In order for it to really dig in, I had to put on a weight vest to really squeeze them up against my lats.
With the belt wrapped around its hard to breath a bit, but only if its on for a prolonged period of time. I only use it for pullups anyways.
[quote]forbes wrote:
I have a hard time activating my lats during lat movements like pullups. I can get my mid back to fire nicely but not my lats. [/quote]
The false grip is a good way to engage your lats. Preferably with a lat pulldown machine, but if you work out at home with a pull up bar then start from a dead hang and work only within the first few inches of the movement for 2-3 sets, then do your normal back workout with a normal grip.
Word of caution: false grip on pull ups might be uncomfortable at first due to wrist weakness/ inflexibility, which is why you should start with reduced weight if possible. Remember that the goal is not to achieve a complete false grip pull up, but to feel your lats pulling through first.
One or two sets with a false grip should tell you if it works or not.
are you going to wear that to a public gym? I could see a pic of you popping up in a GAL thread “stupid vest guy at the gym” lol
I dont know if it’ll work but try it out and let us know. Its an interesting theory and might just work out nicely 
.greg.
The false grip advice is spot on. Nice vest 
[quote]gregron wrote:
are you going to wear that to a public gym? I could see a pic of you popping up in a GAL thread “stupid vest guy at the gym” lol
I dont know if it’ll work but try it out and let us know. Its an interesting theory and might just work out nicely
.greg.[/quote]
Haha, no I workout at home. So its all cool. I just find that when my lats are poked, I can activate them easier, so I just grabbed an old vest (it was actually my sisters) and duct taped golf balls to it so when i put it on I actually have something poking my lats without relying on a partner.
hahaha ok cool I was wondering about that. Let us know how it works out for ya. I remember reading on here about having a workout partner poke/touch your lats when you start a set to get the mind muscle connection working.
.greg.
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
The false grip advice is spot on. Nice vest :P[/quote]
+1 and also allowed me to traing through some elbow issues…
[quote]roybot wrote:
[quote]forbes wrote:
I have a hard time activating my lats during lat movements like pullups. I can get my mid back to fire nicely but not my lats. [/quote]
The false grip is a good way to engage your lats. Preferably with a lat pulldown machine, but if you work out at home with a pull up bar then start from a dead hang and work only within the first few inches of the movement for 2-3 sets, then do your normal back workout with a normal grip.
Word of caution: false grip on pull ups might be uncomfortable at first due to wrist weakness/ inflexibility, which is why you should start with reduced weight if possible. Remember that the goal is not to achieve a complete false grip pull up, but to feel your lats pulling through first.
One or two sets with a false grip should tell you if it works or not. [/quote]
I never knew what this grip was NOR that something like that would help lat engagement. Nice! I will give that a try. I have been trying to really strengthen my lats for my event work but I haven’t been able to punish them like I wanted to. Thanks!
[quote]roybot wrote:
[quote]forbes wrote:
I have a hard time activating my lats during lat movements like pullups. I can get my mid back to fire nicely but not my lats. [/quote]
The false grip is a good way to engage your lats. Preferably with a lat pulldown machine, but if you work out at home with a pull up bar then start from a dead hang and work only within the first few inches of the movement for 2-3 sets, then do your normal back workout with a normal grip.
Word of caution: false grip on pull ups might be uncomfortable at first due to wrist weakness/ inflexibility, which is why you should start with reduced weight if possible. Remember that the goal is not to achieve a complete false grip pull up, but to feel your lats pulling through first.
One or two sets with a false grip should tell you if it works or not. [/quote]
Thanks bro I’ll give that a try. I thought a false grip was simply just a “hook” grip.
Here are some thoughts about this subject. To establish good lat MMC you need to have some lat mass already. So that leads to a paradox, how one can develop mass without MMC first? Well the answer for me was MANY chinups.
I worked my way up to doing upwards of 6-7x10 sets with strict form. Even if you don’t feel it in your lats, still your lats are moving you upwards (if you aren’t jerking). From that point, with some preexisting lat mass, it’s very easy to feel lat MMC in pulldowns, rows etc. I get lat pumps doing almost every exercise damn it.
