Vertical Pulling, How Much?

How important is vertical pulling? should it be 1:1 ratio with horizontal?

When you say Vertical pulling, do you mean lat pull downs/pull ups, or do you mean shrugs/Power Cleans?

It’s been mentioned several times. 2:1 horizontal:vertical

Yep, I do a lot more horizontal versus vertical pulling. AT LEAST a 2:1 ratio. And when doing vertical pulling it’s mostly lighter focusing on mind-muscle connection. Heck on some phases (like right now) I have no vertical pulling at all.

Question: if I do a lot of pull ups and weighted pull ups as my main pulling movement along with deadlifts, can I balance these by face pulls and band pull aparts as horizontal pulls? Or is the ratio more of intensity, that one should do more heavier rows than pull ups?

I think that adding band pull aparts is never a bad idea but they can’t really represent a balance to pull-ups, especially if the later are trained for performance.

I believe that too much vertical pulling can be potentially hard on the shoulder joint. When someone does a lot of them, I recommend doing more neutral grip pull-ups.

To quote Dr.John Rusin:

“If you aren’t rowing two or three times as much as you are pulling up you are leaving your shoulder health to chance.”

Full article: https://thibarmy.com/dr-rusins-pulling-law-10-back-training-tips-thib/

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I know for me personally rowing strength does much more for me than pull-ups. I once went 8 weeks without doing a single pull up but rowing (all variations) 3-4x a week. When I finally went to do pull-ups I was able to do like 15 in a set like it was nothing. But when I’ve gone the other route focusing on pull-ups, the pull-up strength didn’t exactly translate to rowing strength for me. I actually had gotten substantially weaker rowing wise. My grip strength was through the roof though.

Coach - have you noticed this with other clients you’ve worked with or in your experience?

Christian,

Based on your comment regarding a 2:1 ratio of horizontal over vertical pulls, can you provide a rough plan for all movement patterns? It would help my understanding of program design to know the proper ration between vertical and horizontal pulls verses vertical and horizontal presses and then the same for quads verses hips.

Thank you in advance for all your words of wisdom.

Kelly

Old thread I know, just saves me making a new thread asking essentially the same question.

For most of my training I’ve done 2 horizontal pushes & pulls, 2 vertical pushes and pulls. I have an issue to the left of my armpit that was injured a good few months ago now causing my vertical pulls to be a big pain in the ass. Two steps forward, two steps back, high rep ranges, and restricted to cable stuff as chinups/pullups feel like I’m asking for big trouble right now. If I’m forced to even do something like light lat pulldowns before my overhead presses it will be impacted and leak into other exercises whereas otherwise it’s mostly fine. I’m still planning to rehab the issue as much as I can, but I’m sick of approaching my back training with apprehension that I don’t feel on the horizontals.

For this reason I was thinking of doing 3 big horizontal movements a week, 1 vertical. I never did much overanalysis on my back as it was always my best grower. But anyone with any experience or advice, let me know. Cheers.

If all your horizontal rows are done with an overhand grip, hands pretty wide, pulling to your sternum or above, you may get a really developed mid back, and less developed lats.

If you do some of your horizontal pulling with a neutral grip, your elbow closer to your ribs and pulling lower (like towards your belly button) you can easily get more lat focus and keep closer to the ratios you’re used to.

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So you think it’s okay to drop most vertical pulling, leaving just one a week with lighter weights? And it doesn’t matter that I do a lot of overhead pressing? I don’t know if that matters for any “balanced” development or anything.

In terms of a neutral grip. Cable rows and one-arm dumbell rows (neutral) have often been a part of my program. Come to think of it, my last proper training phase last year was all neutral (chins and v-grip pulldown on top of the former two). I probably have a lot to gain from overhand pulling.

Barbell Row/Cable straight-bar
Cable Row V-Grip
One-Arm Dumbell Rows
Lat pulldown variation

Sound good enough? My backs always developed well so as I say, never had to analyse this stuff too much before. Appreciate the reply.

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Looks good!

I’m sure you’ll be fine. Other lifters, coaches and posters have used similar plans before. Even C.T.! Sometimes just short term, like you, to fix an injury.

I think you’re just getting a little fixated on “vertical pulling.” Vertical vs horizontal is just an organization thing.

If it helps, think about back training as “2 lat moves and 2 trap moves” or “2 width vs 2 thickness moves.”

All that said, you do get a lot of good “core” work when you do chinups/pullups. And lats do help “hold” the shoulders and hips together, so maybe get some planks or leg raises or ab rollouts or dead bugs in the routine.

Something to keep the arms “connected” to the mid section. If that phrase makes any sense.

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Most program outlines are One Vertical Pull, One Horizontal Pull type of stuff so I guess I’ve just been conditioned to think that’s what’s needed.

That’s really helpful, and how I will think of it in the future when planning my workouts. Nice one.

As for the core… yeah… I miss chin-ups a lot. I always liked how they made me feel and the results they gave me. I felt super powerful working up to a set of 6-8 with ~70lbs hanging from me. I don’t even want to risk a bodyweight one right now after how V-Grip Pulldowns feel with just light weight. With getting leaner, I’ve actually started incorporating crunches 2x a week, 2 sets on a crunch machine where you hold like a backpack whilst stood up, and 2 sets on the cables focusing on full flexion. Hopefully thats sufficient! Hanging leg raises and ab wheel rollouts are a no right now for the same reason vertical pulling is. I’ll get there again though!

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It sucks to give up lifts you’re good at! Especially of it took effort and persistence to get good.

But like you said, you’ll get back there.

Sometimes people drops chins(for whatever reason), focus on lats and MMC for awhile, and then come back Better at chinups.

And it can be hard to recover from injury in a deficit. Its likely you’ll feel Much better when you finish off this cut!

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Intuitively I knew that. I was just feeling shitty that I couldn’t push as hard as i’d like and thought that with the extra fat I was carrying it might not hinder recovery. In the short-term in was a mistake, but in the long-term the positives of the injury is I finally got rid of a ton of the extra fat I was carrying around for no reason!

I’m actually coming out of the cut right now. Today is the last day! I’ve been deloading since Tuesday in plans to increase calories up to maintanance Friday and over the weekend ready for a new block of training on Monday. Do you think it’d be better to coast at maintanence whilst performance comes back or go into a slight surplus?

Anyway, that was the last of my questions! I promise. Thanks @FlatsFarmer

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I think I would at least Try for maintenance for a short time.

Non scientifically it seems to work better that way. Maybe its like a bro science “body weight set point adjustment.” Or maybe it just helps avoid a junk food rebound.

Sometimes weird stuff happens, like you start eating a little more, then you feel great, performance improves and you Lose another couple pounds.

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For the past couple weeks maybe even months I’ve been placing priority on chin ups (about 2-3 times a week) and rowing maybe 1-2 times a week. Looks like I should add more rowing. My row of choice has been the suspension trx row

I’m one billion % with @FlatsFarmer, for what it’s worth. Thinking in terms of elbow path instead of relative hand position helps me

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I’m actually excited. I’ve had some staple horizontal rows for ages I’ve not wanted to let go. There are so many variations I can get stuck into now I’m not going to worry about making room for a pullup and pulldown.

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Hey!

You bros be careful trying to get huge lat stretch on these horizontal rows!

If you’re just starting out, and trying to get a deep stretch at the bottom use 2 arms. That will keep your lower back squared up while you get used to the ROM.

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Then, once you’re accustomed to stretching your lat out without twisting your lower back, you can get into the one arm stuff. To do that stuff right you may need special bodybuilder techniques like hugging the bench and standing instead of using the seat to protect your lower back. And bracing with the off hand.
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