Never had the pleasure of trying out a machine so it has been DB pullover for me. What I have found works best, for me, is to lie lengthways on the bench with my head hanging over. Elbows are pretty much straight; movement is controlled and mind muscle connection is excellent. I currently use the movement as a pre-exhaust before chins. If I am being completely objective, I will say the movement does result in mild DOMS in the triceps so clearly it is not perfect isolation movement.
I intend to give the prayer pulldown a trial run as it seems to e getting a lot of positive press as a lat isolation exercise.
I usually use between 105 (15 lb bar and 2 plates) and 135 or so for the ez bar and anywhere between 80-110 pounds for the DB. Yeah I’m an upper body day I would always do them last or maybe in a circuit finisher with some curls and kB swings or something. Right now the way I have things set up with 1 or 2 big lifts a day, I have my press day on Monday and do chins and dips by the boatload. Then the next day I power clean and squat and do a circuit of pullovers, curls and swings (so kind of an upper body day and the next day lower body and arms. You could put them anywhere though depending on goals I imagine it would be great to fatigue chest/lats/triceps before doing some compound work on any of them.
Oh and yeah it’s not an exercise I’d quickly try to pile weight onto quickly. I’d add reps first and then slowly move up in weight. It’s not an exercise in which the weight used is super important.
My understanding is not that Ken dislikes the pullover per se but that he feels it is very difficult to teach people to do it correctly and so reasons it’s easier to skip altogether. I like Bill DeSimone advice to avoid extreme range.
TLDR skip to next post. My best success so far with straight arm db pullovers, was to put most of the weight at the very end of the bottom side of a db bar, and one light plate at the very top to brace my hands, and then hold it as much as possible so that the bar sticks out parallel to the ground at the top, and ends up perpendicular to the ground in the stretched position. This way the resistance is highest in the contracted position and lowest in the stretched position, sort of like the leverage of a Hammer Strength or Nautilus Leverage Pullover, but with the db pullover the range is low enough for the point of maximum resistance to be at the contracted position rather than the middle of the range as with the HS and Nautilus PO. I did this on a decline bench which I have seen used for barbell pullovers in photos from the Reg Park days, and increases the range.
I’m waiting on parts to build a very strange pullover bar that straps to my forearms and down under my elbows, which I hope will make it easier to add more weight. This makes for a bent arm pullover, but I am hoping this will also remove the triceps from the mix. I’m not sure how much stabilization will be required from the forearms, but with my thin forearms the more the better as far as I am concerned.
Maybe this will end up in my junk pile, but small price to pay for the experiment compared to the lots of original pullover rejects that led up the first working model.
I read where Ken Hutchins found he had neck issues from previous incidents that flared up when using a pullover and he found some people had spasms when doing static holds. If he found a pullover was hard to do correctly, what was correctly and what was incorrect ?
Scott
If I am visualizing correctly, it seems like the dumbbell would create a lot of torque around your hand when you are at the top of the movement (vertical arms, assuming the you are on a flat bench). Because the bulk of the weight is offset from your hand, that would create some moment arm that the lats would have to counter. But it still seems like the majority of the weight would be supported by the arm bones.
If you did the exercise on a decline bench, particularly a steep decline, then I could see getting greater loading on the lats. But then aren’t you basically starting to do kind of an upside-down straight-arm pulldown, only with the dumbbell replacing the cable?
I can’t easily describe the bar I am going to build which I hope will prevent the weight of the lever falling on the forearm. A picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll post a picture if it works.
With a normal db handle what you visualize was exactly the case, a lot of torque on the hand, but the resistance curve was as desired so I am trying to remove the arm from the movement by copying that part of a nautilus pullover. Visualize that and you will know I am crazy.
I should have added to my original post, I used to do a version I picked up from Paul Carter on this site where you attach a band to the weighted DB. The added resistance certainly accentuated the negative. While I liked it, the downside was having a suitable anchor point, getting the DB into place to begin the exercise, and then letting it go safely at the end so it would not damage anything. Certainly worth a go.
I wish I had a way to ask him. Besides the fact that he’s in pretty bad shape now and can hardly walk I’m sure he remembers what a hard time people on here gave him over Superslow. If I could contact him he’d probably say take a hike.
Scott
DB pullovers are great. It also fixes your posture and expands your ribcage.
Barbell pullover, I also felt a great stretch but for some reason, I can’t really use that much weight? Like even just the bar with a couple of 10 lbs plates feels brutal.
Over the past 20 years Ken Hutchins has never failed to take or return my calls and has always given freely his time and attention to answer my questions regarding exercise and rehab.
I would love to have his email but I wouldn’t you to post it here and since there’s no private messages on here there’s no way to get it that I know of?
Scott
Go to his web site and look under contact information. He has an email listed there. I sent him an inquiry 6 months ago regarding the purchase of one of his books, and he responded pretty quickly.