[quote]desolator wrote:
Here are some thoughts about this subject. To establish good lat MMC you need to have some lat mass already. So that leads to a paradox, how one can develop mass without MMC first? Well the answer for me was MANY chinups.
I worked my way up to doing upwards of 6-7x10 sets with strict form. Even if you don’t feel it in your lats, still your lats are moving you upwards (if you aren’t jerking). From that point, with some preexisting lat mass, it’s very easy to feel lat MMC in pulldowns, rows etc. I get lat pumps doing almost every exercise damn it.[/quote]
So your suggestion is to get better at pulling exercises even if the exercise is not entirely felt by the lats?
I remember you started a thread about this before. Tribunaldude wrote up a great post on it that may have been harshly worded and you sort of gave it a dismissive response IIRC. Did you follow any of his advice? Not calling you out, it’s just that it worked well for me until I figured out my real problem. If you didn’t I advice you to find that post and look at the video he told you to find as well.
Another thing to look at would be how the muscles that depress your shoulders act when you do pull ups/pulldowns. I always had trouble feeling my lats work on the left side when doing this and it had a lot to do with it, as on my right side my serratus was stronger from fapping. No joke. It actually affected my chest movements as well. Making sure these muscles were up to par on my left side helped a lot. But before that the cues in the TD post helped big time.
[quote]forbes wrote:
[quote]desolator wrote:
Here are some thoughts about this subject. To establish good lat MMC you need to have some lat mass already. So that leads to a paradox, how one can develop mass without MMC first? Well the answer for me was MANY chinups.
I worked my way up to doing upwards of 6-7x10 sets with strict form. Even if you don’t feel it in your lats, still your lats are moving you upwards (if you aren’t jerking). From that point, with some preexisting lat mass, it’s very easy to feel lat MMC in pulldowns, rows etc. I get lat pumps doing almost every exercise damn it.[/quote]
So your suggestion is to get better at pulling exercises even if the exercise is not entirely felt by the lats?[/quote]
I’m not desolator but if you work on getting s really good stretch at the top and whatever minimal feeling you can get for now it could work.
[quote]forbes wrote:
[quote]desolator wrote:
Here are some thoughts about this subject. To establish good lat MMC you need to have some lat mass already. So that leads to a paradox, how one can develop mass without MMC first? Well the answer for me was MANY chinups.
I worked my way up to doing upwards of 6-7x10 sets with strict form. Even if you don’t feel it in your lats, still your lats are moving you upwards (if you aren’t jerking). From that point, with some preexisting lat mass, it’s very easy to feel lat MMC in pulldowns, rows etc. I get lat pumps doing almost every exercise damn it.[/quote]
So your suggestion is to get better at pulling exercises even if the exercise is not entirely felt by the lats?[/quote]
I’m not the OP (obviously), but I firmly believe that beginners and early intermediates get too hung up on feeling a muscle working and/or feeling soreness after training a particular muscle.
Trainees at these levels should focus on progessively lifting heavier weights to gain muscle mass.
Forbes, no. I suggested that he reach to the point of doing 6-7x10 strict chin-ups. By that time, the lat mass should have increased dramatically, and with the added mass, the mind muscle connection will be MUCH easier (on any pulling exercise). You can’t MMC a muscle if you don’t have any muscle to begin with, at least with lats.
The reason I choose chins is that you can’t cheat it, other than kicking with your legs or doing half-assed rom. Can you curl your bodyweight???
[quote]desolator wrote:
Here are some thoughts about this subject. To establish good lat MMC you need to have some lat mass already. So that leads to a paradox, how one can develop mass without MMC first? Well the answer for me was MANY chinups.
I worked my way up to doing upwards of 6-7x10 sets with strict form. Even if you don’t feel it in your lats, still your lats are moving you upwards (if you aren’t jerking). From that point, with some preexisting lat mass, it’s very easy to feel lat MMC in pulldowns, rows etc. I get lat pumps doing almost every exercise damn it.[/quote]
Agree.
If your muscles are small theres no point spending time trying to ‘feel’ them.
Once they get to a size where you can easily flex them then perhaps spending more time on squeezing them instead of just moving the weight from A-B will give you a better results for a period of time.
