift I know a thing or two about how to improve it is pullups. So I have quite some tricks up my sleeve to bring a persons numbers up.
Although my brother managed to improve the number of times he could pull his body from a deadhang to chin over bar he never really got the idea of scalpular retraction and arching during the pullup nor was he really strong enough in the rhomboids and lower traps to perform this nor did he have the muscle control to actively involve the proper muscles into the vertical pulling movement. Having him sit on the Pulldown machine and me touching the lacking muscle groups with my finger tips finally made it click for him. Doing high volume pulldowns with a focus on squeezing those muscle groups done for a couple of weeks tremendously improved his posture and shoulder health. Something I wasn't able to accomplish with all the tricks I tried with pullups.
MAybe you could have reached the goal by having him do "proper progression" on the pullups in a shorter timeframe.
Anway. For me it was: Goal set - goal reached.


Ask me again about his pullup numbers in a year.

Which is great, I have never once said that lat pull downs are useless or never should be done. It fixed a problem you needed to address. The only points I have been trying to make in this thread is that I feel that pull ups are better than lat pull downs for developing upper body strength and that lat pull downs have little to no carry over to pull ups.

 

[cheez whiz]

Pull the stick out of your ass, cupcake.

This is about the level of discourse that passes around here now, thanks to mods like yourself. Nice job.