Thanks Paul for the Tips on Lats

Just wanted to thank you for the recent tips on targeting the lats with pull movements.
I recently did chest supported rows, and tried to pull more towards the hip, and it actually made a tremendous difference in how it felt in the lats, which has been tricky before. Still need to work on it, but the difference however was obvious…
Hope the article will be out soon. Thanks Paul.

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Finished up the seminar today with Aragon and Scott Stevenson.

I went over back training with the group and literally 100% of the people in the group did not know how to properly train their lats. It was literally like the first time ever that they truly got their lats to fire.

I’d venture to say that 90+% of guys who think they are training their lats, aren’t training their lats at all but continuing to train their upperback.

“But I feel it in my lats!”

That honestly doesn’t mean a thing.

I had one guy who swore his lats were firing hard. So I took someone from the group to put their hands on his lats as he did rows for the lats.

“What do his lats feel like?”

“Mush. They aren’t contracting at all.”

Then when they would shorten and fire properly, he literally couldn’t feel it. Despite the fact that myself and this other person could literally put their hands on his lats and feel them contracting forcefully.

So it’s usually the case with people who are struggling to get their lats to grow, that they simply are not getting them to shorten effectively. Even if they think they are. This was a huge topic of conversation about creating really poor motor patterns.

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That’s awesome. Thanks Paul!

Oh and btw, a similar article on chest would be awesome, I bet there are similar false ideas on chest activation. Like your point about scapular movement.

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A whole series focusing on popular upper body and lower body muscles would be awesome.

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I did one on chest.

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Sorry man, dont know how I missed that one, your articles are the ones that I give most attention to :blush:

On Paul’s Instagram he has a video of putting a cable one hand attachment to the hammer strength row.

Tried it yesterday and the contraction was awesome.

That one is for upperback.

yea i had a brain fart i thought this was the back thread.

But it was still a hell of a tip!!!

Can you please link it?

For your lazy ass…

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Lol thanks.
Always appreciate your help.

Weird, if I type “Paul Carter pec” into google, it’s the first thing that pops up. I’m sweating from the effort, got a crazy thumb pump.

Hey Paul, what would be your lat exercise of choice if you were training from home without access to cables or machines? Goal being purely hypertrophy.

Available equipment being…
Chin up bar
Low level bar for fat man row
Barbell and dumbells
Bands and a high/low anchor
T bar
Bench

Currently using the t bar row with wide handle pulling into hip area and single arm row on a slight decline pulling in a j- path to try and bias more lat. Then moving on to some upper back work.

I have tried kneeling straight arm pull downs but as it is with bands the resistance profile sucks ass. Maybe a super set consisting of db pull overs followed banded straight arms partials just finishing off that fully shortened position?

Thanks.

It’s almost impossible to train the lats very directly without cable or a machine that has a movement profile with the handle coming downwards to accommodate humeral depression.

Neutral grip chins would probably be the closest thing you have, however you’re going to get outside of your active range for lats so then once again, it becomes a movement based around initiating with the muscles that are attached to the scapula rather than the humerus.

Neutral grip rack chins might work so long as you don’t lower yourself all the way down and stay within active lat range. That could work, yes.

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Thanks very much, drawbacks of training from home I guess.

So doing the rack chins a little different from Doggcrap style then where the stretch position is emphasized, i will work at being in the ROM to keep tension on the lats.

Db pullover on bench with large decline, good/bad idea?

That would help to keep tension more constant. A better alternative would be a cable pullover :slight_smile:

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I mean, you can work the lats with it and train them in the lengthened position with that but you’re not going to stress them maximally in the shortened position at all.