[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
Close grip chins seem to be doing just fine for width for my skinny self.[/quote]
Don’t mean to sound like an ass just a critique…keep working on your width. It looks of but a lot of room for improvment :)[/quote]
If I had said that, we would be on page 20 of a bitch fest.
[/quote]
I have to agree with you there sport.
You can be rather a contentious fellow at times and I guess because of that you get more shit than most when you chime in with some constructive criticism or make an observation.
I’m afriad you’ve somewhat made that bed for yourself, which is a shame as you know your shit of that there can be no doubt. I myslef have taken a few ‘snippets of wisdom’ from your posts and they have proven very helpful (and I’m a pretty contentious 35 year old myself).
Forums wouldn’t be the same without you big fella - keep on keepin on.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
If I had written the same words he did, this thread would have exploded.[/quote]
I understand where you are coming from. I have been attacked a few times now for saying things that have been brought up by plenty of other posters in the past. However, you have to realize that whether or not people like you on here will determine how well your posts are received. So, because you have gotten on so many posters’ bad sides, they aren’t going to want to hear what you have to say.[/quote]
Please… just stop this right here.
If you’re going to disagree [or agree, or whatever this is], keep it to the topic of approaches for wider lats. We don’t need to go down any other path than that.[/quote]
Sorry I didn’t see this and have done the what the over poster has done.
My bad
To make amends I’ll chime in with what I PERSONALLY have found good for lat width. I’m a fan of chins at higher frequency but they do aggravate my wrists and elbows a tad when done regularily. I’ve found using olyimpic rings for parallel rows (ala CT) and chins to be just as effective and a bit easier on the joints. In fact my bum shoulder has actually benefitted a great deal.
i realize i’m still rather green behind the ears, but i feel like lats are the one body part that i’ve been able to grow quite well in my time lifting.
i really, really like prefatiguing with wide grip pull-ups (courtesy of kingbeef), and then moving straight into heavy dumbbell rows. i don’t train my lats specifically with any 1 grip. what i’ve found to work for me is using all sorts of grips throughout back day, trying to hit every little muscle you can find at every single angle. what i’ll do is:
50 wide grip pull ups (usually a set of 10 and then 5 sets of 8)
5x6-10 db rows
3x8 close neutral grip lat pull downs
3x8 seated straight bar rows
4x12 standing cable straight arm lat pull downs (as much rom as you can possibly get, without pain)
4x15 db lat pull overs a la meadows (do not take tension off of the lats. keep the rom slightly restricted)
3x20 external rotations (gotta keep those shoulders healthy)
my main goal during back day is to just pump as much blood as humanly possible into my lats. i use db rows as my “strength” movement, but for most everything else i use moderate to heavy weight and do my best to feel my lats through each stage of the motion.
i’ll use a bit of body english on some things but definitely make sure i’m stretching out the lat at the bottom of each movement as well as feeling my scaps retract at peak contraction.
This thread got me inspired to hit dem pullups again. For some time now I thought I took the bad-assery up a notch and was doing them “right” with what you might call “sternum ups”… But just never could feel my back on these, biceps would always be burnt and crispy fried after just 2 sets. Fuq if I could hit bicep curls after this with any decent weight. So chucked pullups to the side as basically all arm, while smith rows and rack deads have done a decent job building me some lat thickness.
A couple of cues I’ve picked up in this thread have really helped change pullups to slightly more of a back exercise for me.
-maintaining a more vertical plane of movement,
-wider grip,
-no more deadhang at the bottom–more like a 3/4 rep
-and feet position in FRONT of the body
Other notable things picked up here that has helped with a nice newfound lat MMC is
-Using the “lean forward” cue by CT with his rope cable rows, but just done on the H/S low row instead. Used to lean back more so like a cable row
-Using the rope for cable strait-arm pressdowns. Seems to hit my teres area WAY harder than with the strait bar.
I noticed last night doing my pull-ups that I do a more “sternum-up” as well. I don’t know if this is bad, a sign of inflexible shoulders or what. I feel it in my lats though, so its not like I’m not hitting them, but I haven’t done a pure “vertical” pull-up in a while. I think part of it is if I try to free hang vertical I swing - to compensate I tighten my abdominals which then arches my back and aids in the “sternum-up”.
[quote]Quasi-Tech wrote:
I noticed last night doing my pull-ups that I do a more “sternum-up” as well. I don’t know if this is bad, a sign of inflexible shoulders or what. I feel it in my lats though, so its not like I’m not hitting them, but I haven’t done a pure “vertical” pull-up in a while. I think part of it is if I try to free hang vertical I swing - to compensate I tighten my abdominals which then arches my back and aids in the “sternum-up”.
Thoughts?[/quote]
I just do chins man. I don’t feel a need to put much thought into it.
[quote]Quasi-Tech wrote:
I noticed last night doing my pull-ups that I do a more “sternum-up” as well. I don’t know if this is bad, a sign of inflexible shoulders or what. I feel it in my lats though, so its not like I’m not hitting them, but I haven’t done a pure “vertical” pull-up in a while. I think part of it is if I try to free hang vertical I swing - to compensate I tighten my abdominals which then arches my back and aids in the “sternum-up”.
Thoughts?[/quote]
IMO that the way to hit the lats. It’s how X described pulldowns as well. Stick you chest out and ass out. Pull the bar with your elbows to your chest. Trying to push the bar through your chest. Something like that is what I do. It’s the only way to have my lats do the work
Alright, I was concerned that perhaps my shoulders were f’d up and I wasn’t tracking probably.
