[quote]AntonioFlores wrote:
why do you think i cannot feel my lats working during pull ups but exercises such as pull overs or slams hit the lats?[/quote]
Your lats are stronger than the other muscles involved in the movement, so the weaker muscles get fatigued and the set ends before you’ve had a chance to hit your lats hard. Arthur Jones invented the Nautilus pullover to bypass the smaller muscles and hit the lats directly. Nothing will work your lats like a good Nautilus pullover machine.
arch your back hard, put your chest out, and pull with your elbows instead of jerking the weight with your arms…
i dont think its because im pulling with my arms…and yes i arch my back alot…but my mid back seems to being the workload
You may be arching your back too much.
Everyone has a different body, you need to find what works for your proportions
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
With most people doing chins/pull ups/pulldowns, they pull the bar all the way down, separating their elbows, and essentially transferring the stress to their mid back and less to their lats (especially when they lean back excessively). Try focusing on remaining upright with your torso, only pulling until your hands align with your face, an keeping your elbows as close together as you can all through the ROM (Parallel grips and V-Handles work very well for this). I guarantee your lats will be nice n’ toasty.
S[/quote]
I’ve been struggling with hitting my lats so I’ll give this a go and see what results I get. Thanks Stu.
FWIW:
I’ve just recently started doing neutral grip pull downs with the V handle. I get a big stretch at the top and a good squeeze at the bottom. Then I’ll super set that on the cable pull down station with the straight bar. I’ll do straight arm pull downs (like in the video) I do the straight arm pull downs in a high rep range and MY LATS SCREAM!!! (got the idea from a recent video from this site)
I cant honestly say that I’ve seen a lot of growth from them, since I’ve only done it for the past two weeks, but I definitely feel my lats working. I feel my lats a lot more in the following exercises. Take that however you like.
For OP and interested play with the form, but not in a way that it just looks too stupid. You can also try pulldowns where you don’t have knee support. This’ll make you reduce the load a lot, you can try pullups, or any regular or HS pulldown variation afterwards, it’ll help with muscle awareness.
2day did some conditioning so i did sledgehammer slams…im sure tomoro ill feel my lats…u think regular work like this will activate my lats? as in it will have a carryover for other exercises…
Another thing that you can try is a long cable row. The whole purpose of this setup is to really activate the lats. This works great!
In addition or as an alternative to what Mateus has posted, you might want to try this:
+++ T-Bar rows, narrow neutral grip (either V-handle or hands to the bar) +++
bend forward a lot (say, 75 dgr., especially at the beginning of your 'building mind-lat connection endeavour)
-in this regard, I’m against learning it the body-english way, since I’m about minimizing my arm flexor involvement
-besides: that way you can also be pretty sure to minimize upper back / trap involvement
Over-developed arm flexors and traps are the main reasons my lats sucked for years (and they still suck, still play the catch-up game)
go to full lat stretch at the end of the rep, contract as fast but controlled as possible
I feel the lats both by rowing the weight stack (judging from the first plate on the bar) to my navel area and to the sternal area.
After doing that for some time, I had no problems ‘activating’ my lats at every kind of row.
Try partial range of motion wide grip pullups…only do the middle 60-70% of the movement, keep reps strict though, minimal body english, even towards the end of the set. See if those help you feel your lats.
h4m, wouldn’t that target more the teres major area, not necessarily the lats?
I feel it quite well in both, really. As far as width movements go, for me the key is generally just to stick with 6-15 reps, and use minimal body english.
agreed, higher reps for lats work, Thib finally caught on! lol. However I did the straight-arm lat pulldown today like he does it in his HP Mass Lats-Biceps article… didn’t like that movement at all for some reason.
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Try partial range of motion wide grip pullups…only do the middle 60-70% of the movement, keep reps strict though, minimal body english, even towards the end of the set. See if those help you feel your lats. [/quote]
I’ll x2 this, but I prefer a shoulder-width grip…keeping my elbows tucked helps me feel it more in my lats.
[quote]Proud_Virgin wrote:
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Try partial range of motion wide grip pullups…only do the middle 60-70% of the movement, keep reps strict though, minimal body english, even towards the end of the set. See if those help you feel your lats. [/quote]
I’ll x2 this, but I prefer a shoulder-width grip…keeping my elbows tucked helps me feel it more in my lats.[/quote]
Nothing wrong with that, it’s about modifying exercises and routine so they work for YOU as an individual.
…Damn it deleted my whole post I wrote. That’ll be the last time I quick reply to anything.
Is there any kind of benefit from doing slow concentrics on (lever/pulley/db) lat movements?
I’ve started to do underhand/V Grip pulldowns in the last few week s in the place of chins and these work my lats a LOT better. I still do bodyweight chin ups but the contraction I get with pulldowns is brilliant
notihng makes me full my lats more on a vertical pull than keeping elbows close to the body… otherwise its all arms and upper back