I thought a false grip was simply just a “hook” grip. [/quote]
It’s more like an extreme overhand grip: the back of your hand and forearm should form a 90 degree angle, so in a dead hang you should be able to point your index fingers straight ahead if you tried.
This angle will cause some discomfort (especially on a bar), but is excellent for learning to use your lats in a pull up…
[quote]coolnatedawg wrote:
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.[/quote]
…Most people initiate their pull ups with their arms, not their back (I was one of 'em), and there are articles on this site dedicated to the subject.
The false grip (which is normally used in a muscle-up) forces you to pull from your back from the start. The beauty of it is that you don’t need to spend weeks or even hours learning this. If it works for you, it’ll work within minutes: once you feel the initial pull from your back on the false grip (you may only need an inch of rom from the dead hang to do this), you just replicate that on your regular exercise (with the regular grip, of course).
If you pull through with your back before bending your arms, this should be foolproof.
I thought a false grip was simply just a “hook” grip. [/quote]
It’s more like an extreme overhand grip: the back of your hand and forearm should form a 90 degree angle, so in a dead hang you should be able to point your index fingers straight ahead if you tried.
This angle will cause some discomfort (especially on a bar), but is excellent for learning to use your lats in a pull up…
[quote]coolnatedawg wrote:
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.[/quote]
…Most people initiate their pull ups with their arms, not their back (I was one of 'em), and there are articles on this site dedicated to the subject.
The false grip (which is normal used in a muscle-up) forces you to pull from your back from the start. The beauty of it is that you don’t need to spend weeks or even hours learning this. If it works for you, it’ll work within minutes: once you feel the initial pull from your back on the false grip (you may only need an inch of rom from the dead hang to do this), you just replicate that on your regular exercise (with the regular grip, of course).
If you pull through with your back before bending your arms, this should be foolproof.
[/quote]
I’m one of those that has trouble initiating with the back so this should be very helpful. I may goof around with it a bit tonight. Thanks.
Would the false grip help out if I pull with my upper back instead of my lats as well? I have no issues with keeping my arms out of the movement, it’s just I can’t get the part of the back I want to do most of the work(basically I’ve ended up doing other things for lats and kept pullups in as upper back work).
[quote]red04 wrote:
Would the false grip help out if I pull with my upper back instead of my lats as well? I have no issues with keeping my arms out of the movement, it’s just I can’t get the part of the back I want to do most of the work(basically I’ve ended up doing other things for lats and kept pullups in as upper back work).[/quote]
Just try it and see if it works for you. It’s nothing more than a direct way I’ve found for ‘feeling’ your way through a pull up. It literally takes a few minutes to try, so it’s not going to waste months of training time.
I’ve posted all anybody needs to know about it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating…
roybot, I gave these a try tonight. I’m too heavy to keep my wrists cocked so my hand is 90deg to the forearm, but the effort of TRYING to do that along with doing the pullup definitely put more emphasis on my lats.
I did it in between sets of DL to help me keep my lats tight and it definitely helped. I will be altering my pullup form to this from now on. Guess I got to take an even BIGGER hit on my pullup reps than before. Ego…
What I don’t like about the “hang” method is that the stretch-reflex goes down the shitter and with it the ability to fire correctly.
False grip is good, but so is a supinated grip. If you use rafters instead of bars, you can do a false grips easily both with supinated and pronated arms. A (very) thick bar also helps a bit.
False supinated rocks.
I’d try to prefatigue the lats with isolation movements.
Or try out muscle ups (if you’re not too heavy; might take some time and rings, though).
Most trainess don’t understand the lats function very well. Read it up. Then isolate full motion!
This can be tricky because such exercises are rarely published (for reasons I never understood) but are easy to come up with.
The leg position can be important because it influences if your movement pattern is lat driven.
Keep your knees high and in front of you so that the upper body can slightly bend backwards (!) as you rise up. Rising up perfectly straight is not a natural movement (as with most- hell, any movements) even though most trainees think so. Go as high with your head as you can.
They do tend to be very stressful on the wrists if you’re heavy ( the wrists are in a disadvantaged position). As I said earlier, doing them on a lat pull down would be better as the aim is not to kill your wrists but to use your back first, and your arms second.
I’m glad it’s working for you. Keep in mind that you don’t have to use the false grip every time you do pull ups: just replicate the feel of the false grip pull on your regular ones, and that should be enough. You don’t even have to use the false grip again once you get the feel of how to pull properly. You’ll still benefit greatly.
Ive done leg workouts in some fairly tight jean shorts before. I didn’t give it much thought then, but it is true that some tight clothing can make you notice the targeted muscle more. I remember having pretty good squat workouts with them on. Interesting thread.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Keep your knees high and in front of you so that the upper body can slightly bend backwards (!) as you rise up. Rising up perfectly straight is not a natural movement (as with most- hell, any movements) even though most trainees think so. Go as high with your head as you can.
[/quote]
This is an interesting point. I do 3 sets of neutral grip pullups after I do my regular ones and when I perform these, I’m pretty much leaning back at a 45 degree angle and the feeling in the lats is amazing.
The traditional pull up with any grip was never a great lat move for me. Always had problems with lat activation and feel. The best change I made was to start doing rack chins. I use the straps so I can pull more so with my wrists as opposed to my grip. Focusing on starting the pull from a dead hang with the initial activation coming from the bottom of your armpit.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
What I don’t like about the “hang” method is that the stretch-reflex goes down the shitter and with it the ability to fire correctly.
[/quote]
I would agree with this plus the dead hang position deliberately slackens the muscles stabilising the shoulder joint and if done repeatedly with explosive concentrics it leaves it open to injury.
The Glenoid Fossa is a small cavity that needs all the stability it can get esp. in this position when using heavy weight
I find that if I use a ‘tight’ hang position, keeping the shoulders pulled down, this alleviates the problem with the relaxed dead hang.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
The leg position can be important because it influences if your movement pattern is lat driven.
Keep your knees high and in front of you so that the upper body can slightly bend backwards (!) as you rise up. Rising up perfectly straight is not a natural movement (as with most- hell, any movements) even though most trainees think so. Go as high with your head as you can.
I used to find cable pulldowns with one arm to be quite effective for targeting lats.
The fact that your “plain of motion” and grip can easily change throughout the movement helps you to keep the arms out of the movement more and activate the lats more.
Maybe a good pre-fatigue movement?:
You have to pretend that your arms are just hooks, and practice doing it. A good rep range is about 8-12 (lower reps aren’t as good).
I wouldn’t use full ROM though for most lat exercises. Especially the hang part - I wouldn’t go all the way down (it’s easy to lose focus on the back doing this and puts the biceps into the movement more).
