And when I’m doing seated rows don’t arch my back . Sit up straight or lean forward a tad and keep elbows down and to my sides and use close grip?
Scott
Your lumbar spine should be neutral. Your cervical spine can even be a bit rounded forward. Your scaps and arms should move in sync with each other - allow your shoulders to come forward, feel a stretch in your lats, initiate the concentric by driving your elbows down, no need to lean back, no need to pull the attachment all the way to your body if you already feel a full contraction.
These are great videos from Paul Carter where you can really see the stretch and the elbow drive downwards.
Perhaps I do have it backward. Now that I think about it, driving the elbows backward for lat activation would be more consistent with the design of the nautilus pullover.
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This is very helpful! I have a row machine that I made from another machine that I can use both or single arm!
It’s interesting , sometimes when I’m sitting in the tub after a bath I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my knees clutching both hands together and I pull back hard like a row and I can really feel my lats doing that! Sort of the same position as some of these machines!
Thanks again
Scott
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I certainly did, I spent a decade of lifting thinking wide grip = wide back. The coach that was here prior to Dr Darden was abrasive, but had some really good knowledge to offer, and that, along with him telling us to not lock down our scaps, has been some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. Made shoulder movements that have plagued me for years into staple movements for growth, and gave me targeted lat engagement that I’ve never had before.
None of this is my knowledge though, and I didn’t figure it out for myself or anything. Just in case I’m coming off like a know-it-all right now. I hope you guys get the same results I did.
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This is the current Classic Physique Mr Olympia doing pull ups as his warm up. At about 1:42 if it doesn’t automatically take you there.
And these are some pretty strong and very heavy guys doing them too.
So they definitely can be done by the bigger guys.
Ok the fist guy Is coming close to going all the way up , I think I’ve seen his training tips on doing pull-ups , he’s pretty good at pull-ups but the other guys are only doing partial reps not coming up anywhere near the bar.
Scott
Yes, sometimes the right kind of advice can be invaluable. I will have to revisit the way I do rowing exercises.
FWIW, my workout plans have been pretty simple now for a lot of years. I’ve always like Dan John’s idea of focusing on 6 major movements: vertical push and pull, horizontal push and pull, leg push, and hip hinge.
So I’ve always had equal proportions of vertical pull (pull ups, chin ups, lat machine pull downs) and horizontal pull (cable machine row, t-bar row, dumbbell row). I think I’ve always been able to get decent lat work out of the various rowing exercise (though I could probably tweak it to be even better).
What is kind of interesting to me is that I have the opposite of Scott’s problem: my lats seem pretty well developed, but I’ve never really excelled at pull ups.
I think my problem is that, relative to other body parts, my arms and shoulders are relatively undeveloped, and have remained that way regardless of how I train.
I suppose if you really want to do well at pull ups, you need good lats, good mid back muscles, and good biceps/elbow flexors.
I think my problem is that, relative to other body parts, my arms and shoulders are relatively undeveloped, and have remained that way regardless of how I train.
I suppose if you really want to do well at pull ups, you need good lats, good mid back muscles, and good biceps/elbow flexors.
==Scott==
From what I’m seeing it seems traps and other back muscles and the muscle you work in your arms when you do thumbs up curls or reverse curls ( elbow flexors?)are more important than lats for pull-ups. I was amazed how weak my traps are when I just hang there stiff armed and try and raise myself with my traps.
I was watching the video called last man standing where a bunch of gym guys compete to see who can pull-up with the most weight . As with another post of mine on here it is amazing how the guy who won by pulling up 200 pounds plus just looked sort of muscular beating out some of these other guys who were hugely built. The same with a dips contest. A slightly built guy just got beat out by the massively built guy both dipping with over 200 pounds! Something going on with tendons or something I don’t understand??
Funny thing is in the past people have said that I probably focused to much on pushing exercises like beach press at the expense of my back but I hardly ever did bench presses or the like and focused more on pull exercises like rows, pullovers, pull downs , delts and arms. I never liked the looks of bodybuilders with huge pecks dwarfing other body parts so I rarely did much chest work .I guess it shows how that notion of pull over push worked out for me! Ha ha!
Scott
Maybe…
When a muscle moves a limb, there is leverage involved. If the tendon is attached further out from a joint, you could theoretically move a lot more weight with the same size muscle. I suppose it is possible for someone to be born with a large muscle, but unfavorable or inefficient tendon attachments. That could result in big muscles that can’t move as much weight as someone with less muscle and more efficient attachments.
It is likely that this sort of thing doesn’t get studied or measured very much.
And loaded carry! If its Dan John, there’s always loaded Carrie’s.
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I think it has a lot to do with coordination and therefore, to some extent, skill.
Reading through, I’d attribute your progress a little bit ago with the brief daily episodes to developing the neural component- coordinated firing of the muscle and burning those pathways in.
If it’s possible, one option would be a band assisted set up to alleviate some body weight so that you can just get the reps in on a regular, frequent basis and build the strength/coordination from there.
I added bands to my Christmas list! Scott
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So today I was working out in the yard moving all kinds of heavy stuff and I was beat and my back was killing me so I went over to my chinning bar and hung there for 30 seconds or so to stretch it and then I said what the hell, I’ll try a chin, palms facing me and amazingly I pulled my chin over the bar! I did it 3 more times just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke after a couple of minutes rest each time. I hadn’t tried a chin or pull-up for about two weeks but I did my first 30 10 30 workout yesterday.
Scott
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Congratulations.
The gym equivalent of the travels of Marco Polo comes to a successful end ! 
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Scott,
Now that’s progress. And I’m not kidding.
Yahooooooooo
So I went from doing lots of chin efforts, negative chins, long hangs in a separate workout of its own which resulted in achieving a single chin. Then I went to workouts with 30 10 30 and just trying a few chins in the same workout. The 30 10 30 seems to be working great but my chins have suffered. I barely can do one again. It seems unless I really go at the chins all out I don’t get any better at them and those chin workouts are killers.
Scott
It almost seems like the chins are a strength thing that should get trained very frequently like Olympic lifters do, sometimes training days in a row and muscle size building is better left for routines like 30 10 30 2 or 3 times a week??
Scott