Punisher, you’re right, often times we over-think things. For me, when I’m in the gym I lift hard and don’t worry about stuff. When out of the gym, my primary focus/concern is longevity and healthy of my joints, posture, etc.
I’m still trying to fix a forward shoulder roll from sitting in an office chair all day. Pisses me off. I self-correct, do face pulls, work my rear delts, and have started stretching my chest. I also do shoulder girdle exercises. I don’t seem to be making improvements.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Spend about two years doing 10-30 reps of pull ups no matter what you do in the gym that day.
[/quote]
This.
I got to doing weighted pullups and doing slow bodyweight pullups where I can control my entire body by doing pull ups every time I was in the gym, even on leg days.
I recommend that advice to people at the gym quite frequently, and they look at me with that lost look in their eyes like the shit doesn’t make sense.
I hear that’s what they do in prison a lot: pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, and squats with something heavy. There’s only so much you can do in a cell. And they seem to get pretty jacked.
get_ate, contribute more often please :D.
Also, I wanted to throw this out there. Does anyone ever go beyond the pull-up and do the thing where you get above the bar and then push yourself to lockout? Its like a pull-up into a bodyweight press. Its pretty cool to watch, there was a pretty ripped Japanese trainer doing them while off-the-clock. He was supersetting them with handstands. I was impressed and its something I’d like to try (though I have no idea how you’d build up to it as that transfer between pull and push requires some very specific muscular strength I can’t identify).
I’ve found plenty of lat exercises that 1) I can feel them good 2) I can do them properly. It’s time to get serious about this.
I can BTN push press 90kg @ 75kg of BW but can’t do pull ups worth shit. I’ve only tried them at the end of my long workouts but by then I am just done in and my body can’t give me much. I could probably get 8-10 decent pull-ups if I were rested, but considering I have 10-11 BF% tops that is very unimpressive. Dead hang pull ups are very tough. Likewise, I can’t even touch my chest to the bar for an inverted row.
I am going to try training lats 2x a week after my main work, one day of the week being lighter and higher rep work another being heavier work. More concerned about building strength, but size would be nice too. My long torso no like small lats.
Sutebun, here’s my input, take it for what its worth as there are lots of solutions to getting to be able to do pull-ups.
Always keep proper form, don’t try to “cheat” your way to a couple reps and then plan to correct your form later. You’ll build strength in the cheating motion, not the proper motion.
Move Pull-ups to one of your first exercises in your workout. If its something you want to work on, prioritize it properly. First or second exercise, while fresh.
Don’t be afraid to use the assisted machine. Start with assisted weight that you can get reps with. The next session, use less weight, the next session even less than that. After so many weeks you’ll be doing full range of motion bodyweight pull-ups - I just did it this way.
a) Don’t worry about what other people think. Your goal is ahead of you, not the now. Piss on them.
b) You may be embarassed about using an assisted machine, but when you’re doing free pull-ups with a 45lb’er strapped to you, it’ll be a thing in the past that you’ll barely remember.
Volume seems to work for Pull-ups, so get to it. 50 reps each time you do them is a solid goal - or as X said around 30.
Recall that only the bottom 2/3’s of the pull-up hits the lats, that last 1/3 transfers over to more upper back/shoulders, so your back may let you do pull-ups but the supporting muscles for that last 1/3 in the shoulders/upper back may be your limiting factor. Using the assisted machine will help this.
[quote]Quasi-Tech wrote:
Also, I wanted to throw this out there. Does anyone ever go beyond the pull-up and do the thing where you get above the bar and then push yourself to lockout? Its like a pull-up into a bodyweight press. Its pretty cool to watch, there was a pretty ripped Japanese trainer doing them while off-the-clock. He was supersetting them with handstands. I was impressed and its something I’d like to try (though I have no idea how you’d build up to it as that transfer between pull and push requires some very specific muscular strength I can’t identify).[/quote]
Google “muscle ups”. And yeah, the transition is the worst part.
Like a flash, I just remembered a killer variation I found this summer. Can’t say whether it widens your lats but it DESTROYS them.
Set up in those leg lift arm straps that no one uses.
Notice anything? Positioning looks pretty similar to a pullover machine doesn’t it? Start doing pull ups or levers from there. It was hard to get a long ROM but what was there was 100% lat work, you are simply forced to pull through the elbows.
[quote]mutantcolors wrote:
Like a flash, I just remembered a killer variation I found this summer. Can’t say whether it widens your lats but it DESTROYS them.
Set up in those leg lift arm straps that no one uses.
Notice anything? Positioning looks pretty similar to a pullover machine doesn’t it? Start doing pull ups or levers from there. It was hard to get a long ROM but what was there was 100% lat work, you are simply forced to pull through the elbows.[/quote]
If you pull through your elbows, its a similar motion to the close grip neutral pull downs too.
Your lats should tense up when you begin to generate downward force with your elbows in the close grips.
Grip the cg neutral pull downs and notice elbow positioning at the top. Its not only above you but also in front of you. Now pull it down to your chest and notice where your elbows end up. Its now in the same plane as your body. Essentially that whole motion was an arc~
You kind of get the same effect with chins too.
All the protonated ones have your elbows traveling vertically within the same plane as your body.
If the elbows never make it to the front of the body during the stretched position then the lats never get fully stretched. Think about what you do when you flare your lats, you basically bring your elbows in front of you and then spread them out. You can try spreading them while moving your elbows behind your body and see if you can.
Side note: If you watch yates train, observe his exercise selection, all movements where his elbows are in front!
