Captain Ahab’s BodyBlog

After reading an article in this month’s Ironman magazine about a different way to do lat pull downs during  back workouts I thought that I would give it a try and see if it made any difference. All I can say is wow! It hit me hard exactly where they said it would and I got the best pump I have ever gotten during lat pull downs.
The article said that instead of taking a wide grip on the pull down bar move your hands in closer to just a bit wider than shoulder width and keep your elbows close to your body.

I moved my hands in and placed my little finger of each hand where the lat bar starts to bend down which for me was a bit wider than shoulder width and made sure my thumb was over the bar rather than wrapped around it as I pulled down. I arched my chest up towards the bar making sure that I did not lean back hardly at all and pulled my elbows close to my sides and I also held for a 3 count while contracting my lats.
I got an amazing contraction on each and every rep of my 4 sets and it is 5 hours after my workout and my lats still are feeling pumped and are still a bit sore. I have never had them feel like this, ever and they still feel full.
I always try to do my pull downs with very strict form which means that I try not to lean back hardly at all and I try to hold every rep at the bottom position for a 3 count but this was different than any I have ever done before. It is kind of like doing a close grip pull down with a V-bar but it hits them in a different place.

Anyone who decides to try this give me a yell and let me know how it worked for you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.