Lately I have been having A LOT of trouble activating my lats during lat work. My left one seems to be non existent.
I have tried every attachment at the gym, every angle, every exercise in CT’s videos, hangs, stretches… anything I could think of, and nothing. No pump, no soreness, no fatigue.
Some notes:
-My shoulders are in pain and very tight, possibly some of the reason I am having trouble
-My left tricep/shoulder always get fatigued before my lat. Light weight, heavy weight, whatever
-At the bottom position of pulldowns my right shoulder is lower than my left
-Only thing that gets my lats to fire is doorknob stretches
What can I do? I’ve tried single arm pulldowns, I’ve tried pulling with my elbows, tried pulling with my pinkies, tried band pull aparts, shoulder dislocations, foam rolling, whatever.
The only conclusion that I can come to is that there is some sort of shoulder issue, but I am no expert and I don’t really know. This may seem like a desperate message - well it is, it’s starting to effect my pressing, my pulling, and my attitude.
I am seeing my chiro again on Tuesday. I just recently started going to him and he has helped me tremendously, but I have yet to ask him on this matter. What can I do until I see him?
Can you contract your lats at will? Have someone touch your lats so you know what you’re supposed to be feeling when doing pulldowns etc… Also, try to develop the mind muscle connection with your lats when outside of the gym. Try to “bounce” your lats the same way that people bounce their pecs and just basically play around with your muscles until you can fire them at will.
My favorite exercises for really emphasizing “feeling” lats are single arm cable rows, single arm cable pulldowns, perfect pulldowns (drive elbows to the floor), and spider lat pulldowns (do a search on tnation). The key is on each rep, squeeze at the contraction for 2-5 seconds. Flex your lats as hard as humanly possible during this pause. I can almost guarantee if you do this, you will start feeling your lats more.
[quote]howie424 wrote:
Could you elaborate? Like sumo deads, or conventional with sumo grip? [/quote]
Leg width shouldn’t matter.
you could try sumo, although the ROM would be shorter cause you are lower to the ground.
Id try regular deadlifts first, with your fist as close together as you can and still be comfy or without irritating your injury(which i don’t think these would)
Try 5x5 and you should feel something if not then the next morning, lol.
If you dont find reg. stance deads with close grip comfy, and you dont want to step outside your comfort zone. Do sumo style deads.
now that i think about it, sumo deadlifts may be the way to go? try both
P.s
Deadlift split squats are pretty bad arsse 2. Tried them last night, watched CT’s Youtube video on it. and def. feeling them today.
Edit: between sets lay flat on your back legs together. arms at side. Lift arms at elbows 90 degrees, like you would do a standing curl. Then push your elbows into the ground for 60 seconds. Follow that with 60 seconds of rest, or just back into the deads.
Get a long painful deep tissue massage on your lats before you train them, that will definitely help you feel them.
After you get your massage, train your lats as hard as possible, do something ridiculous like 6-10 all out sets of hard dumbbell rows (12-40 reps) and 100 reps of pull ups
When your lats are sore the next day, train them again, not hard, but just practice some lat movements. You will feel a good connection with them because you have DOMS in them - keep doing this every day until the DOMS goes.
Technique tips:
When performing any form of pulldown, arch your back as hard as possible
When doing a lat pulldown, look up toward the bar, arch your back (as above) and pull the bar to your mouth.
You should be able to feel your lats after you do all that^
Concentrate on keeping an arch in your lower back with chest up & out, which should put your shoulders in a down & back position. You should use this setup for most of your back exercises. When trying to “feel” a muscle working, it is probably a good idea to use a slower cadence and a pause in the contracted position for a little higher reps (10-15) until you are satisfied with your ability to target that muscle.
Try 1.5 reps so lift, lower halfway, lift up, lower all the way
Lighten the load, so the more efficient muscles do not take over
On BB rows play around with where the bar moves to, or how flared or tucked the elbows are
Bit weird but you could try scratching the muscles you want to engage before lifting
If you don’t use straps, try them
If using body english stop until you can feel the lats working at better form, I don’t mean body english is bad - just might be worth avoding if trouble feeling target muscles working.
I used to have a hard time with this but these things can help
pre-exhausting - with either pullover (I like the machine best) or straight arm pull-downs#kyak rows
when pulling doing pullups or anything dont pull with your arm pull with your elbows, this sounds like a minor detail but it actually helped me a lot, I dont even get a arm pump on back anymore I feel everything in the lats.
Enough volume, for myself I need a considerable amount of volume to get my back progressing
Neutral grip pull downs - help a lot as well with the form ideas posted above, when I bring it down I squeeze the blades as hard as I can at the bottom, sit up straight with and arch and bring the bar to my upper chest
Pullups - many would agree it is the king lat exercise but do them strict, no swinging unless maybe the last few reps is ok, what helps if you cant feel the lats here is imagine yourself pulling the pull-up bar down and not pulling yourself up and again pull with the elbows not the arms. I can guarantee in your next workout if you do as many sets as it takes to get to 100-150 pullups using different grips your lats should be sore for a few days unless your really light
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Lat pull downs. Focus on bringing your shoulders down first before your arms bend at all in one fluid motion.
You don’t fix a problem like this with deadlifts.
You fix it by learning how to make your sure your lats are even doing most of the work to begin with.
With so many of you doing BACK EXERCISES for BICEPS, it is no wonder so many of you are turned around.[/quote]
but i got huge 15 inch arms through pullups alone!!!ha
op,
try using a thumbless grip on your lat exercises, most bbers seem to do this and i find it works well. also you could try doing lots of pullups throughout the week. like you could train them really hard on back day but then just do them here and there in between sets for other muscle groups nothing crazy but it would probably help you feel your lats better over time
[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
My favorite exercises for really emphasizing “feeling” lats are single arm cable rows, single arm cable pulldowns, perfect pulldowns (drive elbows to the floor), and spider lat pulldowns (do a search on tnation). The key is on each rep, squeeze at the contraction for 2-5 seconds. Flex your lats as hard as humanly possible during this pause. I can almost guarantee if you do this, you will start feeling your lats more.
[/quote]
Damn! I actually thought I invented spider lat pdn’s yesturday!
they worked best when I pushed the chest out and really pulled the elbows back, then go to full stretch (I used cross-arm holding to maximize feeling the stretch). best I ever felt my lats work, which I never really do
ISO holds w/ Nutrl grip pullups. If u need to try to use elbow straps…
Use ISO holds on pulldowns 2 to pre-exaust the lats.
I’ve used them in the past for bthe back and they work wonderfully for strength and a pump.
Edit: I’m still suggesting u try the close grip sumo deadlift after these. There’s no arm movement, but your lats really come into play when picking up/lowering the weight near ground level… could be what u need?
