Why not just do a straight arm pull down then?
A lot easier to set up, and without the issue of exercising while the blood rushes to your head.
It also matches the angles of peak muscle force far better than a decline pullover.
Sometimes even people as clever as Mr Jones can overthink and over complicate these things.
not the same thing… cables aren’t always ideal, sure it is constant resistance but also at a point the resistance shifts or cuts off with cables. this is why a vintage plate loaded leg extension machine is superior to a cable leg extension machine. the plate loaded resistance increases as you raise it and is heaviest at the top where the quads are able to contract maximally and are strongest at the top.
A straight arm pulldown for your lats, wouldn’t work the same because you don’t have something for your back to be pushed against. Bodybuilders do it all the time but we cannot go by what we see sam sulek doing or other roid heads doing for their lats.
With the recent focus on training in the stretched position, the DB PO has again become a relevant exercise. I do agree with you about the decline bench though; at my age, I do NOT do any exercise with my head lower than the rest of my body. Lie lengthwise or over a flat bench, empahsize the negative amd even hold the stretch for a second or two. If you want to focus on the lats, only do the first 40% of the ROM — I know that’s a tough pill for HITers, but that’s the latest research says.
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P.S. If you still want to do something on the pulldown machine, tried locked-arm PD-POs. You keep your arms locked at about a 90-degree angle. Lean forward at the start of the motion, with your head down between your arms. Rotate* your arms downward (*your shoulder joint should be the only one moving on this one) and as you do, bring your head up to neutral and retract your scapula. Use a rope or interlace your fingers over a single handle (removes grip issues). The bent arms helps remove the triceps long head, which many feel a lot on the stiff-arm version. And try it on the double-pulley pulldown for some smooth action.
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The “vintage” plate loaded leg extension machine is pitiful in comparison to a cable leg extension machine. There is resistance extremely close to zero at the start and it is far from a stretched starting position. We did modify ours by welding a weight rod to the sides of the pad used to do leg curls. (We had a “vintage” plate loaded dual leg extension/leg curl machine.)
IMO, the absolute best leg extension machine is the plated loaded Strive. It had three positions to load plates. You could change the curve to most any resistance curve you wanted, plus as most non-vintage leg extension machines there is greater than 90 degrees of range of motion. A much better stretched starting position.
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Why would you need to put your back against something on a straight arm Pulldown? It really works great as is, leaned over with either independent handles or a rope
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Maybe because there is not an overhead cable available? Even if you did have ONE overhead pulley he was talking about pre-exhaustion.
That’s not overthinking. It’s keeping it simple.
the stretched position of a leg extension is the the weakest position, so it makes sense of there being less resistance in the position where your muscles are weakest, therefor the weight used should be its heaviest at the contracted position. Which is the plate loaded leg extension. the one where the plate is right in the middle between your two legs.
It might be weaker but it isn’t by much, though my experience is the lockout is where I failed, not at the stretched position. Zero resistance is far from ideal.
You are well read on Arthur Jones, but you experience is pitiful.
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Time to put some weights in your library!
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you have proven arthur jones correct in your own experience.
Most conventional exercises train the trainee in the lengthened position meanwhile not providing sufecient stimulus for the strongest portion of the exercise, this was Arthur’s point against conventional barbell exercises. It does little to nothing in providing resistance for the strongest part. This is why you are weaker at the lockout in a leg extension because you haven’t trained that part to be strong enough and also why is because the resistance is higher as it should be on the lockout of a leg extension. My experience is not pitiful but your logic is.
Use some logic to sort through your experience , iv pretty much solved your issue,
in short you are supposed to fail at the lockout as that is where the resistance is highest in a leg extension and if you haven’t trained your quads at their strongest position that will doubly effect your fail at lockouts
why would you fail at the stretched position on a leg extension when that is where the resistance is least provided?
edit;
see what you are doing is using a weight that is taxing you at the stretched position but as you approach lockout on a leg extension the weight becomes too much for you to lockout with.
this is covered in so many of arthur’s writings
you’ve not only ONLY trained your muscles at their weakest positions
you’ve also made the mistake of thinking that is why resistance profiles are wrong because they don’t tax you in the weakest positions, when in fact they are supposed to be most taxing at the strongest or where your muscles are strongest and least taxing where your muscles are weakest. that was the entire point of the nautilus machines.
That is not factual at all. The only leg extension machine I had the first 5 or so years I trained was the “vintage” leg extension machine. All I could hit hard was the last 45 degrees of the movement.
Now that is funny.
Now that is really funny
You obviously have never used a plate loaded Strive leg extension machine. You can load it where the resistance is much higher at the stretched position than it is in the contracted position.
This is the root of your problem. All you know is what you read that Arthur Jones has said. Without application with weights it is just words on a page.
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Why does it make sense? The latest science – that pretty much everybody is going with – is that emphasizing the load in the stretched position is responsible for more growth than the rest of the ROM. AND, that focusing on contraction will build up metabolites quicker and thus possible rob you of productive reps in a set. Exercises like DB POs, flyes, and preacher and incline curls have again become desireable additions to your program.
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The latest science vs the factual science here-
Look if you only train muscles at their weakest point in what way does it make sense that you’ll achieve maximum growth? You want to stimulate muscles at their strongest, The contracted position but conventional exercise provides very little resistance at the contracted position so no wonder the latest science says that… the latest science didn’t take into consideration that the exercise machines they are using doesn’t stimulate in the contracted position!
This is nonsensical.
Who decides what is factual science?
Do you understand the Scientific Method at all?
if the scientific method was the final word then science would never prove itself wrong, and who is to say these results were scientific in the first place.